Theories of History

[khigh]

Thought it may be an interesting discussion, okay, something to get some people's minds off the application process/quals/dissertation research.  What theories of history do you prescribe to? Which historical historians do you look up to or do you model your work on? Do you read philosophy and/or apply it to your approach to history? If so, who are your favorite philosophers? 

On a more serious note, which theories of history are the most en vogue currently? 

[psstein]

3 hours ago, khigh said:

Which historical historians do you look up to or do you model your work on?

Living or dead?

Living: Mike Shank, John Heilbron, Allan Brandt, Robert Proctor, Anthony Grafton, Lorraine Daston, Ed Grant, etc.

Dead: John Murdoch, David Lindberg, Owen Hannaway, Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs, Richard Westfall, multiple others

Heilbron can be an acerbic guy, but he's a great writer. As you can probably tell from my list, I'm an early modernist. In terms of theories in vogue, it depends. Foucault was very popular between 1980 and 2000 or so, but I've seen evidence suggesting his influence has waned.

Edited December 23, 2017 by psstein

[TMP]

In the midst of my dissertation research, I literally can't answer this question because archival findings keep changing things up.

[Imenol]

I always find it valuable to step out of your area of focus and read broadly, across different periods and methodologies. I second the recommendations of Anthony Grafton (delightful book reviews too!) and Lorraine Daston. I add Peter Brown, Moses Finlay, Caroline Walker Bynum, Thomas Bisson, Daniel Lord Smail (esp. Legal Plunder), David Niremberg, Bernard Bailyn, Peter Galison, Robert Danton, Natalie Zemon Davis, Simon Schama, Carlo Ginzburg, George Chancy, Walter Johnson, Linda Colley. Of those who are dead, I would add Edward Gibbon, with his delightful footnotes, Richard Cobb, John Boswell, Henri Pirenne, Tacitus, Peter Laslett... I would also be remiss not to add the delightful French historians: Braudrel (is there any better first quote than "I have loved the Mediterranean with passion, no doubt because I am a Northerner like so many on whose footsteps I have followed"?), Marc Bloch, Philippe Aries, Emmanuel Ladurie, Georges Duby... (So many!)

[khigh]

12 hours ago, Imenol said:

I always find it valuable to step out of your area of focus and read broadly, across different periods and methodologies. I second the recommendations of Anthony Grafton (delightful book reviews too!) and Lorraine Daston. I add Peter Brown, Moses Finlay, Caroline Walker Bynum, Thomas Bisson, Daniel Lord Smail (esp. Legal Plunder), David Niremberg, Bernard Bailyn, Peter Galison, Robert Danton, Natalie Zemon Davis, Simon Schama, Carlo Ginzburg, George Chancy, Walter Johnson, Linda Colley. Of those who are dead, I would add Edward Gibbon, with his delightful footnotes, Richard Cobb, John Boswell, Henri Pirenne, Tacitus, Peter Laslett... I would also be remiss not to add the delightful French historians: Braudrel (is there any better first quote than "I have loved the Mediterranean with passion, no doubt because I am a Northerner like so many on whose footsteps I have followed"?), Marc Bloch, Philippe Aries, Emmanuel Ladurie, Georges Duby... (So many!)

Love, love, love Braudel.  I'm also a huge fan of Peter Geyl and Burke (Reflection on the French Revolution). Ben Kaplan and James Tracy and Jonathan Israel are go-to's for me. Molly Greene is writing some of my favorites recently in Mediterranean history.  I love, though, reading philosophical interpretations of "what history is" and that means Heidegger, Hegel, Spinoza, Sartre, Hegel, etc.  I've added a few more from your list to look into. 

I can't get past your recommendation of Schama, though. It's been drummed into my head by more than one Dutch historian that he is a "history channel" historian and has really dumbed down the 17th century Dutch to make it appeal to a wider audience but hack off "real" Dutch historians. I may have to try one of his books.

[dr. t]

I would differentiate between theories of history, methodology, and theoretical frameworks.

A theory of history is how you view the framework of the discipline - how does it work, what its goal(s) is/are, and the relationship of academic claims to objective truth. For example, my own answer to the "objectivity crisis" of the past three decades is that each of the diverse frameworks (more below) provide a vision of history that is objectively true, even it contradicts the findings in another framework. That is, we need to reframe our understanding of truth away from judging between truth-claims and instead focus on why and how truth-claims are made.

Theoretical frameworks are the lenses by which you approach your subject - class (i.e. Marxist theory), race/gender, network theory. These provide both a frame of reference to other historical works (does this history match up with similar histories?) and provides a way to justify the scope of inquiry while limiting it to something manageable.

Methodologies are the technical means by which historians exploit their sources. They're the tools which we bring to bear: network analysis, microhistory, anthropology. In my case, philology.