APPROACHES (TYPES) OF HISTORY

The question of how a historian approaches historical events is one of the most important questions within historiography. It is commonly recognized by historians that, in themselves, individual historical facts are not particularly meaningful. Such facts will only become useful when assembled with other historical evidence, and the process of assembling this evidence is understood as a particular historiographical approach.

"Fields of history" refers to the categories professional historians use to classify their broad areas of work within the overall discipline of history. Some of these categories (e.g., cultural history, social history, intellectual history) refer to historical method rather than specific topic of study, while others coincide or partially overlap with the practical classification of history by topic.

APPROACHES TO HISTORY

The Annales School is a school of historical writing named after the French scholarly journal Annales d'histoire conomique et sociale (later called Annales. Economies, socits, civilisations, then renamed in 1994 as Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales) where it was first expounded. Annales school history is best known for incorporating social scientific methods into history.

THE ANNALES SCHOOL

The Annales was founded and edited by Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre in 1929, while they were teaching at the University of Strasbourg, France. These authors quickly became associated with the distinctive Annales approach, which combined geography, history, and the sociological approaches to produce an approach which rejected the predominant emphasis on politics, diplomacy and war of many 19th century historians.

Instead, they pioneered an approach to a study of long-term historical structures (la longue dure) over events. Geography, material culture, and what later Annalistes called mentalits, or the psychology of the epoch, are also characteristic areas of study. An eminent member of this school, Georges Duby, wrote in the forward of his book Le dimanche de Bouvines that the history he taught: relegated the sensational to the sidelines and was reluctant to give a simple accounting of events, but strived on the contrary to pose and solve problems and, neglecting surface disturbances, to observe the long and mediumterm evolution of economy, society and civilization."

Marc Bloch was shot by the Gestapo during the German occupation of France in World War II, and Febvre carried on the Annales approach in the 1940s and 1950s.

It was during this time (1930s-1940s) that he mentored Fernand Braudel, who would become one of the best known exponents of this school. Braudel's work came to define a 'second' era of Annales historiography and was very influential throughout the 1960s and 1970s, especially for his work on the Mediterranean region in the era of Philip II of Spain. While authors such as Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie and Jacques Le Goff continue to carry the Annales banner, today the Annales approach has been less distinctive as more and more historians do work in cultural history and economic history.

BIG HISTORY

Big History examines history on a large scale across long time frames through a multi-disciplinary approach. Big History gives a focus on the alteration and adaptations in the human experience. Big History is a discrete field of historical study that arose in the late 1980s. It is related to, but distinct from, world history, as the field examines history from the beginning of time to the present day and is thus closer to the older concept of universal history.

The first courses in Big History were experimental ones taught in the late 1980s by John Mears at Southern Methodist University (Dallas, Texas) and by David Christian at Macquarie University (Australia), and more recently at San Diego State University. Since then, a number of other universities have offered similar courses.

The first book in Big History was published in 1996 by Fred Spier entitled, The Structure of Big History: From the Big Bang until Today, which offers an ambitious defense of the project and constructs a unified account of history across all time scales.

Fred Spier and Johan Goudsblom, 1995

Another notable text in Big History is David Christian's Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History, which explores history from the first micro-seconds of the Big Bang, to the creation of the solar system, to the origins of life on earth, the evolution of humans, the agricultural revolution, modernity, and the 20th century. Christian examines large-scale patterns and themes, and provides perspective of time scales. It was David Christian who coined the term Big History in an effort to place human history within the context of the history of life, the earth, and the universe.

David Christian

CLIOMETRICS

CLIOMETRICS Cliometrics refers to the systematic use of economic theory and econometric techniques to study economic history.

The term was originally coined by Jonathan R.T. Hughes and Stanley Reiter in 1960 and refers to Clio, who was the muse of history and heroic poetry in Greek mythology. This term is also sometimes used referring to counterfactual history.

Cliometrics, originated in 1958 with the work of Alfred Conrad and John Meyer with the publication of "The Economics of Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South," in the Journal of Political Economy.

The cliometric revolution actually began in the mid-1960s and was particularly ugly because most economic historians were either historians or economists who had very little connection to mathematical techniques or statistics.

COMPARATIVE HISTORY

Comparative history is the comparison between different societies at a given time or sharing similar cultural conditions. Proponents of this approach include American historians Barrington Moore and Herbert E. Bolton; British historians Arnold Toynbee and Geoffrey Barraclough; and German historian Oswald Spengler.

Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889 1975) was a British historian whose twelve-volume analysis of the rise and fall of civilizations, A Study of History, 1934-1961, was a synthesis of world history, a metahistory based on universal rhythms of rise, flowering and decline, which examined history from a global perspective.

Toynbee presented history as the rise and fall of civilizations, rather than the history of nation-states or of ethnic groups. He identified his civilizations according to cultural and religious rather than national criteria.

Historians generally accept the comparison of particular institutions (banking, women's rights, ethnic identities) in different societies, but since the hostile reaction to Toynbee in the 1950s, generally do not pay much attention to sweeping comparative studies.

CULTURAL HISTORY

Cultural history (from the German term Kulturgeschichte), at least in its common definition since the 1970s, often combines the approaches of anthropology and history to look at popular cultural traditions and cultural interpretations of historical experience.

Cultural history involves the records and narrative descriptions of past knowledge, customs, and arts of a group of people. Cultural history encompasses the continuum of events occurring in succession leading from the past to the present and even into the future pertaining to a culture.

Cultural history, as a discipline, records and interprets past events involving human beings through the social, cultural, and political milieu of or relating to the arts and manners that a group favors. Cultural history studies and interprets the record of human societies by denoting the various distinctive ways of living built up by a group of people under consideration. Cultural history involves the aggregate of past cultural activity, such as ceremony, class in practices, and the interaction with locales.

Jacob Burckhardt (1818 1897) was a Swiss historian of art and culture, fields which he helped found. Siegfried Giedion described Burckhardt's achievement in the following terms: "The great discoverer of the age of the Renaissance, he first showed how a period should be treated in its entirety, with regard not only for its painting, sculpture and architecture, but for the social institutions of its daily life as well Burckhardt's best known work is The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860).

Burkhardt's historical writings did much to establish art history as an academic discipline, and also have literary value in their own right. His innovative approach to historical research emphasized the value of culture and art when analyzing the social and political trends underlying historical events. Jacob Burckhardt helped found cultural history as a discipline.

Cultural history overlaps in its approaches with the French movements of histoire des mentalits and the so-called new history , and in the U.S. it is closely associated with the field of American studies . Most often the focus is on phenomena shared by non-elite groups in a society, such as: carnival, festival, and public rituals; performance traditions; cultural evolutions in human relations (ideas, sciences, arts, techniques); and cultural expressions of social movements such as nationalism.

POLITICAL HISTORY

Political history is the narrative and analysis of political events, ideas, movements, and leaders. It is usually structured around the nation state. It is distinct from, but related to, other fields of history such as social history, economic history, and military history.

Generally, political history focuses on events relating to nation-states and the formal political process. According to Hegel, Political History "is an idea of the state with a moral and spiritual force beyond the material interests of its subjects: it followed that the state was the main agent of historical change" This contrasts with, for instance, social history, which focuses predominantly on the actions and lifestyles of ordinary people, or people's history, which is historical work from the perspective of common people.

DIPLOMATIC HISTORY

Diplomatic history, sometimes referred to as "Rankian History in honor of Leopold von Ranke, focuses on politics, politicians and other high rulers and views them as being the driving force of continuity and change in history. This type of political history is the study of the conduct of international relations between states or across state boundaries over time. This is the most common form of history and is often the classical and popular belief of what history should be.

Diplomatic history is the past aggregate of the art and practice of conducting negotiations between accredited persons representing groups or nations. It is the continuum of events occurring in succession leading from the past to the present and even into the future regarding diplomacy, the conduct of state relations through the intercession of individuals with regard to issues of peace-making, culture, economics, trade and war. Diplomatic history records or narrates events relating to or characteristic of diplomacy.

The first "scientific" political history was written by Leopold von Ranke in Germany in the 19th century. An important aspect of political history is the study of ideology as a force for historical change. One author asserts that "political history as a whole cannot exist without the study of ideological differences and their implications.

Studies of political history typically center around a single nation and its political change and development. Some historians identify the growing trend towards narrow specialization in political history during recent decades: "while a college professor in the 1940s sought to identify himself as a "historian", by the 1950s "American historian" was the designation.

From the 1970s onwards, new movements sought to challenge traditional approaches to political history. The development of social history and women's history shifted the emphasis away from the study of leaders and national decisions, and towards the role of ordinary citizens.

By the 1970s "the new social history" began replacing the older style. Emphasis shifted to a broader spectrum of American life, including such topics as the history of urban life, public health, ethnicity, the media, and poverty. As such, political history is sometimes seen as the more 'traditional' kind of history, in contrast with the more 'modern' approaches of other fields of history.

ETHNOHISTORY

Ethnohistory is the study of ethnographic cultures and indigenous customs by examining historical records. It is also the study of the history of various ethnic groups that may or may not exist today.

Ethnohistory uses both historical and ethnographic data as its foundation. Its historical methods and materials go beyond the standard use of books and manuscripts. Practitioners recognize the utility of maps, music, paintings, photography, folklore, oral tradition, ecology, site exploration, archaeological materials, museum collections, enduring customs, language, and place names.

Ethnohistorians have learned to use their special knowledge of the groups they study, linguistic insights, and the understanding of cultural phenomena in ways that make for a more in-depth analysis than the average historian is capable of doing based solely on written documents produced by and for one group. They try to understand culture on its own terms and according to its own cultural code.

Ethnohistory differs from other historicallyrelated methodologies in that it embraces emic perspectives as tools of analysis. The field and it techniques are well suited for writing histories of Indian peoples because of its holistic and inclusive framework.

GENDER HISTORY

Despite its relatively short life, Gender History (and its forerunner Women's History) has had a rather significant effect on the general study of history. Since the 1960s, when the initially small field first achieved a measure of acceptance, it has gone through a number of different phases, each with its own challenges and outcomes, but always making an impact of some kind on the historical discipline.

GREAT MAN THEORY OF HISTORY

The Great man theory is a theory held by some that aims to explain history by the impact of "Great men", or heroes: highly influential individuals, either from personal charisma, genius intellects, or great political impact.

For example, a scholarly follower of the Great Man theory would be likely to study the Second World War by focusing on the big personalities of the conflict Sir Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, Hideki Tojo, etc. and view all of the historical events as being tied directly to their own individual decisions and orders.

It is often linked to 19th century commentator and historian Thomas Carlyle, who commented that "The history of the world is but the biography of great men." The Great Man approach to history was most popular with professional historians in the 19th century; a popular work of this school is the Encyclopedia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1911) which contains lengthy and detailed biographies about the great men of history, but very few general or social histories. This heroic view of history was also strongly endorsed by some philosophical figures such as Hegel, Nietzsche, and Spengler, but it fell out of favor after World War II.

HISTORY OF IDEAS

The history of ideas is a field of research in history that deals with the expression, preservation, and change of human ideas over time. The history of ideas is a sister-discipline to, or a particular approach within, intellectual history. Work in the history of ideas may involve interdisciplinary research in the history of philosophy, the history of science, or the history of literature.

In Sweden, the history of ideas has been a distinct university subject since the 1930s, when Johan Nordstrm, a scholar of literature, was appointed professor of the new discipline at Uppsala University. Today, several universities across the world provide courses in this field, usually as part of a graduate program.

MARXIST HISTORY

Marxist or historical materialist historiography is a school of historiography influenced by Marxism. The chief tenets of Marxist historiography are the centrality of social class and economic constraints in determining historical outcomes. Marxist historiography has made contributions to the history of the working class, oppressed nationalities, and the methodology of history from below.

Marxist history is generally teleological, in that it posits a direction of history, towards an end state of history as classless human society. Marxist historiography, that is, the writing of Marxist history in line with the given historiographical principles, is generally seen as a tool. Its aim is to bring those oppressed by history to self-consciousness, and to arm them with tactics and strategies from history: it is both a historical and a liberatory project.

Historians who use Marxist methodology, but disagree with the mainstream of Marxism, often describe themselves as marxist historians (with a lowercase M). Methods from Marxist historiography, such as class analysis, can be divorced from the liberatory intent of Marxist historiography; such practitioners often refer to their work as marxian or Marxian.

MICROHISTORY

Microhistory is a branch of the study of history. First developed in the 1970s, microhistory is the study of the past on a very small scale. The most common type of microhistory is the study of a small town or village. Other common studies include looking at individuals of minor importance, or analyzing a single painting. As the roots of major events are grounded in the actions of villagers these studies often have much larger ramifications. Microhistory is an important component of the "new history" that has emerged since the 1960s. It is usually done in close collaboration with the social sciences, such as anthropology and sociology.

MILITARY HISTORY

Military history is composed of the events in the history of humanity that fall within the category of conflict. This may range from a melee between two tribes to conflicts between proper militaries to a world war affecting the majority of the human population. Military historians record (in writing or otherwise) the events of military history.

ORAL HISTORY

Oral history is a method of historical documentation, using interviews with living survivors of the time being investigated. Contemporary oral history involves recording or transcribing eyewitness accounts of historical events. Some anthropologists started collecting recordings (at first especially of Native American folklore) on phonograph cylinders in the late 19th century.

In the 1930s the Works Progress Administration (WPA) sent out interviewers to collect accounts from various groups, including surviving witnesses of the American Civil War, Slavery, and other major historical events. The Library of Congress also began recording traditional American music and folklore onto acetate discs. With the development of audio tape recordings after World War II, the task of oral historians became easier.

POST-MODERN HISTORY

Postmodernism is a term applied to a wideranging set of developments in critical theory, philosophy, architecture, art, literature, and culture, which are generally characterized as either emerging from, in reaction to, or superseding, modernism. Postmodernism (sometimes abbreviated Pomo) was originally a reaction to modernism (not "post" in the purely temporal sense of "after"). Largely influenced by the disillusionment induced by the Second World War, postmodernism tends to refer to a cultural, intellectual, or artistic state lacking a clear central hierarchy or organizing principle and embodying extreme complexity, contradiction, ambiguity, and diversity.

Post-modernity is a derivative referring to non-art aspects of history that were influenced by the new movement, namely the evolutions in society, economy and culture since the 1960s. The term was coined in 1949 to describe a dissatisfaction with modern architecture, leading to the postmodern architecture movement. Later, the term was applied to several movements, including in art, music, and literature, that reacted against modern movements, and are typically marked by revival of traditional elements and techniques.

PROSOPOGRAPHY

Prosopography, in historical studies, is an investigation of the common background characteristics of a historical group, whose individual biographies may be largely untraceable, by means of a collective study of their lives. Prosopography is an increasingly important approach within historical research.

Prosopographical research has the aim of learning about patterns of relationships and activities through the study of collective biography, and proceeds by collecting and analyzing statistically relevant quantities of biographical data about a well-defined group of individuals. A uniform set of criteria needs to be applied to the group in order to achieve meaningful results.

PSYCOHISTORY

Psychohistory is the study of the psychological motivations of historical events. It combines the insights of psychotherapy with the research methodology of the social sciences to understand the emotional origin of the social and political behavior of groups and nations, past and present. This field of study is considered by some to have significant differences from the mainstream fields of history and psychology.

Psychohistory derives many of its insights from areas that are perceived to be ignored by conventional historians as shaping factors of human history, in particular, the effects of childbirth, parenting practice, and child abuse. The historical impact of incest, infanticide and child sacrifice are also considered.

There are three inter-related areas of psychohistorical study. The History of Childhood - which looks at such questions as: How have children been raised throughout history How has the family been constituted How and why have practices changed over time The changing place and value of children in society over time How and why our views of child abuse and neglect have changed Psychobiography - which seeks to understand individual historical people and their motivations in history. Group Psychohistory - which seeks to understand the motivations of large groups, including nations, in history and current affairs. In doing so, psychohistory advances the use of group-fantasy analysis of political speeches, political cartoons and media headlines since the fantasy words therein offer clues to unconscious thinking and behaviors.

QUANTITATIVE HISTORY

Quantitative History is an approach to historical research that makes use of quantitative, statistical and computer tools. It is considered a branch of social science history and has favorite journals, such as Historical Methods, Social Science History, and the Journal of Interdisciplinary History.

SOCIAL HISTORY

Social history is a area of historical study considered by some to be a social science that attempts to view historical evidence from the point of view of developing social trends. In this view, it may include areas of economic history, legal history and the analysis of other aspects of civil society that show the evolution of social norms, behaviors and more. It is distinguished from political history, military history and the so-called history of great men.

While proponents of history from below and the French annales school of historians have considered themselves part of social history, it is seen as a much broader movement among historians in the development of historiography. Unlike other approaches, it tries to see itself as a synthetic form of history not limited to the statement of so-called historical fact but willing to analyze historical data in a more systematic manner. A question in social history is whether the masses follow the leaders or whether it is the other way around.

An example of social history can be seen in the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Typical history would focus on the who, what, when and where; whereas social history focuses on the causes of the movement itself. Social historians would pose such questions as, "Why did the movement come about when it did?", and "What specific elements fostered the growth?" "What elements hindered the development?" This approach is favored by scholars because it allows for a full discussion on the sometimes less studied aspects. By understanding the past, we can begin to understand who we are now.

WHIG HISTORY POSITIVIST HISTORY

Whig historiography perceives the past as a teleological progression toward the present. In general, Whig historians look for and favour the rise of constitutional government, personal freedoms and scientific progress in any historical period. The term is often used pejoratively to denote any historian that adopts such positions, but it also connotes a specific set of British historians who embodied Whig ideals. Its antithesis can be seen in certain kinds of cultural pessimism.

WORLD HISTORY

World History is a field of historical study that emerged as a distinct academic field in the 1980s. It examines human history from a global perspective.

Unlike most history writing of the 19th and most of the 20th centuries, which focused on narratives of individuals, and on national and ethnic perspectives, World History looks for common patterns that emerge across all cultures. World historians use a thematic approach, with two major focal points: integration (how processes of world history have drawn people of the world together) and difference (how patterns of world history reveal the diversity of the human experience).

The study of world history is in some ways a product of the current period of accelerated globalization. This period is tending both to integrate various cultures and to highlight their differences. The advent of World History as a distinct field of study was heralded in the 1980s by the creation of the World History Association and of graduate programs at a handful of universities.

Over the past 20 years, scholarly publications, professional and academic organizations, and graduate programs in World History have proliferated. It has become an increasingly popular approach to teaching history in United States high schools and colleges. Many new textbooks are being published with a World History approach.