"Social History in Questions :
Practices, Proposals and Debates, 1900-2013"
Jacques Revel
Spring 2013
(March 25 – May 8)
Social history has been under attack on many sides for the last three decades.
There is a risk here to forget the crucial role it has plaid in the renewal of
historical knowledge, thinking, and methods throughout the last century.
The course intends to offer a critical approach to some major points of the
historiographical debate from the beginning of the 20th century to the present. It
offers as well a substantial amount of optional, interdisciplinary readings which
will be presented and discussed in class.
Requirements : all enrolled students are expected to give brief presentations of
one or more of the readings in class, and to write a 15-20 p. final essay on a
topic to be worked out together with the instructor. The class will meet twice a
week during the second half of the Spring term.
1. General Overview
- H. Stuart Hughes, « The Historian and the Social Scientist », American
Historical Review, 66, 1960, p. 20-46.
- Lawrence Stone, « History and the Social Sciences in the Twentieth
Tentury », in Charles Delzell, ed., The Future of History, Nashville,
Vanderbilt University Press, 1977, p. 3-42.
- Jacques Revel, « History and the social sciences », in Theodore M. Porter,
Dorothy Ross, eds, The Cambridge History of Science, vol. 7, The
Modern Social Sciences, Cambridge-New York, Cambridge University
Press, 2003, p. 391-403.
2. Social science History in America
- Georg G. Iggers, « American Traditions of Social History », in Iggers,
Historiography in the Twentyeth Century. From Scientific Objectivity to
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the Postmodern Challenge, Hannover-London, Wesleyan University
Press, 1997, p. 36-47.
- David Landes, Charles Tilly, eds, History as Social Science, Englewood
Cliffs, NJ, Prentice Hall, 1971.
- - suggested reading : Charles Tilly, Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge
Comparisons, New York, Russel Sage Foundation, 1984.
3. The French way : the Annales project
- Peter Burke, The French Historical Revolution. The Annales School,
1929-1989, Oxford, Polity Press, 1990.
- Jacques Revel, Lynn Hunt, eds, Histories. French Constructions of the
Past, New York, The New Press, 1996, « Introduction », p. 1-63.
- Ernest Labrousse, « New Paths Toward a History of the Western
Bourgeoisie (1750-1850 » (1955), in Revel and Hunt, Histories, p. 67-74.
- suggested reading : Fernand Braudel, « History and the Social Sciences :
the Longue durée », in Braudel, On History (1972), Chicago, University
of Chicago Press, 1982, p. 25-54.
4. History vs Sociology : the German debate
- Georg G. Iggers, « Economic and Social History in Germany and the
Beginnings of Historical Sociology », in Iggers, Historiography in the
twentieth century…, 1997, p. 36-40.
- Georg G. Iggers, « Critical Theory and Social History : Historical Social
Science in the Federal Republic of Germany », in Iggers, Historiography
in the Twentieth Century, 1997, p. 65-77.
- Geoff Eley, « Labor history, Social History, Alltagsgeschichte :
Experience, Culture, and the Politics of Everyday. A New Direction for
German Social History ? », Journal of Modern History, 61, 1989, p. 297343.
- Alf Lüdtke, ed., « Introduction », The History of Everyday
Life :Reconstructing Historical Experiences and Ways of Life, Princeton,
Princeton University Press, 1995, p. 3-40.
5. Measuring the social : Quantitative history
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- François Furet, « Quantitative History » (1971), in Furet, The Workshop
of History, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1984, p. 40-53.
- Robert W. Fogel, « The Limits of Quantitative Methods in History »,
American Historical Review, 80, 2, 1975, p. 329-350.
- Bernard Lepetit, « Quantitative History : Another Approach » (1989), in
Revel and Hunt, Histories, p. 503-512.
6. The Variety of Marxist approaches
- Georg G. Iggers, « Marxist Historical Science from Historical
Materialism to Critical Anthropology », in Iggers, Historiography in the
Twentieth Century, p. 78-94.
- Eric J. Hobsbawm, « From social history to the history of the society »,
Daedalus, Winter 1971, p. 20-45.
- Eugen D. Genovese, « The politics of class struggle in the history of the
society : an appraisal of the work of Eric Hobsbawm », in Pat Thane,
Geoffrey Crossick, Roderick Floud, eds, The Power of the Past. Essays
for Eric Hobsbawm, Cambridge-Paris, Cambridge University
Press/Editions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme, 1984, p. 13-36.
- Jim Sharpe, « History From Below », in Peter Burke, ed., New
Perspectives on Historical Writing, Oxford, Polity Press, 1991, p. 24-41.
7. The Anthropological turn : E. P. Thompson, context, experience, agency
- E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, London,
Victor Gollancz, 1963, « Preface ».
- E. P. Thompson, « Eighteenth century English Society : Class Struggle
Without Class ?», Social History, III, 2, 1978, p. 133-165.
- E. P. Thompson, « The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the 18th
Century », Past and Present, 50, 1971, p. 76-136.
- E. P. Thompson, « Folklore, anthropology and social history », The
Indian Historical Review, January 1977.
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8. History and anthropology
- Maurice Agulhon, « Working Class and Solidarity in France Before
1848 », in Thane, Crossick, Floud, eds, The Power of the Past. Essays for
Eric Hobsbawm, 1984, p. 37-66.
- Suzanne Desan, « Crowds, Community and Ritual in the work of E. P.
Thompson and Natalie Davis », in Lynn Hunt, ed., The New Cultural
History, Berkeley-Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1989,
p. 46-71.
- suggested reading : Natalie Zemon Davis, Society and Culture in Early
Modern France, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1975.
9. History in context : Microhistory
- Carlo Ginzburg, Carlo Poni, « The Name and the Game : Unequal
Exchange and the Historiographic Marketplace » (1979), in Edward Muir
and Guido Ruggiero, eds, Microhistory and the Lost Peoples of Europe,
Baltimore-London, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991, p. 1-10.
- Giovanni Levi, « On microhistory », in Peter Burke, ed., New
Perspectives on Historical Writing, Oxford, Polity Press, 1991, p. 93-113.
- Jacques Revel, « Micro-analyse et construction du social », in Revel, ed.,
Jeux d’échelles. La micro-analyse à l’expérience, Paris, Gallimard/Le
Seuil, 1996, p. 15-36, (partly translated in Revel and Hunt, Histories,
p. 494-502).
- Suggested reading : Giovanni Levi, Inheriting power. The story of an
exorcist (1985), Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1988.
10. The Emergence of women’s history
- Natalie Zemon Davis, « City Women and Religious change », in Davis,
Society and Culture in Early Modern France, Stanford, Stanford Univesity
Press, 1975, p. 65-95.
- Joan W. Scott, « Gender : a Useful Category of Historical Analysis »,
American Historical Review, 91, 5, 1986, p. 1053-1075.
- Joan W. Scott, « Women’s history », in Peter Burke, ed., New
Perspectives on Historical Writing, Oxford, Polity Press, 1991, p. 42-66.
- Suggested reading : Louis Tilly, Joan W. Scott, Women, Work and
Family, New York, Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1978.
11. The postmodern turn
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- Georg G. Iggers, « The Linguistic Turn : The End of History as a
Scholarly
Discipline ? », in Historiography in the Twentieth Century, p.
118-133, 168-170.
An American debate :
- Joan W. Scott, « The Evidence of Experience », Critical Inquiry, 17, 4,
1991, p. 773-797.
- Laura L. Downs, « If ‘Women’ is an Empty Category, Why Am I Afraid
to Walk Alone at Night ? Identity Politics Meets the Postmodern
Subject », Comparative Studies in Society and History, XXXV, 1993,
p. 414-451.
A British debate :
- Patrick Joyce, « The end of social history ? », Social History, XX, 1995,
p. 81-91.
- G. Eley, K. Neild, « Starting over : the present, the postmodern and the
moment of social history », Social History, 1995, p. 353-364.
- P. Joyce, « The end of social history ? A brief reply to Eley and Nield »,
Social History, XXI, 1996, p. 96-98.
12. Social History and Cultural History
- Lynn Hunt, « Introduction : History, Culture and Text », in Lynn Hunt,
ed., The New
Cultural History, Berkeley, University of California Press, &ç89, p. 1-24.
- Paula S. Fass, « Cultural History/Social History : Some Reflections on a
Continuing Dialogue », Journal of Social History, Fall 2003, p. 39-46.
- William H. Sewell, « The Concept(s) of Culture », in Victoria E. Bonnell
and Lynn Hunt, eds, Beyond the Cultural Turn : New Directions in the
Study of Society and Culture, Berkeley, University of California Press,
1999, p. 35-61.
13. A proposal : Refiguring the ‘social’ ?
- William H. Sewell, « Refiguring the ‘social’ in social sciences. An
interpretive manifesto », in Sewell, Logics of history. Social theory and
social transformation, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 2005, p. 318372.
14. Conclusion and discussion on the course