tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4058766287077382431.post7893854685228499608..comments2024-03-23T04:01:39.348-04:00Comments on Understanding Society: Historians of Past & PresentDan Littlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15953897221283103880noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4058766287077382431.post-2769224302761261762013-02-07T19:47:46.118-05:002013-02-07T19:47:46.118-05:00From Brodie Waddell--
It is a remarkable portrait...From Brodie Waddell--<br /><br />It is a remarkable portrait, isn't it? If E.P. Thompson was included in it too, it would be hanging on my wall.<br /><br />Despite being a historian, I sometimes forget just how much influence this group had on the development of the discipline in the last fifty years or so. However, the field has changed. Unsurprisingly, the explicitly Marxist aspects of their approach are rather less influential now than they once were. Less obviously, it seems that another part of their approach has also have fallen out of favour, namely sociology/anthropology inflicted historical analysis. Whereas it was quite important in the 50s-70s, historians now appear to draw much more on literary theory and perhaps economics than on the traditional social sciences.<br /><br />That said, there are exceptions. As you are probably aware, James C Scott has had quite an impact on social history, especially early modern social history. See for example, Paul Griffiths, Adam Fox and Steve Hindle (eds), The Experience of Authority in Early Modern England (1996), especially the introduction. There's also Steve Pincus' new book on 1688 which explicitly draws on political science.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4058766287077382431.post-90977582746180879702013-02-04T04:13:13.140-05:002013-02-04T04:13:13.140-05:00Surely it's a framing issue. The topic is the ...Surely it's a framing issue. The topic is the frame and the innovation, the rest of the work fits the standards of 'professional history' - necessary for acceptance by the broader academic community.<br /><br />What's interesting is that for such a modest innovation to occur, it seems a strong, organizing conviction is necessary. AMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03697967712305729690noreply@blogger.com