Abstract
Studies of social history were at the cutting edge of historical research for most of the late twentieth century. Especially in studies of European and U.S. history, but also in ancient and medieval history and in the expanding area-studies fields, social history achieved a period of academic hegemony. The disciplinary and topical subdivisions within social history kept it from being a dogmatic or uniform movement and perhaps assisted in providing continuing excitement in the analysis known variously as “history from the bottom up” and studies of “everyday life.”1 World history underwent its own major expansion in the era when social history was booming, and world historians were generally ready to accept the notion that there is more to understanding the past than great men and great powers. Nevertheless, social history has not been at the forefront of global historical studies. Civilizations and nations, rather than communities and social classes, have been treated as the building blocks of world historical interpretations in textbooks and monographs. One obvious explanatory factor is that of scale: studies in social history are generally based on local-level data or sometimes on national statistics, and they do not lend themselves automatically to investigation at transregional or global levels.
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© 2003 Patrick Manning
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Manning, P. (2003). Social History. In: Navigating World History. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403973856_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403973856_11
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