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Historical
Schools of
Thought
Big history
Big History examines history on a large scale
across long time frames through a multidisciplinary approach.1 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 historyas the
field examines history from the beginning of time to
the present day. In some respects, the field is thus
similar to the older universal history.
Comparative history
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. Several sociologists
have tried their hand, including Max Weber, Pitirim
Sorokin, S. N. Eisenstadt, Seymour Martin Lipset,
and Michael Mann.
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.
Cultural history
The term cultural history (from the German term
Kulturgeschichte) refers both to an academic
discipline and to its subject matter. Cultural history,
as a discipline, 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
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historical experience. It examines the records and
narrative descriptions of past knowledge, customs,
and arts of a group of people. Its subject matter
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 records and interprets past events
involving human beings through the social,
cultural, and political milieu of or relating to the arts
and manners that a group favors. Jacob
Burckhardt helped found cultural history as a
discipline. 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
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."
Deconstruction
Deconstruction is a term used in philosophy,
literary criticism, and the social sciences,
popularised through its usage by Jacques Derrida
in the 1960s. Deconstruction involves the close
reading of texts in order to demonstrate that,
rather than being a unified whole, any given text
has irreconcilably contradictory meanings.
Diplomatic history
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.
Diplomatic history is the past aggregate of the art
and practice of conducting negotiations between
accredited persons representing groups or nations.
occurring in succession leading from the past to
the present and even into the future regarding
diplomacy, the conduct of state relations through
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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.
Economic history
Economic history is the study of how economic
phenomena evolved in the past. Analysis in
economic history is undertaken using a
combination of historical methods, statistical
methods and by applying economic theory to
historical situations. The topic includes business
history and overlaps with areas of social history
such as demographic history and labor history.
Quantitative economic history is also referred to as
cliometrics, referring to clio, the Roman muse of
history.
Great man history
The validity of the "hero" in historical studies and
Great man theory. After Hegel, who insisted on the
role of "great men" in history, with his famous
statement about Napoleon, "I saw the Spirit on his
horse", Thomas Carlyle argued that history was the
biography of a few central individuals, heroes,
such as Oliver Cromwell or Frederick the Great,
writing that "The history of the world is but the
biography of great men." His heroes were political
and military figures
Historical materialism
Historical materialism is a methodological
approach to the study of society, economics, and
history, first articulated by Karl Marx (1818-1883).
Marx himself never used the term but referred to
his approach as "the materialist conception of
history." Historical materialism looks for the causes
of developments and changes in the means by
which human societies collectively cultivate the
means to live, thus giving an emphasis, through
economic analysis, to everything that co-exists
with the economic base of society (e.g. social
classes, political structures, ideologies). The
fundamental proposition of historical materialism is
premised in the following materialist conception:
“It is not the consciousness of men that determines their
existence, but their social existence that determines their
consciousness. ”
—Karl Marx, Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of
Political Economy
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History from below
History from below is a concept of historical
narrative in social history, which focuses on the
perspectives of ordinary people, rather than
political and other leaders. The term was coined by
French historian Georges Lefebvre (1874–1959)
and was popularised by British Marxist Historians
during the 1960s. This school of history was
among the first to have a sympathetic approach to
peasants and working class people.
History of ideas
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 Nordström, 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
Marxist historiography
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. The chief problematic aspect of Marxist
historiography has been an argument on the nature
of history as determined or dialectical; this can
also be stated as the relative importance of
subjective and objective factors in creating
outcomes. Marxist history is generally
deterministic, 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
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tactics and strategies from history: it is both a
historical and a liberatory (liberating) project
Microhistory
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 analysing a single painting. 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. Microhistory is to
be distinguished from local history, in which
research is not seen as a case study for more
general historical trends, but is appreciated for its
inherent interest to the local community.
Military history
Military history is a humanities discipline within the
scope of general historical recording of armed
conflict in the history of humanity, and its impact
on the societies, their cultures, economies and
changing intra and international relationships. A
conflict may range from a melee between two tribal
groups to conflicts between national militaries, and
a world war of coalitions affecting the majority of
the global human population. Military historians
record and analyse the events of military history,
the product of which forms an important part of
how societies and their leaders formulate future
plans and policies for societal development.
Political history
'Political history 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 one,
for instance, social history, which focuses
predominantly on the actions and lifestyles of
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ordinary people, or people's history, which is
historical work from the perspective of common
people
History as Propaganda
Is history always written by the victors? In his
"Society must be Defended", Michel Foucault
posited that the victors of a social struggle use
their political dominance to suppress a defeated
adversary's version of historical events in favor of
their own propaganda, which may go so far as
historical revisionism (see Michel Foucault's
analysis of historical and political discourse
above). Nations adopting such an approach would
likely fashion a "universal" theory of history to
support their aims, with a teleological and
deterministic philosophy of history used to justify
the inevitableness and rightness of their victories
(see The Enlightenment's ideal of progress above).
Psychohistory
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.
Its subject matter is childhood and the family
(especially child abuse), and psychological studies
of anthropology and ethnology.
Quantitative history
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 three leading
journals: Historical Methods,(1967- ) Social
Science History,(1976- ), and the Journal of
Interdisciplinary History, (1968- )
Revisionism
Within historiography, that is the academic field of
history, historical revisionism is the reinterpretation
of orthodox views on evidence, motivations and
decision-making processes surrounding an
historical event. The assumption of the revisionist
is that the interpretation of a historical event or
period as it is accepted by the majority of scholars
needs a significant change. Pulitzer Prize winning
historian James McPherson, writing for the
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American Historical Association, described the
importance of revisionism:
The 14,000 members of this Association, however,
know that revision is the lifeblood of historical
scholarship. History is a continuing dialogue
between the present and the past. Interpretations
of the past are subject to change in response to
new evidence, new questions asked of the
evidence, new perspectives gained by the passage
of time. There is no single, eternal, and immutable
"truth" about past events and their meaning. The
unending quest of historians for understanding the
past—that is, "revisionism"—is what makes history
vital and meaningful. Without revisionism, we might
be stuck with the images of Reconstruction after
the American Civil War that were conveyed by D.
W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation and Claude Bowers's
The Tragic Era. Were the Gilded Age entrepreneurs
"Captains of Industry" or "Robber Barons"?
Without revisionist historians who have done
research in new sources and asked new and
nuanced questions, we would remain mired in one
or another of these stereotypes. Supreme Court
decisions often reflect a "revisionist" interpretation
of history as well as of the Constitution.
Social history
Social history is an 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 history of
great men.
Social Evolutionism
Further information: Sociocultural evolution.
Inspired by the Enlightenment's ideal of progress,
social evolutionism became a popular conception
in the 19th century. Auguste Comte's (1798–1857)
positivist conception of history, which he divided
into the theological stage, the metaphysical stage
and the positivist stage, brought upon by modern
science, was one of the most influential doctrine of
progress. The Whig interpretation of history, as it
was later called, associated with scholars of the
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Victorian and Edwardian eras in Britain, such as
Henry Maine or Thomas Macaulay, gives an
example of such influence, by looking at human
history as progress from savagery and ignorance
toward peace, prosperity, and science. Maine
described the direction of progress as "from status
to contract," from a world in which a child's whole
life is pre-determined by the circumstances of his
birth, toward one of mobility and choice. Does
history have a teleological sense?
Theodicy
Theodicy claimed that history had a progressive
direction leading to an eschatological end, given
by a superior power. However, this transcendent
teleological sense can be thought as immanent to
human history itself. Hegel probably represents the
epitome of teleological philosophy of history.
Hegel's teleology was taken up by Francis
Fukuyama in his The End of History and the Last
Man (see Social evolutionism above). Thinkers
such as Nietzsche, Foucault, Althusser or Deleuze
deny any teleological sense to history, claiming
that it is best characterized by discontinuities,
ruptures, and various time-scales, which the
Annales School had demonstrated ·
Universal history
Universal history is basic to the Western tradition
of historiography, especially the Abrahamic
wellspring of that tradition. Simply stated, universal
history is the presentation of the history of
mankind as a whole, as a coherent unit.
Ancient examples:
In Greco-Roman antiquity, the first universal history
was written by Ephorus (fl. 4th century BC). This
work has been lost, but its influence can be seen in
the ambitions of Polybius (203–120 BC) and
Diodorus (fl. 1st century BC) to give
comprehensive accounts of their worlds. Later,
universal history provided an influential lens on the
rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire in such
works as Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History,
Augustine's City of God, and Orosius' History
Against the Pagans.
During the Han Dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE) of
China, Sima Qian (145–86 BC) was the first
Chinese historian to attempt a universal history—
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from the earliest mythological origins of his
civilization to his present day—in his Records of
the Grand Historian. Although his generation was
the first in China to discover the existence of
kingdoms in Central Asia and India, his work did
not attempt to cover the history of these regions.
Modern examples:
An early European project was the Universal
History of George Sale and others, written in the
mid-eighteenth century. In the nineteenth century,
universal histories proliferated. Philosophers such
as Kant, Schiller and Hegel, and political
philosophers such as Marx, presented general
theories of history that shared essential
characteristics with the Biblical account: they
conceived of history as a coherent whole,
governed by certain basic characteristics or
immutable principles. For example, Hegel
presented the idea that progress in history is
actually the progress not of mankind's material
existence, but of humanity's spiritual development.
Concomitantly, Hegel presented a developmental
theory of how the human spirit progresses: through
the dialectic of synthesis and antithesis. Marx's
theory of dialectic materialism is essential to his
general concept of history: that the struggle to
dominate the means of production governs all
historical development.
Historiography:
The roots of historiography in the nineteenth
century are bound up with the concept that history
written with a strong connection to the primary
sources could, somehow, be integrated with "the
big picture", i.e. to a general, universal history. For
example, Leopold Von Ranke, probably the preeminent historian of the nineteenth century,
founder of "Rankean positivism," the classic mode
of historiography that now stands against
postmodernism, attempted to write a Universal
History at the close of his career. The work of
Oswald Spengler and Arnold J. Toynbee are two
examples of attempts to integrate primary source based history and Universal History.
Spengler's work is more general; Toynbee created
a theory that would allow the study of
"civilizations" to proceed with integration of
source-based history writing and Universal History
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writing. Both writers attempted to incorporate
teleological theories into general presentations of
the history.
Women's history
Women's history is the history of female human
beings. Women have often been dismissed or
marginalized in historical accounts and women’s
history seeks to correct this and also to outline the
prominence of women in a number of important
historical roles.
World history
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.