Social History

The label 'social history' indicates a focus on society. The term refers to a sub-discipline of history which concerned with the “history of society”. Social history as a discipline emerged at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries and became a prominent field of historical study in a later period. Two schools of historical writing: English Social History and the French Annales School together contributed to the development of social history. G M Trevelyan, who wrote English Social History defined social history as “the history of a people with the politics left out”.  English social history sought to examine the “manners, morals and customs” of the English people. The Annales School founded in 1929 by Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre and named after the journal Annales of Economic and Social History intended a new “science of society” that would incorporate all domains of the human and social sciences.

The Annales School influenced the Communist Party Historian’s Group in Britain. Its prominent members included E. P. Thompson, Christopher Hill, and Eric Hobsbawm. They mainly concentrated on the tension between the two classes of society. They wrote about the social transformation from feudalism to capitalism,  and the manners, morals, and customs of the lower classes. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the field of social history found the intervention of feminism and gender studies, which carried social history in further areas of research.

Social history distinguished itself from political history, which had been dominant during most of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The important fields in social history consist of:

• Structures of societies and social change
• Social movements, groups, and classes
• Social conditions of work and ways of life
• Families, households, local communities
• Urbanization, mobility, ethnic groups, etc.
• Social problems such as poverty, ignorance, insanity, diseases, etc.
• Everyday life in the home, workplace, and the community
• History from below 

Social history challenged the dominant historical narratives which were constructed around the history of politics and the state. The practice of social history involves a shift of interest from political events to socio-economic structures. It also brought a change in historical methods from narrative to quantitative techniques and interdisciplinary models of interpretation.

Micro History

Micro history refers to the historical study of micro topics or a single unit of society. It has a close relationship with local history and oral history. Its subject matter is often confined to a locality. Moreover, its sources are local in origins and nature. Although it focuses on the locality and the ordinary people, it has nothing traditional about it. It is a late-modern reaction to the dissatisfaction from the macro-level histories. Starting in the 1970s and 1980s, microhistory focussed on the small units, individuals, and groups. The micro historians felt that the micro-level study is the only possible way to know the reality.

Carlo Ginzburg, one of the best-known historians gives the credit of the first use of the term ‘micro history’ to an American scholar, George R. Stewart. In his book, Pickett’s Charge: A Micro history of the Final Charge at Gettysburg, July 3, 1863, published in 1959, Stewart firstly used the term. The book is centred on an event that lasted for only about twenty minutes. In 1968, Luis Gonzalez used the term ‘micro history’ in the subtitle of his book which deals with the changes experienced over four centuries by a tiny, ‘forgotten’ village in Mexico. Giovanni Levi was the first Italian historian to extensively use this term.

As a possible historical practice, micro history emerged during the 1970s and the 1980s in Italy. Carlo Ginzburg, Giovanni Levi, Carlo Poni, Edoardo Grendi, and Gianna Pomata are some of the Italian historians who made the world-famous through their writings. Carlo Ginzburg’s The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller (1976) represents the best example of this historical trend. 

Micro history is a late modern, sometimes, postmodern, response to the problems of modern historiography. The micro historians are critical of not only the Rankean model but also the macro-historical paradigms developed by Marxism, the Annales School, and even the old social history. Micro history was a path-breaking and radical response and it took the historiography away from its focus on the ‘big structures, large processes and huge comparisons’. Instead, it concentrated on the small units in society. It was severely critical of the large quantitative studies and macro-level discourses because they distorted the reality at a small level. It focused on the small units and on the lives of the individuals living within those units.

Interdisciplinary Approach in History

In simple terms, interdisciplinarity can be defined as a collaboration of two or more disciplines around a joint theme. Roland Barthes maintained that ‘interdisciplinarity means the creation of a new object of study that no existing discipline owns’. The interdisciplinary approach in history refers to the use of methods and techniques of two or more other disciplines in historical research. A historian’s perspective is a very broad perspective. A historian cannot limit the scope of history. This is a holistic approach and establishes the relationship between history and other disciplines of social science and it is also related to the natural sciences.

Generally, the interdisciplinary approach is adopted in order to achieve the following objectives:

1.      To answer a complex question;

2.      To address broad issues;

3.      To solve problems that are beyond the limit of one discipline; and

4.      To achieve unity of knowledge

An interdisciplinary study is a process of answering a question, solving a problem, or addressing a topic that is too broad or complex to be dealt with adequately by a single discipline. It relates to different disciplines by integrating their insights to construct a more comprehensive understanding. The interdisciplinary approach in history represents historians' use of concepts and techniques developed by scholars in other disciplines.

Contributions of Annales School

In the modern context, the interdisciplinary approach in history was well-established by the works of the Annales School of historiography. It was widely considered as one of the most important developments in twentieth-century history writing. Annales School formally emerged with the foundation of the journal ‘Annales of Economic and Social History’ in 1929 by Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre. It emphasized the necessity and benefits of adopting themes by breaking disciplinary boundaries.

Consequently, newer themes were taken for the historian’s exploration. Marc Bloch himself created a two-volume book, The Feudal Society, which gives a comprehensive account of feudalism.  Lucien Febvre studied the area of emotions and beliefs and produced a celebrated essay, ‘Sensibility and History: How to Reconstitute the Emotional Life of the Past’. History was thus beginning to become a part of the Social Sciences.

It was an invitation to historians to learn from Economics, Sociology, Anthropology and Geography. Later, Annales historians such as Fernand Braudel (studied the Mediterranean by depicting thousands of pictures), Georges Duby (the study of marriage, family, and women), Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Robert Mandrou, Jacques Le Goff (studied the history of mentalities) and many others contributed to the development of the interdisciplinary approach to history.

Stages of Development

The interdisciplinary approach to history mainly passed through three stages regarding its adoption of disciplinary themes.

(i)   At the beginning stage, it was primarily confined to the "social sciences". Historians adopted themes, concepts, and techniques from sociology, economics, political science, and anthropology for new ideas and analysis.

(ii) In the second stage, historians began to use the techniques and methods of statistics and mathematics to a lesser degree. Quantitative analysis of data, diagrams and statistical charts found its way to historical writing.

(iii)    In its later stage, historians have turned to "humanistic" disciplines such as language studies, poetics, literary criticism, and philosophy. Now new theories and concepts like structuralism, new historicism, epistemology, ontology, and other philosophical theories found its place in historical study.

The Postmodern Intervention

The postmodern thinkers totally rejected the idea of ‘disciplinary boundaries’. The writings of postmodern thinkers exhibit this new turn of interdisciplinary studies. Michel Foucault’s books like Madness and Civilization, The Birth of the Clinic, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, and The History of Sexuality give the best examples of this new turn in the interdisciplinary approach. The postmodern thinkers brought philosophical concepts and theories to the study of history.  

Benefits of Interdisciplinary Approach to History

• The interdisciplinary approach broadened and deepened the study of history
• It brought new themes and ideas to historical writing
• It extended the domain of history 
• It elevated history from a mere narration of facts to a knowledge-producing subject
• It brought philosophical concepts, theories, and ideas to historical analysis 
• It brought new kinds of sources, methods, and techniques to historical writing
• It opened the possibilities of using multiple theories, concepts, and methods in historical research
• It integrated the best elements of disciplinary insights in order to generate a more comprehensive perspective.

On the whole, the interdisciplinary approach to history changed the course of historical writing and initiated the emergence of new branches in history.

History: Science or Social Science

From ancient times onwards, there are two ways of understanding society and its interactions – science and humanities. Science is generally considered as completely genuine knowledge that can be tested and validated. On the other hand, the subjects under humanities are treated with perspectives on different aspects of human life. Thus, the pre-modern understanding of science and social sciences is that of two opposite binaries.

History as a Science

The Latin word ‘Scientia’ means organised knowledge. In this sense, history is also a science, it is an organised knowledge of the past. Every argument in support of the scientific status of history in the modern period begins with J.B. Bury’s inaugural lecture at Cambridge in 1903 on the ‘Science of History’. In this lecture, he insisted ‘history is a science, no less no more’. This argument gained wide acceptance among historians of the scientific age. John Seely asserted that “History was a science, and had nothing to do with literature”. Meanwhile, the argument ‘history as a science’ created widespread debates among historians about the disciplinary status of history. These debates mainly centred around three arguments: history as a science, history as an art, and history as a social science. There has been an argument that history can be a science. On the other hand, questions rose about whether history can be a science.

Scientific Status of History

Scientific attitudes in history go back to the time of Thucydides. He was perhaps one of the earliest historians who tried to separate history from poetics and from narratives. He began to follow the model of the development of the science of medicine, which was the field of science that was quite developed in Thucydides’ time. Hence he is regarded as the father of scientific history.

Auguste Comte, the founder of Positivism, believed that the inductive method used in the natural sciences needed to be applied to history as well as the humanities in general. He also claimed scientific status for the humanities. He thought that all societies operated through certain general laws that needed to be discovered.

The impact of science on historiography at the end of the eighteenth century was immense. It was the age of inventions, which influenced all the branches of knowledge. During this age of science, the argument that history can be scientific got momentum. Now, historians insisted that history must follow scientific models. Now scientific methods were systematically applied to the study of human affairs. The Newtonian tradition and the Darwinian Evolution, which brought history into science reinforced the practice of applying the principles of science to historical writing.

History could be considered a science in the following terms.

  ü  The term, ‘history’ itself refers to an inquiry to reveal the truth. Historical research aims at discovering the truths of the past. Science also focuses on finding out of truth. Further, history seeks to find out the truth by adopting a rational approach, it is a science.

  ü  Like science, history begins from the knowledge of our own ignorance and proceeds from the known to the unknown, from ignorance to knowledge, from indefinite to definite.

  ü  History seeks to find out answers to the different questions asked by historians. Similarly, the basis of scientific research is also to find out answers to various questions.

  ü  The method of historical research involves the methods of science. Analysis, classification, and interpretation of historical sources are inextricably linked with scientific methods.

  ü  History employs scientific methods of inquiry. It uses various methods of investigation such as observation, classification, and analysis of evidence.

  ü  The historical research activities like formulation of hypothesis, finding out cause and effects, and the method of generalisations are the methods of science. 

  ü  The inductive view of the historical method, i.e. collecting facts and interpreting them is an accepted method of science.

  ü  The interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and trans-disciplinary approaches in history link it with scientific inquiries.

R.G. Collingwood drew a sharp line between the world of nature, which was the object of scientific inquiry and the world of human past, which was the target of historical investigation and tried to establish that history was certainly more than a science, a science of some special kind.

History is not a Science

E.H. Carr differentiates history and all science by raising five major points:

1. History deals with the unique and particular and science with the general and universal,
2. History teaches no lessons,      
3. History is unable to predict,
4. History is necessarily subjective and
5. History involves issues of religion and morality.

Historians’ method of research was quite different from that of the scientist. The basic differences are:

  ü  Science is experimental and its results could be repeated or reproduced while history is not experimental and historical events could not be repeated. In history, it is quite impossible to undertake an experiment on a man or his activities or his ideas.

  ü  In history it is not possible to formulate generalizations or predict the future with certainly.

  ü  Science deals with physical or natural objects. But, history is concerned with the experiences of human beings. It cannot be reduced to any formula nor subjected to any universally applicable laws.

  ü  To arrive at objective conclusions is impossible for a historian, whereas natural scientists can arrive at objective conclusions.

  ü  Historians make moral judgments on the individuals participating in historical events which are not the characteristics of science. 

  ü  Scientist invents, but historian discovers. Hence the finished products of science and history are differently organized.

  ü  History differs from exact sciences in its stages of the beginning and conclusion.

  ü  In history, each event has a place and date and is unique in nature. But, scientific conclusions about things have no special habitation in space or time.

  ü  History deals with unorganized facts from which no valid conclusions could be drawn.

  ü  Values, opinions, perspectives, and ideologies hold a significant place in history. But they have no place in science.

History as Social Science

Social science can be defined as a study of men living in society. These studies generally use narrative and descriptive methods to portray the life of the people. It is humanistic and artistic in character and thereby different from science and its methods. The subject matter of history is the man and his environment. Thus reconstructing the past as history is inevitably linked with literary and artistic nature. In this sense, history qualifies itself to be a part of the social sciences.

History traditionally refers to the study and interpretation of the written record of past human activity, people, societies, and civilizations leading up to the present day. It is the continuous, systematic narrative and research of past events relating to the human species and the study of all events in time in relation to humanity. As the narrative account of the past, history is an art. As the narrator, the historian looks at the past from a certain point of view. A historian differs from a scientist when he communicates his results. The scientist simply reports whereas a historian conveys human experience. Historian uses their perspectives, imagination, and critical thinking in reconstructing the past.

Most historians of the modern period consider history a central social science. The key focus in history is the human experience. The foremost duty of the historian is to reconstruct the past through the analysis of the evidence. A historian has no direct experience of the phenomena which he tries to explain. This involves the interpretation of the facts, which necessitates the skills of a social scientist. Further, as the narrative account of the past, history is an art. In the fields of exposition and documentation, a historian is to be a careful artist. He has to use his imaginative vision, the talents of erudition and the expression of an artist.

Understanding of history as a social science took a paradigm shift in the later course of historical research. Modern historians devised the theories and concepts of other social sciences in the interpretation of historical themes. This further broadened historical understanding and research.

To conclude, history is a balanced blending of both science and social science. When history attempts to discover the truth it is a science and when it narrates the truth it is an art. Historians can adopt scientific attitudes which will make the interpretation objective. But, history is different from science with its subject matter and way of presentation. It is a halfway house between science and social science.

Cultural History

Raymond Williams in his book Primitive Culture argued that the “term ‘culture’ is one of the two or three most complicated terms in the English language”. It is complicated because of its verities of usages. Culture is one of the most important aspects of historical study. It emerged as an independent area of research only in modern times. It emerged after the Annales School of historiography, which promoted an interdisciplinary approach to historical studies. Cultural history places man at the centre of historical activity. Cultural history mainly focuses on:

• cultural formation of different societies
• High and low cultures
• folk and traditional cultural practices
• daily life practices
• modernity and the changes in cultural patterns
• studies on language, literature, art, architecture and other cultural productions
• studies on media and popular culture
• cultural identity, symbols and cultural hegemony

Cultural history considers culture as an important tool for social change. Cultural history began with the analysis of high culture, which is the practice of the dominant groups of society. Over the course of time analysis of low culture emerged as a reaction to the earlier studies. Cultural historians use theoretical and conceptual approaches to study cultural interventions. The popular theories used in the analysis of culture are:

• Theory of cultural hegemony by Gramsci
• Theory of Structuralism
• Theory of Deconstruction by Derrida
• Postmodern theories
• Theory of New Historicism

Cultural history further widened the interdisciplinary approach to history. The Annales School, Marxist historians, and postmodern thinkers contributed to the development of modern cultural history. Cultural history popularised the aspects of Gender studies, subaltern studies, oral history, local history, people’s history, and other counter-historical practices.