What Is Microhistory

This unique and detailed analysis provides the first accessible and comprehensive introduction to the origins, development, methodology of microhistory – one of the most significant innovations in historical scholarship to have emerged in the last few decades. The introduction guides the reader through the best-known example of microstoria, The Cheese and the Worms by Carlo Ginzburg, and explains the benefits of studying an event, place or person in microscopic detail. In Part I, István M. Szijártó examines the historiography of microhistory in the Italian, French, Germanic and the Anglo-Saxon traditions, shedding light on the roots of microhistory and asking where it is headed. In Part II, Sigurður Gylfi Magnússon uses a carefully selected case study to show the important difference between the disciplines of macro- and microhistory and to offer practical instructions for those historians wishing to undertake micro-level analysis. These parts are tied together by a Postscript in which the status of microhistory within contemporary historiography is examined and its possibilities for the future evaluated. What is Microhistory? surveys the significant characteristics shared by large groups of microhistorians, and how these have now established an acknowledged place within any general discussion of the theory and methodology of history as an academic discipline.

"Offers a study of culture in the sixteenth century as seen through the eyes of one man, the miller known as Menocchio, who was accused of heresy during the Inquisition and sentenced to death. This book illustrates the confusing political and religious conditions of the time"--Publisher marketing.

This is the story of Margarida de Portu, a medieval French woman accused of poisoning her husband to death. Through the depositions and accusations made in court, the reader learns not only about Margarida herself, but also about medieval women, female agency, kin networks, solidarity, sex, sickness, medicine, and law. Unlike most histories, this compelling book does not remove the author from the analysis. Rather, it lays bare the working method of the historian, helping the reader learn how historians "do" history and discover the rewards and pitfalls of working with primary sources. The book opens with a chapter on microhistory as a genre, explaining its strengths, weaknesses, and inherent risks. It then tells the narrative of Margarida's criminal trial, including chapters on the civil suits, appeal, and Margarida's eventual fate. A map of late medieval Manosque is provided, as well as an example of a court notary's rough copy, a notarial act, a sample folio of a criminal inquest record. A timeline of Margarida?s life, list of characters, and two family trees provide useful information on key people in the story.

Alltagsgeschichte, or the history of everyday life, emerged during the 1980s as the most interesting new field among West German historians and, more recently, their East German colleagues. Partly in reaction to the modernization theory pervading West German social history in the 1970s, practitioners of alltagsgeschichte stressed the complexities of popular experience, paying particular attention, for instance, to the relationship of the German working class to Nazism. Now the first English translation of a key volume of essays (Alltagsgeschichte: Zur Rekonstruktion historischer Erfahrungen und Lebensweisen) presents this approach and shows how it cuts across the boundaries of established disciplines. The result is a work of great methodological, theoretical, and historiographical significance as well as a substantive contribution to German studies. Introduced by Alf Lüdtke, the volume includes two empirical essays, one by Lutz Niethammer on life courses of East Germans after 1945 and one by Lüdtke on modes of accepting fascism among German workers. The remaining five essays are theoretical: Hans Medick writes on ethnological ways of knowledge as a challenge to social history; Peter Schöttler, on mentalities, ideologies, and discourses and alltagsgeschichte; Dorothee Wierling, on gender relations and alltagsgeschichte; Wolfgang Kaschuba, on popular culture and workers' culture as symbolic orders; and Harald Dehne on the challenge alltagsgeschichte posed for Marxist-Leninist historiography in East Germany.

This 1996 book uses a local study to explore some of the more significant societal changes of the modern western world.

How does scale affect our understanding of the Holocaust? In the vastness of its implementation and the sheer amount of death and suffering it produced, the genocide of Europe’s Jews presents special challenges for historians, who have responded with work ranging in scope from the world-historical to the intimate. In particular, recent scholarship has demonstrated a willingness to study the Holocaust at scales as focused as a single neighborhood, family, or perpetrator. This volume brings together an international cast of scholars to reflect on the ongoing microhistorical turn in Holocaust studies, assessing its historiographical pitfalls as well as the distinctive opportunities it affords researchers.

This broad survey introduces readers to the major themes, figures,traditions and theories in Western historical thought, tracing itsevolution from biblical times to the present. Surveys the evolution of historical thought in the WesternWorld from biblical times to the present day. Provides students with the background to contemporaryhistorical debates and approaches. Serves as a useful reference for researchers andteachers. Includes chapters by 24 leading historians.

Presents a history of the decisive battle at Gettysburg based on military and personal accounts.