The new social history: History from below and microhistory
Core Readings:
Natalie Zemon Davis, The Return of Martin Guerre (1983) – Preface, Introduction and Chapter 1 to get a flavour of this microhistory.
Carlo Ginzburg, 鈥楳icrohistory: Two or Three Things that I Know About It鈥�, Critical Inquiry, 20:1 (1993), pp. 10-35.
Amy Stanley, Maidservants' Tales: Narrating Domestic and Global History in Eurasia, 1600-1900, The Americal Historical Review 121:2 (2016), 437-460.
Primary Source Activity:
This resource contains examples of early modern court cases: Charmian Mansell and Mark Hailwood (eds.).Court Depositions of South West England, 1500-1700, University of Exeter,. Please select a case and think about how a microhistorical approach could be taken. Be prepared to share it with the group.
Further Readings:
Andrade, Tonio. 鈥楢 Chinese Farmer, Two Black Boys, and a Warlord: Towards a Global Microhistory鈥�, Journal of World History, 21:4 (2011), pp. 573-91.
Brewer, John. 鈥楳icrohistory and the Histories of Everyday Life鈥�, Cultural and Social History, 7:1 (2010), pp. 87-109
Colley, Linda,TheOrdeal of Elizabeth Marsh:How aRemarkableWomanCrossedSeas andEmpires toBecome aPart ofWorldHistory(2007)
Cressy, David, Travesties and Transgressions in Tudor and Stuart England: Tales of Discord and Dissension(Oxford, 1999), pp.9-28.鈥�
Darnton, Robert, The Great Cat Massacre and other Episodes in French Cultural History (Vintage Books: 1985)
Davis, Natalie Zemon, Trickster Travels: In Search of Leo Africanus (2006)
De Vivo, Filippo. 鈥楶rospect or Refuge? Microhistory, History on the Large Scale鈥�, Cultural and Social History, 7:3 (2010), pp. 387-397
Ghobrial, John-Paul A. 鈥楾he secret life of Elias of Babylon and the Uses of Global Microhistory鈥�, Past and Present, 222 (2014), pp. 51-93
Ghobrial, John-Paul, 'Moving Stories and What They Tell Us: Early Modern Mobility Between Microhistory and Global History', Past and Present Supplement 14 (2019), 243-280
Ghobrial, John-Paul, 鈥楪lobal History and Microhistory鈥�, Past & Present, 242, Supplement 14 (2019).
Ginzburg, Carlo. 鈥楥lues: Roots of an evidential paradigm鈥�, in his Myths, Emblems, Clues (1990); also in Theory and Society, 7:3 (1979)
Ginzburg, Carlo, The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller (1980)
Ginzburg, Carlo, 鈥楲atitude, Slaves, and the Bible: An Experiment in Microhistory鈥�, Critical Inquiry, Vol. 31, No. 3 (Spring 2005), pp. 665-683.
Handley, Sasha, 鈥極bjects, Emotions and an Early Modern Bed-sheet鈥�, History Workshop Journal 85 (2018), pp. 169-194.
Hindle, Steve, 鈥楾he Shaming of Margaret Knowsley: gossip, gender and the experience of authority in early modern England鈥�, Continuity and Change, 9 (1994), 391-19.鈥�
Hudson, Pat. 鈥楥loseness and Distance鈥�, Cultural and Social History, 7:3 (2010), pp. 375-385
Humphries, Jane, 鈥楳icrohistory and Women鈥檚 Time Use鈥�, Past and Present (2026), 1-46.
LeRoyLadurie, Emmanuel,Montaillou: Cathars and Catholics in a French Village, 1294-1324(1978)
Lepore, Jill. 鈥楬istorians Who Love Too Much: Reflections on Microhistory and Biography鈥�, Journal of American History, 88:1 (2001), pp. 129-144.
Levi, Giovanni. 鈥極n Microhistory鈥�, in Peter Burke (ed.), New Perspectives on Historical Writing (1991), pp. 97-119.
Macfarlane, Alan,The Family Life of RalphJosselin: A Seventeenth-Century Clergyman(1977)
Magn煤sson, Sigur冒ur Gylfi, and Istv谩n M. Szij谩rt贸, What is Microhistory: Theory and Practice (2013)
Miles, Tiya, All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake (2021).
Thatcher Ulrich, Laurel, "The Living Mother of a Living Child": Midwifery and Mortality in Post-Revolutionary New England鈥�, The William and Mary Quarterly 46:1 (1989), pp. 27-48.
Thatcher Ulrich, Laurel, A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary (1990)
de Vries, J., 鈥楶laying with Scales: The Global and the Micro, the Macro and the Nano鈥�, Past & Present, 242, Issue Supplement 14 (2019), 23–36.
Wrightson, Keith, Ralph Tailor鈥檚 Summer: a Scrivener, his City, and the Plague (2011)
Seminar/Essay questions:
Explain why microhistory become a popular approach to history from the 1980s onwards.
To what extent can microhistory help historians understand broader historical structures?
Is microhistory a history of the exceptional?
Gobbets:
路鈥渕icroscopic observation will reveal factors previously unobserved ... Phenomena previously considered to be sufficiently described and understood assume completely new meanings by altering the scale of observation. It is then possible to use these results to draw far wider generalizations ...鈥� (Giovanni Levi, 鈥淥n Microhistory鈥� in Peter Burke (ed.), New Perspectives on Historical Writing (1991)), 101-2.
鈥楾hat it is an unusual case serves me well, for a remarkable dispute can sometimes uncover motivations and values that are lost in the welter of the everyday.鈥� Natalie Zemon Davis, The Return of Martin Guerre, p. 4.
'鈥icrohistorical approaches have tended to emphasize the agency of individuals in fashioning their own identities. The result has been an exaggerated view of the ability of early modern individuals to transform their identities as easily as if changing a hat. (John Paul Ghobrial, 'Moving Stories and What They Tell Us: Early Modern Mobility Between Microhistory and Global History', Past and Present Supplement 14 (2019), 243-280).