Title: Approaches (Types) of History

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Approaches (Types) of History
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The question of how a historian approaches

historical events is one of the most important
questions within historiography.

It is commonly recognized by historians that, in

themselves, individual historical facts are not
particularly meaningful.

Such facts will only become useful when assembled

with other historical evidence, and the process
of assembling this evidence is understood as a
particular historiographical approach.

"Fields of history" refers to the categories

professional historians use to classify their
broad areas of work within the overall discipline
of history.

Some of these categories (e.g., cultural history,

social history, intellectual history) refer to
historical method rather than specific topic of
study, while others coincide or partially overlap
with the practical classification of history by
topic.

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Approaches to History
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The Annales School

The Annales School is a school of historical

writing named after the French scholarly journal
Annales d'histoire conomique et sociale (later
called Annales. Economies, socits,
civilisations, then renamed in 1994 as Annales.
Histoire, Sciences Sociales) where it was first
expounded.

Annales school history is best known for

incorporating social scientific methods into
history.

The Annales was founded and edited by Marc Bloch

and Lucien Febvre in 1929, while they were
teaching at the University of Strasbourg, France.

These authors quickly became associated with the

distinctive Annales approach, which combined
geography, history, and the sociological
approaches to produce an approach which rejected
the predominant emphasis on politics, diplomacy
and war of many 19th century historians.

Instead, they pioneered an approach to a study of

long-term historical structures (la longue dure)
over events.

Geography, material culture, and what later

Annalistes called mentalits, or the psychology
of the epoch, are also characteristic areas of
study.

An eminent member of this school, Georges Duby,

wrote in the forward of his book Le dimanche de
Bouvines that the history he taught

relegated the sensational to the sidelines and

was reluctant to give a simple accounting of
events, but strived on the contrary to pose and
solve problems and, neglecting surface
disturbances, to observe the long and medium-term
evolution of economy, society and civilization."

Marc Bloch was shot by the Gestapo during the

German occupation of France in World War II, and
Febvre carried on the Annales approach in the
1940s and 1950s.

It was during this time (1930s-1940s) that he

mentored Fernand Braudel, who would become one of
the best known exponents of this school.

Braudel's work came to define a 'second' era of

Annales historiography and was very influential
throughout the 1960s and 1970s, especially for
his work on the Mediterranean region in the era
of Philip II of Spain.

While authors such as Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie and

Jacques Le Goff continue to carry the Annales
banner, today the Annales approach has been less
distinctive as more and more historians do work
in cultural history and economic history.

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BIG HISTORY
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Big History examines history on a large scale

across long time frames through a
multi-disciplinary approach.

Big History gives a focus on the alteration and

adaptations in the human experience.

Big History is a discrete field of historical

study that arose in the late 1980s.

It is related to, but distinct from, world

history, as the field examines history from the
beginning of time to the present day and is thus
closer to the older concept of universal history.

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The first courses in Big History were

experimental ones taught in the late 1980s by
John Mears at Southern Methodist University
(Dallas, Texas) and by David Christian at
Macquarie University (Australia), and more
recently at San Diego State University.

Since then, a number of other universities have

offered similar courses.

The first book in Big History was published in

1996 by Fred Spier entitled, The Structure of Big
History From the Big Bang until Today, which
offers an ambitious defense of the project and
constructs a unified account of history across
all time scales.

Another notable text in Big History is David

Christian's Maps of Time An Introduction to Big
History, which explores history from the first
micro-seconds of the Big Bang, to the creation of
the solar system, to the origins of life on
earth, the evolution of humans, the agricultural
revolution, modernity, and the 20th century.

Christian examines large-scale patterns and

themes, and provides perspective of time scales.

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It was David Christian who coined the term Big

History in an effort to place human history
within the context of the history of life, the
earth, and the universe.

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Cliometrics
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Cliometrics

Cliometrics refers to the systematic use of

economic theory and econometric techniques to
study economic history.

The term was originally coined by Jonathan R.T.

Hughes and Stanley Reiter in 1960 and refers to
Clio, who was the muse of history and heroic
poetry in Greek mythology.

This term is also sometimes used referring to

counterfactual history.

Cliometrics, originated in 1958 with the work of

Alfred Conrad and John Meyer with the publication
of "The Economics of Slavery in the Ante-Bellum
South," in the Journal of Political Economy.

The cliometric revolution actually began in the

mid-1960s and was particularly ugly because most
economic historians were either historians or
economists who had very little connection to
mathematical techniques or statistics.

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Comparative History
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Comparative history is the comparison between

different societies at a given time or sharing
similar cultural conditions.

Proponents of this approach include American

historians Barrington Moore and Herbert E.
Bolton British historians Arnold Toynbee and
Geoffrey Barraclough and German historian Oswald
Spengler.

Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889 1975) was a British

historian whose twelve-volume analysis of the
rise and fall of civilizations, A Study of
History, 1934-1961, was a synthesis of world
history, a metahistory based on universal rhythms
of rise, flowering and decline, which examined
history from a global perspective.

Toynbee presented history as the rise and fall of

civilizations, rather than the history of
nation-states or of ethnic groups.

He identified his civilizations according to

cultural and religious rather than national
criteria.

Historians generally accept the comparison of

particular institutions (banking, women's rights,
ethnic identities) in different societies, but
since the hostile reaction to Toynbee in the
1950s, generally do not pay much attention to
sweeping comparative studies.

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Cultural History
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Cultural history (from the German term

Kulturgeschichte), at least in its common
definition since the 1970s, often combines the
approaches of anthropology and history to look at
popular cultural traditions and cultural
interpretations of historical experience.

Cultural history involves the records and

narrative descriptions of past knowledge,
customs, and arts of a group of people.

Cultural history encompasses the continuum of

events occurring in succession leading from the
past to the present and even into the future
pertaining to a culture.

Cultural history, as a discipline, records and

interprets past events involving human beings
through the social, cultural, and political

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milieu of or relating to the arts and manners

that a group favors.

Cultural history studies and interprets the

record of human societies by denoting the various
distinctive ways of living built up by a group of
people under consideration.

Cultural history involves the aggregate of past

cultural activity, such as ceremony, class in
practices, and the interaction with locales.

Jacob Burckhardt (1818 1897) was a Swiss

historian of art and culture, fields which he
helped found.

Siegfried Giedion described Burckhardt's

achievement in the following terms

"The great discoverer of the age of the

Renaissance, he first showed how a period should
be treated in its entirety, with regard not only
for its painting, sculpture and architecture, but
for the social institutions of its daily life as
well

Burckhardt's best known work is The Civilization

of the Renaissance in Italy (1860).

Burkhardt's historical writings did much to

establish art history as an academic discipline,
and also have literary value in their own right.

His innovative approach to historical research

emphasized the value of culture and art when
analyzing the social and political trends
underlying historical events.

Jacob Burckhardt helped found cultural history as

a discipline.

Cultural history overlaps in its approaches with

the French movements of histoire des mentalits
and the so-called new history, and in the U.S. it
is closely associated with the field of American
studies.

Most often the focus is on phenomena shared by

non-elite groups in a society, such as carnival,

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festival, and public rituals performance

traditions cultural evolutions in human
relations (ideas, sciences, arts, techniques)
and cultural expressions of social movements such
as nationalism.

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Political History
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Political history is the narrative and analysis

of political events, ideas, movements, and
leaders.

It is usually structured around the nation state.

It is distinct from, but related to, other fields

of history such as social history, economic
history, and military history.

Generally, political history focuses on events

relating to nation-states and the formal
political process.

According to Hegel, Political History "is an idea

of the state with a moral and spiritual force
beyond the material interests of its subjects it
followed that the state was the main agent of
historical change"

This contrasts with, for instance, social

history, which focuses predominantly on the
actions and lifestyles of ordinary people, or
people's history, which is historical work from
the perspective of common people.

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Diplomatic History
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Diplomatic history, sometimes referred to as

"Rankian History in honor of Leopold von Ranke,
focuses on politics, politicians and other high
rulers and views them as being the driving force
of continuity and change in history.

This type of political history is the study of

the conduct of international relations between
states or across state boundaries over time.

This is the most common form of history and is

often the classical and popular belief of what
history should be.

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Diplomatic history is the past aggregate of the

art and practice of conducting negotiations
between accredited persons representing groups or
nations.

It is the continuum of events occurring in

succession leading from the past to the present
and even into the future regarding diplomacy, the
conduct of state relations through the
intercession of individuals with regard to issues
of peace-making, culture, economics, trade and
war.

Diplomatic history records or narrates events

relating to or characteristic of diplomacy.

The first "scientific" political history was

written by Leopold von Ranke in Germany in the
19th century.

An important aspect of political history is the

study of ideology as a force for historical
change.

One author asserts that "political history as a

whole cannot exist without the study of
ideological differences and their implications.

Studies of political history typically center

around a single nation and its political change
and development.

Some historians identify the growing trend

towards narrow specialization in political
history during recent decades "while a college
professor in the 1940s sought to identify himself
as a "historian", by the 1950s "American
historian" was the designation.

From the 1970s onwards, new movements sought to

challenge traditional approaches to political
history.

The development of social history and women's

history shifted the emphasis away from the study
of leaders and national decisions, and towards
the role of ordinary citizens.

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By the 1970s "the new social history" began

replacing the older style.

Emphasis shifted to a broader spectrum of

American life, including such topics as the
history of urban life, public health, ethnicity,
the media, and poverty.

As such, political history is sometimes seen as

the more 'traditional' kind of history, in
contrast with the more 'modern' approaches of
other fields of history.

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Ethnohistory
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Ethnohistory is the study of ethnographic

cultures and indigenous customs by examining
historical records.

It is also the study of the history of various

ethnic groups that may or may not exist today.

Ethnohistory uses both historical and

ethnographic data as its foundation.

Its historical methods and materials go beyond

the standard use of books and manuscripts.

Practitioners recognize the utility of maps,

music, paintings, photography, folklore, oral
tradition, ecology, site exploration,
archaeological materials, museum collections,
enduring customs, language, and place names.

Ethnohistorians have learned to use their special

knowledge of the groups they study, linguistic
insights, and the understanding of cultural
phenomena in ways that make for a more in-depth
analysis than the average historian is capable of
doing based solely on written documents produced
by and for one group.

They try to understand culture on its own terms

and according to its own cultural code.

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Ethnohistory differs from other

historically-related methodologies in that it
embraces emic perspectives as tools of analysis.

The field and it techniques are well suited for

writing histories of Indian peoples because of
its holistic and inclusive framework.

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Gender History
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Despite its relatively short life, Gender History

(and its forerunner Women's History) has had a
rather significant effect on the general study of
history.

Since the 1960s, when the initially small field

first achieved a measure of acceptance, it has
gone through a number of different phases, each
with its own challenges and outcomes, but always
making an impact of some kind on the historical
discipline.

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Great Man Theory of History
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The Great man theory is a theory held by some

that aims to explain history by the impact of
"Great men", or heroes highly influential
individuals, either from personal charisma,
genius intellects, or great political impact.

For example, a scholarly follower of the Great

Man theory would be likely to study the Second
World War by focusing on the big personalities of
the conflict Sir Winston Churchill, Adolf
Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Franklin Delano
Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, Hideki Tojo, etc. and
view all of the historical events as being tied
directly to their own individual decisions and
orders.

It is often linked to 19th century commentator

and historian Thomas Carlyle, who commented that
"The history of the world is but the biography of
great men."

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The Great Man approach to history was most

popular with professional historians in the 19th
century a popular work of this school is the
Encyclopedia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1911)
which contains lengthy and detailed biographies
about the great men of history, but very few
general or social histories.

This heroic view of history was also strongly

endorsed by some philosophical figures such as
Hegel, Nietzsche, and Spengler, but it fell out
of favor after World War II.

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History of Ideas
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The history of ideas is a field of research in

history that deals with the expression,
preservation, and change of human ideas over
time.

The history of ideas is a sister-discipline to,

or a particular approach within, intellectual
history.

Work in the history of ideas may involve

interdisciplinary research in the history of
philosophy, the history of science, or the
history of literature.

In Sweden, the history of ideas has been a

distinct university subject since the 1930s, when
Johan Nordstrm, a scholar of literature, was
appointed professor of the new discipline at
Uppsala University.

Today, several universities across the world

provide courses in this field, usually as part of
a graduate program.

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Marxist History
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Marxist or historical materialist historiography

is a school of historiography influenced by
Marxism.

The chief tenets of Marxist historiography are

the centrality of social class and economic
constraints in determining historical outcomes.

Marxist historiography has made contributions to

the history of the working class, oppressed
nationalities, and the methodology of history
from below.

Marxist history is generally teleological, in

that it posits a direction of history, towards an
end state of history as classless human society.

Marxist historiography, that is, the writing of

Marxist history in line with the given
historiographical principles, is generally seen
as a tool.

Its aim is to bring those oppressed by history to

self-consciousness, and to arm them with tactics
and strategies from history it is both a
historical and a liberatory project.

Historians who use Marxist methodology, but

disagree with the mainstream of Marxism, often
describe themselves as marxist historians (with a
lowercase M).

Methods from Marxist historiography, such as

class analysis, can be divorced from the
liberatory intent of Marxist historiography such
practitioners often refer to their work as
marxian or Marxian.

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Microhistory
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Microhistory is a branch of the study of history.

First developed in the 1970s, microhistory is the

study of the past on a very small scale.

The most common type of microhistory is the study

of a small town or village.

Other common studies include looking at

individuals of minor importance, or analyzing a
single painting.

As the roots of major events are grounded in the

actions of villagers these studies often have
much larger ramifications.

Microhistory is an important component of the

"new history" that has emerged since the 1960s.

It is usually done in close collaboration with

the social sciences, such as anthropology and
sociology.

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Military History
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Military history is composed of the events in the

history of humanity that fall within the category
of conflict.

This may range from a melee between two tribes to

conflicts between proper militaries to a world
war affecting the majority of the human
population.

Military historians record (in writing or

otherwise) the events of military history.

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Oral History
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Oral history is a method of historical

documentation, using interviews with living
survivors of the time being investigated.

Contemporary oral history involves recording or

transcribing eyewitness accounts of historical
events.

Some anthropologists started collecting

recordings (at first especially of Native
American folklore) on phonograph cylinders in the
late 19th century.

In the 1930s the Works Progress Administration

(WPA) sent out interviewers to collect accounts
from various groups, including surviving
witnesses of the American Civil War, Slavery, and
other major historical events.

The Library of Congress also began recording

traditional American music and folklore onto
acetate discs.

With the development of audio tape recordings

after World War II, the task of oral historians
became easier.

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Post-Modern History
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Postmodernism is a term applied to a wide-ranging

set of developments in critical theory,
philosophy, architecture, art, literature, and
culture, which are generally characterized as
either emerging from, in reaction to, or
superseding, modernism.

Postmodernism (sometimes abbreviated Pomo) was

originally a reaction to modernism (not "post" in
the purely temporal sense of "after").

Largely influenced by the disillusionment induced

by the Second World War, postmodernism tends to
refer to a cultural, intellectual, or artistic
state lacking a clear central hierarchy or
organizing principle and embodying extreme
complexity, contradiction, ambiguity, and
diversity.

Post-modernity is a derivative referring to

non-art aspects of history that were influenced
by the new movement, namely the evolutions in
society, economy and culture since the 1960s.

The term was coined in 1949 to describe a

dissatisfaction with modern architecture, leading
to the postmodern architecture movement.

Later, the term was applied to several movements,

including in art, music, and literature, that
reacted against modern movements, and are
typically marked by revival of traditional
elements and techniques.

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Prosopography
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Prosopography, in historical studies, is an

investigation of the common background
characteristics of a historical group, whose
individual biographies may be largely
untraceable, by means of a collective study of
their lives.

Prosopography is an increasingly important

approach within historical research.

Prosopographical research has the aim of learning

about patterns of relationships and activities
through the study of collective biography, and
proceeds by collecting and analyzing
statistically relevant quantities of biographical
data about a well-defined group of individuals.

A uniform set of criteria needs to be applied to

the group in order to achieve meaningful results.

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Psycohistory
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Psychohistory is the study of the psychological

motivations of historical events.

It combines the insights of psychotherapy with

the research methodology of the social sciences
to understand the emotional origin of the social
and political behavior of groups and nations,
past and present.

This field of study is considered by some to have

significant differences from the mainstream
fields of history and psychology.

Psychohistory derives many of its insights from

areas that are perceived to be ignored by
conventional historians as shaping factors of
human history, in particular, the effects of
childbirth, parenting practice, and child abuse.

The historical impact of incest, infanticide and

child sacrifice are also considered.

There are three inter-related areas of

psychohistorical study.

The History of Childhood - which looks at such

questions as

How have children been raised throughout history

How has the family been constituted

How and why have practices changed over time

The changing place and value of children in

society over time

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How and why our views of child abuse and neglect

have changed

Psychobiography - which seeks to understand

individual historical people and their
motivations in history.

Group Psychohistory - which seeks to understand

the motivations of large groups, including
nations, in history and current affairs.

In doing so, psychohistory advances the use of

group-fantasy analysis of political speeches,
political cartoons and media headlines since the
fantasy words therein offer clues to unconscious
thinking and behaviors.

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Quantitative History
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Quantitative History is an approach to historical

research that makes use of quantitative,
statistical and computer tools.

It is considered a branch of social science

history and has favorite journals, such as
Historical Methods, Social Science History, and
the Journal of Interdisciplinary History.

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Social History
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Social history is a area of historical study

considered by some to be a social science that
attempts to view historical evidence from the
point of view of developing social trends.

In this view, it may include areas of economic

history, legal history and the analysis of other
aspects of civil society that show the evolution
of social norms, behaviors and more.

It is distinguished from political history,

military history and the so-called history of
great men.

While proponents of history from below and the

French annales school of historians have
considered themselves part of social history, it
is seen as a much broader movement among
historians in the development of historiography.

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Unlike other approaches, it tries to see itself

as a synthetic form of history not limited to the
statement of so-called historical fact but
willing to analyze historical data in a more
systematic manner.

A question in social history is whether the

masses follow the leaders or whether it is the
other way around.

An example of social history can be seen in the

American Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and
1960s.

Typical history would focus on the who, what,

when and where whereas social history focuses on
the causes of the movement itself.

Social historians would pose such questions as,

"Why did the movement come about when it did?",
and "What specific elements fostered the growth?"
"What elements hindered the development?"

This approach is favored by scholars because it

allows for a full discussion on the sometimes
less studied aspects.

By understanding the past, we can begin to

understand who we are now.

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Whig HistoryPositivist History
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Whig historiography perceives the past as a

teleological progression toward the present.

In general, Whig historians look for and favour

the rise of constitutional government, personal
freedoms and scientific progress in any
historical period.

The term is often used pejoratively to denote any

historian that adopts such positions, but it also
connotes a specific set of British historians who
embodied Whig ideals.

Its antithesis can be seen in certain kinds of

cultural pessimism.

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World History
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World History is a field of historical study that

emerged as a distinct academic field in the
1980s.

It examines human history from a global

perspective.

Unlike most history writing of the 19th and most

of the 20th centuries, which focused on
narratives of individuals, and on national and
ethnic perspectives, World History looks for
common patterns that emerge across all cultures.

World historians use a thematic approach, with

two major focal points integration (how
processes of world history have drawn people of
the world together) and difference (how patterns
of world history reveal the diversity of the
human experience).

The study of world history is in some ways a

product of the current period of accelerated
globalization.

This period is tending both to integrate various

cultures and to highlight their differences.

The advent of World History as a distinct field

of study was heralded in the 1980s by the
creation of the World History Association and of
graduate programs at a handful of universities.

Over the past 20 years, scholarly publications,

professional and academic organizations, and
graduate programs in World History have
proliferated.

It has become an increasingly popular approach to

teaching history in United States high schools
and colleges.

Many new textbooks are being published with a

World History approach.

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