P. Stearns – Encyclopedia of Social History

Автор: P. Stearns
Название книги: Encyclopedia of Social History
Формат: PDF
Жанр: Прочая историческая литература
Страницы: 1195
Качество: Изначально компьютерное, E-book

The Domains of Social History
Since the 1960s social history has become a dominant form of research in the United
States and around the world. It has expanded the subjects open to historical analysis. It
has revised the ways historical change is presented and explained. Its impact has spilled
over into other social science areas, and even into the study of literature. Many
sociologists embrace the findings and analytical framework of social history in dealing
with such topics as professionalization, mobility, or even the social functions of emotion,
thus incorporating an understanding of change into their own generalizations. The new
historicist school of literary criticism sees intimate and mutual interactions among
authors, readership, and the larger social context of a period. Social history, in sum, has
become one of the key sources of expanding knowledge about human social behavior.
The novelty of the study and the impact of social history makes a basic encyclopedic
work on the subject particularly welcome. Users seeking a fuller introduction to this vital
subject area, but unfamiliar with key findings, can gain a starting point here, with a host
of references and suggestions for additional reading.
The basic features of social history also complicate the organization of a manageable
encyclopedic work. This introduction, after briefly embellishing the picture of what
social history is all about, explains the way this Encyclopedia is organized, how its topics
were selected, and how the volume can best be used to explore one of the key growth
areas of modern research.
The Nature of Social History
One of the entries in this volume, unsurprisingly entitled “Social History,” offers a more
elaborate definition of this field and its emergence. For starters, it is essential to
emphasize two points: first, the range of subjects social history covers, and second, the
characteristic analytical style of the field.
Social historians pay great attention to groups of people, particularly those remote
from the summits of power (though elites are examined also). Their passions frequently
center on the activities and beliefs of the working class, or peasants, or racial or ethnic
minorities, or women, or youth. In dealing with social, gender, and age groupings, social
historians at once seek to show the rich histories of these groups, arguing that they are not
merely passive recipients of orders and guidelines from above, and to demonstrate how
the values and behaviors of these groups affect the larger historical record. The second
topical emphasis of social history involves a wide range of social behaviors and ideas, not
simply the formal political and intellectual strands that organize most conventional
history. Social historians thus deal with, among other things, sexuality, crime, family life,
leisure activities—they deal with every aspect of human behavior, in other words, that is
not simply biologically determined. Here too, the goal is to explore patterns of change in
these areas, subjecting them to serious analysis and not merely human-interest
storytelling. Social historians are also eager to show how the new topics, sometimes
remote from mainstream historical interest, actually interact with other trends, reflecting
changes in economic or political structure but also causing changes in turn.
Social history, in sum, greatly expands the subjects of historical inquiry, in terms of
the groups of people and the range of activities open to investigation. Social historians,
correspondingly, work to develop new sources of information and to use familiar sources
in new ways, in order to sustain this redefinition of what history is all about.
Social history does more, however, than simply add to the list of major historical
topics. It also tends to examine and present the past in distinctive ways. Because social
historians believe in the importance of groupings of people and concentrate on large
forces—like population growth—as causes of change, they spend relatively little time on
individual biography. Because they look at patterns of behavior, they present their
findings in terms of social processes more than single events. Major events such as wars
or revolutions of course reflect social change and cause additional social change; but
smaller developments, such as a change in political administration or the advent of a new
king or president, do not necessarily have deep impact on the social fabric. Often, more
general social processes are more important. The massive reduction in birth rates, for
example, that occurred in the United States and Western Europe in the 19th century
resulted from literally millions of individual events—decisions by individual families in
various social classes to have fewer children than their parents had had. Social historians
thus do not trace the individual events but rather their cummulative effect in a radically
different population pattern. Explaining the shift in pattern, and its impact on other social
behaviors, provides the key focus—which means an attention to processes more than
sharply defined events like laws or elections. It also means a definition of change in terms
of often decades-long transitions, rather than tidy chronological packages marked by a
new monarch or a major battle. Periodization and the designation of change in social
history march to their own drummer, not to the more measured beat of textbook history.
Social history, in sum, has a distinctive analytical style and distinctive problems of
presentation that are different from more familiar historical genres.
Constructing the Encyclopedia: How Selections Were Made
Social history’s topical expansion and its analytical styles form the basis of this
Encyclopedia. The largest entries focus on the new topics that social historians have
particularly explored—topics such as social mobility and slavery. Many entries also
derive from social historians’ need to consider new sources, new analytical issues, and
new forms of teaching and presentation. Correspondingly, types of entries that dominate
more conventional historical lists—notable people and leading events—figure little in
these pages. This said, two important complications also reflect the selections made in the pages
that follow. First, social history consists not only of new topics but of new interpretations
of more familiar items. And second, social historians pay a great deal of attention to
geographical specificity—they talk of family history not in the abstract, but in terms of
American, or Chinese, or Muslim patterns.
Social historians, while emphasizing such characteristic subjects as social structure
and gender relations, also ply their trade in dealing with religion and war, politics and
culture. They partially reinterpret the spread of Christianity or Islam to include the
religious role of ordinary people and the impact of religious change upon them—often
modifying conventional interpretations substantially. They increasingly attend to the
interaction between the state and society, urging a somewhat novel kind of political his
tory that will include the pressures and demands of various groups of people and also the
effective (not just the announced) functions of the state in dealing with these same
groups. The social history of military institutions and of wars has become a growing
subject area.
A manageable encyclopedic work on social history cannot list all the events,
institutions, and intellectual movements open to new sociohistorical data and analysis.
This volume contains a significant sampling, however, plus additional references (under
headings such as “State and Society” and “Culture of Poverty”) that permit further
inquiry.
Social history has been applied to all major parts of the world, by scholars in the
United States and, of course, internationally. Like other historians, social historians
regard geographical specificity as an essential precondition of their craft. They do work
on redefining certain geographical staples. Some of the more ambitious family historians,
for example, have developed regional typologies of family structure that divide Europe
into distinctive patterns, or that link European and Asian family forms. Similarly, some
research on popular culture finds unexpected links among basic beliefs in otherwise
distinctive parts of the world. Finally, a flourishing brand of comparative history has been
applied to some key social history topics, such as slavery, which offers another variation
on familiar geographical models. These innovations, including comparative history, are
covered under appropriate rubrics in this Encyclopedia.
Still the geographical contours remain vital, and for the most part they also remain
fairly familiar. Social historians define themselves primarily as Americanists,
Europeanists, Chinese specialists, and the like. This regional concentration has produced
not only distinctive specific coverage but also some distinctions in the balance of topics
emphasized: thus the social history of the United States and Western Europe has
emphasized family history somewhat more than Asian, African, and Latin American
history has, while peasant and protest history looms larger in the overall sociohistorical
picture of Asia and Latin America than where Europe or the United States are concerned.
Nevertheless, the basic topics, methods, and sources are similar, and social historians,
whatever their own speciality limitations, readily conceive of their enterprise as an
approach applicable to world history in general. The fact remains, however, that for any
time period regional specificity adds greatly to the detailed treatment of social history. It
is vital to remember that findings in European family history are not necessarily
applicable to Africa or Asia and vice versa. Here, too, a single volume cannot do full justice to the social history of every major
region. This Encyclopedia makes no effort to deal with national social histories across the
board, particularly for regions such as Europe or Latin America, which are characterized
by a multitude of nations. Even larger regions are sampled, rather than covered
exhaustively. Entries under regional headings such as China, the Middle East, South
Asia, Africa, and Latin America convey some of the special social history features of
those areas. Larger articles on major social history topics, such as artisans or crime, cite
examples from several regional cases. The Encyclopedia clearly establishes social
history’s international range and provides mechanisms for further exploration of specific
civilizations and areas.
In sum, this Encyclopedia emphasizes extensive coverage of the major social history
topics and methods, thus defining the most characteristic features and issues in the field.
It offers a more selective introduction to social history approaches to history more
generally and, without pretending to cover each regional social history thoroughly,
presents basic features of social history geographically defined. Social history, a growing
and dynamic field, inevitably escapes any effort at tidy definition or even encyclopedic
coverage. This volume nevertheless captures many of social history’s essential
ingredients, including its continued striving.
Each entry is followed by one or more references, offering opportunities for more
extensive reading. Some reference lists include obvious classics, but most emphasize the
latest and/or the most comprehensive work. Many important works are not listed,
however, and sometimes additional authors are mentioned in the entries themselves. By
consulting bibliographies in the references cited and by following up the supple mentary
suggestions, users of the Encyclopedia can easily construct a vigorous reading list on
each of the topics covered.
The editors of the Encyclopedia wish to acknowledge the enthusiastic assistance of the
many contributors, without whose expertise this range of topics would obviously have
been impossibly ambitious. Special thanks are due to the scholars associated with the
Pittsburgh Center for Social History, whose suggestions as well as contributions were
invaluable. Special thanks also to Gary Kuris and Garland Publishing, for the initial good
idea and for much encouragement along the way. Ria David provided indispensable
administrative service and scholarly judgment; her knowledge and efficiency were
impressive. Donna Scheuble kept the operation together as ideas moved into manuscript,
overseeing the complex coordination among many contributors and many production
phases. Clio Stearns did some masterful copyediting. Thanks also to Scarlett Townsend,
Jennifer Geller, and Karen Callas for help in manuscript preparation