What are the intellectual tasks that define the historian's work? In a sense, this question is best answered on the basis of a careful reading of some good historians. But it will be useful to offer several simple answers to this foundational question as a sort of conceptual map of the nature of historical knowing. …
Metaphors for history
What kind of thing is "history"? Think of the history of the Roman Empire, or the history of Tokugawa Japan, or the history of the American banking system. We want to be able to conceptualize these complex stories as possessing some kind of unity over centuries of time, thousands of locations, and millions of lives; …
Technology and culture
Photo: Charles Sheeler, "Power, wheels", 1939; MFA, Boston Technology is sometimes thought of as a domain with a logic of its own -- an inevitable trend towards the development of the most efficient artifacts, given the potential represented by a novel scientific or technical insight. The most important shift that has occurred in the ways …
Applied philosophy of history
The philosophy of history is difficult to classify. Should we think of it in analogy with the philosophy of physics or economics -- essentially a careful analysis of the modes of research and inference used within an empirical discipline? Or should we think of it in analogy with the philosophy of nature or the philosophy …
Greenblatt in the world
I recently read Stephen Greenblatt's brilliant biographical book on Shakespeare, Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare, and I was once again struck by what a large contribution Greenblatt might make to the social sciences. His innovations in literary theory are well known, particularly in his pioneering work on forging "the new historicism" (for …
Strange parallels
Victor Lieberman uses the phrase, "strange parallels," as the title for his two-volume study of Southeast Asian history (Strange Parallels: Volume 1, Integration on the Mainland: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800-1830). Besides offering a highly expert history of Burma and its many kingdoms between 800 and 1830, Lieberman poses a fascinating and novel …
System tendencies?
A central theme of many of the posts here is the contingency, heterogeneity, and path dependency of social processes. I used the metaphor of a "constrained random walk" in an earlier posting to characterize many social processes. This figure is intended to stand in contrast to the idea of an inevitable development towards an optimum …
Turning points
Are there turning points in history? How would we know if we're in the midst of one? Does the current financial crisis represent a turning point in the development of the US economy? Did the election of Ronald Reagan represent a turning point in American politics and government?Often what is announced as a turning point …
China’s many revolutions
It is worth reflecting a bit on how absolutely tumultuous China's history has been since the Communist Revolution in 1949. The Great Leap Forward and consequent famine -- 1958-60, in excess of 20 million famine deaths. The Cultural Revolution -- 1966-1976, in excess of 1.5 million deaths by violence, many times that number of maimed …
What is materialism?
Karl Marx was a materialist thinker. But what does this amount to? What is materialism as a way of thinking about historical and social reality? Is materialism an empirical theory, a philosophical theory, or perhaps part of a social-science paradigm?Here is a statement of Marx's materialism from the German Ideology, written in 1845-46: The premises …
Understanding Society 