Abstract
Ever since its elevation to the status of a disdpline, and the emergence of a hierarchically organised profession, history has been very largely concerned with problematics of its own making. Sometimes it is suggested by ‘gaps’ which the young researcher is advised by supervisors to fill; or by an established interpretation which, iconoclastically, he or she is encouraged to challenge. Fashion may direct the historians’ gaze; or a new methodology may excite them; or they may stumble on an untapped source. But whatever the particular focus, the context is that enclosed and esoteric world in which research is a stage in the professional career; and the ‘new’ interpretation counts for more than the substantive interest of the matter in hand.
A new form of antiquarianism? Celebrating experience at the expense of analysis? The sort of history Socialists write? Mobilising popular enthusiasm? A portmanteau term? Or offering the best opportunity for writing total history? What is social history?
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Further Reading
Abrams, P., Historical Sociology (Wells, 1982);
Butterfield, H., The Whig Interpretation of History (London, 1931);
Clark, J. C. D., English Society 1688–1832: Ideology, Social Structure and Political Practice during the Ancien Régime (Cambridge, 1985);
Revolution and Rebellion: State and Society in England in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Cambridge, 1986);
‘Eighteenth Century Social History’ in Historical Journal, 27 (1984);
Geertz, C., The Interpretations of Cultures (New York, 1973);
Hobsbawm, E. J., ‘From Social History to the History of Society’ in Daedalus (1971);
MacFarlane, A., The Origins of English Individualism (Oxford, 1978);
McNeill, W. H., The Pursuit of Power (Oxford, 1983);
Perkin, H., The Origins of Modern English Society, 1780–1880 (London, 1969);
‘Social History’, in Finberg, H. P. R. (ed.), Approaches to History (London, 1968);
Porter, R., English Society in the Eighteenth Century (Harmondsworth, 1982);
Samuel, R. (ed.), People’s History and Socialist Theory (London, 1981);
Scruton, R., The Meaning of Conservatism (Harmondsworth, 1980);
Spence, J. D., Emperor of China (Harmondsworth, 1977);
Thomas, K., Religion and the Decline of Magic (London, 1971);
Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in England 1500–1800 (London, 1983);
Thompson, E. P., The Making of the English Working Class (Harmondsworth edition, 1968);
Tosh, J., The Pursuit of History: Aims, Methods and New Directions in the Study of Modern History (Harlow, 1984);
Trevelyan, G. M., English Social History (one volume edition with an introduction by Asa Briggs, Harlow, 1983);
Veyne, P., Writing History (Middleton, Conn., 1984).
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© 1988 Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Samuel, R., Breuilly, J., Clark, J.C.D., Hopkins, K., Cannadine, D. (1988). What is Social History … ?. In: Gardiner, J. (eds) What is History Today … ?. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19161-1_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19161-1_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave, London
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