The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. Aristotle

Social history developed within West German historiography during the 1950s-60s as the successor to the national history discredited by National Socialism. The German brand of "history of society" - Gesellschaftsgeschichte - has been known from its beginning in the 1960s for its application of sociological and political modernization theories to German history. Modernization theory was presented by Hans-Ulrich Wehler (1931-2014) and his Bielefeld School as the way to transform "traditional" German history, that is, national political history, centered on a few "great men," into an integrated and comparative history of German society encompassing societal structures outside politics. Wehler drew upon the modernization theory of Max Weber, with concepts also from Karl Marx, Otto Hintze, Gustav Schmoller, Werner Sombart and Thorstein Veblen.[6

You have to be a good individual first before you can be a good team player. David Goggins

What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make. Jane Goodall

n the 1970s and early 1980s German historians of society, led by Wehler and Jürgen Kocka at the "Bielefeld school" gained dominance in Germany by applying both modernization theories and social science methods. From the 1980s, however, they were increasingly criticized by proponents of the "cultural turn" for not incorporating culture in the history of society, for reducing politics to society, and for reducing individuals to structures. Historians of society inverted the traditional positions they criticized (on the model of Marx's inversion of Hegel). As a result, the problems pertaining to the positions criticized were not resolved but only turned on their heads. The traditional focus on individuals was inverted into a modern focus on structures, the traditional focus on culture was inverted into a modern focus on structures, and traditional emphatic understanding was inverted into modern causal explanation.[61]

Before World War II, political history was in decline and an effort was made to introduce social history in the style of the French Annales School. After the war only Marxist interpretations were allowed.[62] With the end of Communism in Hungary in 1989. Marxist historiography collapsed and social history came into its own, especially the study of the demographic patterns of the early modern period. Research priorities have shifted toward urban history and the conditions of everyday life.[63]
Soviet Union

hen Communism ended in 1991, large parts of the Soviet archives were opened. The historians' data base leapt from a limited range of sources to a vast array of records created by modern bureaucracies. Social history flourished. The old Marxist historiography collapsed overnight.[64]
Canada

olitical history

While the study of elites and political institutions has produced a vast body of scholarship, the impact after 1960 of social historians has shifted emphasis onto the politics of ordinary people—especially voters and collective movements. Political historians responded with the "new political history," which has shifted attention to political cultures. Some scholars have recently applied a cultural approach to political history.[68] Some political historians complain that social historians are likely to put too much stress on the dimensions of class, gender and race, reflecting a leftist political agenda that assumes outsiders in politics are more interesting than the actual decision makers.[69]

Social history, with its leftist political origins, initially sought to link state power to everyday experience in the 1960s. Yet by the 1970s, social historians increasingly excluded analyses of state power from its focus.[70] Social historians have recently engaged with political history through studies of the relationships between state formation, power and everyday life with the theoretical tools of cultural hegemony and governmentality.[71]
See also

Practitioners
Salo Baron (1895–1989), Jewish history
Marc Bloch (1886–1944), Medieval, Annales School
Asa Briggs, Baron Briggs, British
Martin Broszat (1926–1989), Germany
Merle Curti (1897-1997) American
Natalie Zemon Davis, (b. 1928) France
Herbert Gutman (1928-1985), American black and labor history
Eugene D. Genovese (1930-2012), American slavery
S. D. Goitein (1900-1985), Medieval Jewish history in Fustat and environs
Oscar Handlin (1915-2011), American ethnic
Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie (b. 1929), lead

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Notes

Diplomatic dropped from 5% to 3%, economic history from 7% to 5%, and cultural history grew from 14% to 16%. Based on full-time professors in U.S. history departments. Stephen H. Haber, David M. Kennedy, and Stephen D. Krasner, "Brothers under the Skin: Diplomatic History and International Relations," International Security, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Summer, 1997), pp. 34-43 at p. 4 2; online at JSTOR
See "History Online:Teachers of History" accessed 1/21/2014
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Mary Fulbrook (2005). "Introduction: The people's paradox". The People's State: East German Society from Hitler to Honecker. London: Yale University Press. p. 17. ISBN 978-0-300-14424-6.
Jürgen Kocka, Industrial Culture and Bourgeois Society: Business, Labor, and Bureaucracy in Modern Germany, 1800-1918 (New York: Berghahn Books, 1999) pp 275-97, at p. 276
Kocka, Industrial Culture and Bourgeois Society p. 276
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See the SSHA website
. See Journal of Social History
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See H-DEMOG
See ASALH
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See Immigration and Ethnic History Society
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See American Italian Historical Association
See American Jewish Historical Society and journal
See PAHA website
see H-ETHNIC website
See Study Group on International Labor and Working-Class

015-05-18 at the Wayback Machine
See H-LABOR website
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