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Towards a Social History of Experience: Postmodern Predicaments in Theory and Interdisciplinarity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Konrad H. Jarausch
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Extract

During the last generation the writing of social history has taken an ironic turn. In the 1960s and much of the 1970s, it literally exploded across the scholarly landscape as the most dynamic and innovative form of historiography. Many competing conceptions including the French Annales school, the American quantitative social science history (QUASSH), the British Marxist history of society, and the emerging German Gesellschaftsgeschichte combined to overthrow the Rankean paradigm. These diverse programs, nevertheless, showed broad agreement in exploring the mute masses, expanding the scope of inquiry to new topics such as family and education, seeking a theoretical orientation, experimenting with fresh methods such as quantification or oral history, and supporting some form of progressive politics. This agenda was even reflected in T-shirt slogans such as “history from the bottom up,” showing a fat behind, or “bottoms-up history,” depicting raised beer steins. For many of the participants, there was an exciting sense of fresh departures and of camaraderie in an effort at once intellectually daring and politically committed.

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Articles
Information
Central European History , Volume 22 , Issue 3-4 , September 1989 , pp. 427 - 443
Copyright
Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1989

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