The nineteenth century was instrumental in the development of the modern professional discipline of history. Leopold von Ranke epitomized this movement in Germany and contributed to the advance of historicism, which affirmed that “historical knowledge will not emerge by applying conceptual schemata to the past but…through the analysis of individual instances and concrete events.”[1] The tenets of historicism stood in stark contrast to
some of the more progressive notions of Whiggish history all the while accepting the ideas of historical change discoverable through scientific modes of discourse. Ranke promoted objective, empirical, source- and fact-based history and specifically rejected the imposition of overarching themes and principles onto the past.[2] Historians, he asserted, had no business passing judgments on the past using modern-day values, but rather should simply tell history, in the oft quoted phrase, “wie es eigenlich gewesen ist,” or “as it actually happened.”[3] This approach to history owed much to the scientific optimism of the late nineteenth century, as well as the belief that “universal history comprehends the past life of mankind, not in its particular relations and trends, but in its fullness and totality.”[4] Interestingly, Ranke, so keen on this weltgeschichte, conceded that “the study of particulars, even of a single detail, ha[d] its value, if it [was] done well.”[5] It is to the “particulars” of twentieth century microhistory and its reaction to “traditional” history that looms large in modern shifts in historiography.
some of the more progressive notions of Whiggish history all the while accepting the ideas of historical change discoverable through scientific modes of discourse. Ranke promoted objective, empirical, source- and fact-based history and specifically rejected the imposition of overarching themes and principles onto the past.[2] Historians, he asserted, had no business passing judgments on the past using modern-day values, but rather should simply tell history, in the oft quoted phrase, “wie es eigenlich gewesen ist,” or “as it actually happened.”[3] This approach to history owed much to the scientific optimism of the late nineteenth century, as well as the belief that “universal history comprehends the past life of mankind, not in its particular relations and trends, but in its fullness and totality.”[4] Interestingly, Ranke, so keen on this weltgeschichte, conceded that “the study of particulars, even of a single detail, ha[d] its value, if it [was] done well.”[5] It is to the “particulars” of twentieth century microhistory and its reaction to “traditional” history that looms large in modern shifts in historiography.The greatest expression of these new ways of thinking about history originated with the French Annales School of the early and mid-twentieth century. Applying new techniques of social science to history, the Annalistes rejected the politico-military aspect of history and instead “attempt[ed]…to adapt economic, linguistic, sociological, geographical, anthropological, psychological, and natural science notions to the study of history and to infuse a historical orientation into the social and human sciences.”[6] Beginning with the founding of the Annales journal by Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre in 1929, the Annalistes focused primarily on the major social and cultural structures that existed over long arcs of time, or the longue dureé, and on the mentalités, or psychological states, of history’s participants.
The most prom
inent historian among the second generation of Annalistes was Fernand Braudel, who took the Annales synthesis of social sciences to the next extreme by integrating each of these new aims of history into his grand vision of an all-encompassing history of the Mediterranean. In his Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, Braudel expounds upon three levels of history, which correspond not only to the people involved but the geographies and climates as well. Braudel’s history is quantitative and analytical but rarely narrates events. For the Annalistes, this methodology reflected their interest in telling the “total history” of a particular time period, event, or place, in this case, the Mediterranean Sea.[8] As Emanuel Le Roy Ladurie writes in The Territory of the Historian, the topics on which historians should write need not be confined to the human participants, and he contends that the historian may concern himself with any aspect of a subject’s past. For example, “the aim of climatic history, is not to explain human history, nor to offer simplistic accounts of this or that remarkable episode…[but] to produce a clear picture of the changing meteorological patterns of past ages in the spirit of what Paul Veyne calls ‘a cosmological history of nature.’”[9] As history became more and more depersonalized through the use of these social scientific methods, Annales history, by the 1960s and 70s, reached a point at which its explanatory power veered out of the range of normal historical inquiry. Although the techniques used by the Annalistes proved invaluable to later historians, their 
seeming lack of interest in the actual individuals of history masked what many believed to be the true subject of historical study. As Jim Sharpe has argued, “such quantified evidence,” while important, “cannot be the whole story.”[10] From the 1970s onward, in the new field known as microhistory, human beings reasserted their dominance as the most essential subject matter for historians. By becoming active historical participants, rather than subject to the movement of history around them, people became “the historical actors…[who] created history.”[11] While microhistory deferred to the more traditional narrative forms of history, it was regarded as anything but traditional among academic historians. As a variety of Sharpe’s “history from below,” microhistorians have sought to tell local, often personal, stories of obscure or marginal figures, or they have illuminate little-known or little-documented events from the past. Let us examine three representative microhistories—Carlo Ginzburg’s The Cheese and the Worms, Robert Darnton’s “The Great Cat Massacre,” and Rhys Isaac’s Landon Carter’s Uneasy Kingdom—and their relationship with “traditional history.”
inent historian among the second generation of Annalistes was Fernand Braudel, who took the Annales synthesis of social sciences to the next extreme by integrating each of these new aims of history into his grand vision of an all-encompassing history of the Mediterranean. In his Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, Braudel expounds upon three levels of history, which correspond not only to the people involved but the geographies and climates as well. Braudel’s history is quantitative and analytical but rarely narrates events. For the Annalistes, this methodology reflected their interest in telling the “total history” of a particular time period, event, or place, in this case, the Mediterranean Sea.[8] As Emanuel Le Roy Ladurie writes in The Territory of the Historian, the topics on which historians should write need not be confined to the human participants, and he contends that the historian may concern himself with any aspect of a subject’s past. For example, “the aim of climatic history, is not to explain human history, nor to offer simplistic accounts of this or that remarkable episode…[but] to produce a clear picture of the changing meteorological patterns of past ages in the spirit of what Paul Veyne calls ‘a cosmological history of nature.’”[9] As history became more and more depersonalized through the use of these social scientific methods, Annales history, by the 1960s and 70s, reached a point at which its explanatory power veered out of the range of normal historical inquiry. Although the techniques used by the Annalistes proved invaluable to later historians, their 
seeming lack of interest in the actual individuals of history masked what many believed to be the true subject of historical study. As Jim Sharpe has argued, “such quantified evidence,” while important, “cannot be the whole story.”[10] From the 1970s onward, in the new field known as microhistory, human beings reasserted their dominance as the most essential subject matter for historians. By becoming active historical participants, rather than subject to the movement of history around them, people became “the historical actors…[who] created history.”[11] While microhistory deferred to the more traditional narrative forms of history, it was regarded as anything but traditional among academic historians. As a variety of Sharpe’s “history from below,” microhistorians have sought to tell local, often personal, stories of obscure or marginal figures, or they have illuminate little-known or little-documented events from the past. Let us examine three representative microhistories—Carlo Ginzburg’s The Cheese and the Worms, Robert Darnton’s “The Great Cat Massacre,” and Rhys Isaac’s Landon Carter’s Uneasy Kingdom—and their relationship with “traditional history.”
One difficulty traditional historians have had with microhistory is the indeterminacy of many of its sources. For example, while the primary source for The Cheese and Worms is the trial record of the principle historical actor, Domenico Scandella, known as Menocchio, Ginzburg concedes that oral popular culture has come down to historians largely through the distorted lenses of upper class written sources. Since Menocchio is not among the elites, and left no written record of his own, his story is known to us only through others. “At best, what is noted,” Ginzburg grieves, “is the ‘decay’ or the ‘distortion’ experienced by those ideas or beliefs in the course of their transmission,” and he accedes that “the thoughts, the beliefs and the aspirations of the peasants and artisans of the past reach us…through distorting viewpoints and intermediaries.”[12] At the outset, Ginzburg acknowledges that by dealing with a historical actor for whom we have essentially no other sources, we are at a clear disadvantage over other well-documented histories. Similarly, Robert Darnton seems reluctant to “overload” the story of the seventeenth century massacre of cats on the Rue Saint-Séverin “with social commentary,” but he finds it difficult to proceed without this form of historical analysis. Darnton, too, confess that the primary sources available for his microhistory are scant, with “the only version of the cat massacre available” being “put into writing, long after the fact, by Nicolas Contat,” who “selected details, ordered events, and framed his story in such a way as to bring out what was meaningful for him.”[13] Darnton’s primary source amounts to an admittedly biased secondary source. However, Ginzburg replies to this general charge by asserting that “the fact that a source is not ‘objective’…does not mean that it is not useful,” adding that even “meager, scattered, and obscure documentation can be put to good use.”[14]
Rhys Isaac’s treatment of Landon Carter encounters similar difficulties. His principle primary source is the diary of Carter himself, though in many chapters the narrative he w
eaves has more to do with other characters involved in Carter’s life—namely, the slaves Carter owned as a plantation patriarch in mid-eighteenth century Virginia. Unfortunately, as Isaac discloses, we have no slave narratives written by “the Eight” runaway slaves, and he attempts to close the gaps in knowledge with other related information. Isaac utilizes the 1930s Federal Writer’s Project archives of aged, former slaves’ stories, claiming that he was “persuaded that these memoirs from the enslaved must be called upon to the one-sided, harsh account of the lives of their people that Landon left to his diary….”[15] These imperfectly-recollected, disparate accounts afford no continuity between the lives of mid-eighteenth century Virginian slaves and the various ex-slaves who were released from bondage as youths in the 1860s. Furthermore, Isaac’s exploitation of these sources presumes that popular and folk cultures existed in a vacuum and remained static over the course of nearly two centuries. By defining slavery as “being compelled to act out not one’s own story but the story imposed on one by another,” Isaac makes it difficult to reconcile his own imposition of stories onto those whom he seeks to historically emancipate.[16]
eaves has more to do with other characters involved in Carter’s life—namely, the slaves Carter owned as a plantation patriarch in mid-eighteenth century Virginia. Unfortunately, as Isaac discloses, we have no slave narratives written by “the Eight” runaway slaves, and he attempts to close the gaps in knowledge with other related information. Isaac utilizes the 1930s Federal Writer’s Project archives of aged, former slaves’ stories, claiming that he was “persuaded that these memoirs from the enslaved must be called upon to the one-sided, harsh account of the lives of their people that Landon left to his diary….”[15] These imperfectly-recollected, disparate accounts afford no continuity between the lives of mid-eighteenth century Virginian slaves and the various ex-slaves who were released from bondage as youths in the 1860s. Furthermore, Isaac’s exploitation of these sources presumes that popular and folk cultures existed in a vacuum and remained static over the course of nearly two centuries. By defining slavery as “being compelled to act out not one’s own story but the story imposed on one by another,” Isaac makes it difficult to reconcile his own imposition of stories onto those whom he seeks to historically emancipate.[16]Another issue traditional historians have with microhistory is its seeming lack of broad explanatory power. Traditionally, history was a discipline used to explicate the origin, causation, or meaning of large historical events. While this focus was narrowed once the nineteenth-century history of “great men” and their politico-military exploits gave way to the more nuanced social and cultural histories of the twentieth century, history remained the story of big events, ideas, and movements. What can we learn of the broader historical implications of sixteenth-century religion, for example, by examining one Friulian miller, and an atypical one at that? Ginzburg claims that we can learn a
great deal because even individual stories are important for their own sake. Although he does not claim that Menocchio is representative of his age, Ginzburg does declare that an investigation into his trial “confirm[s] the existence of traits reduceable [sic] to a common peasant culture.”[17] Likewise, the folk traditions of early modern Frenchmen remain largely a matter of guesswork, and while Darnton is careful not to extrapolate too much from his study of the cat massacre, he does imply that “common motifs [can] be found” that bond the French print-shop apprentices to similar popular cultures in space and time.[18] By sifting “through collections of folk tales, superstitions, proverbs, and popular medicine” that “resisted the influence of the printed word,” Darnton grants that the typical historical dimensions may not be able to hold this investigation. As opposed to the Annales School’s interest in mentalités, or the mindset of an entire culture, microhistorians often use the term “cosmology” to describe the individual outlook of one person, not necessarily in the metaphysical sense, but certainly in descriptive terms affirming personal identity or “self-hood.”[19] Personal ideologies constitute “cosmologies,” and it is the microhistorian’s task to elucidate these.
great deal because even individual stories are important for their own sake. Although he does not claim that Menocchio is representative of his age, Ginzburg does declare that an investigation into his trial “confirm[s] the existence of traits reduceable [sic] to a common peasant culture.”[17] Likewise, the folk traditions of early modern Frenchmen remain largely a matter of guesswork, and while Darnton is careful not to extrapolate too much from his study of the cat massacre, he does imply that “common motifs [can] be found” that bond the French print-shop apprentices to similar popular cultures in space and time.[18] By sifting “through collections of folk tales, superstitions, proverbs, and popular medicine” that “resisted the influence of the printed word,” Darnton grants that the typical historical dimensions may not be able to hold this investigation. As opposed to the Annales School’s interest in mentalités, or the mindset of an entire culture, microhistorians often use the term “cosmology” to describe the individual outlook of one person, not necessarily in the metaphysical sense, but certainly in descriptive terms affirming personal identity or “self-hood.”[19] Personal ideologies constitute “cosmologies,” and it is the microhistorian’s task to elucidate these. One final issue traditional historians have had with microhistory is its haphazard theoretical approach. While in many ways, microhistory may be viewed as a reaction against the broad and impersonal Annales School, it has maintained, as Giovanni Levi has averred, an “interchange with the social sciences…without…feeling any need to refer to any coherent system of concepts or principles of their own.”[20] In short, with “no body of established orthodoxy,” microhistory may best be regarded as a methodological tool rather than a theoretical construct.[21] If this is true, do historians approach microhistory with preconceived intellectual and interpretive frameworks, and if so, does this defeat the purpose of historical inquiry? While this is a greater issue among postmodernists, microhistorians and their critics must contend with it as well. Levi has argued that microhistory may best be viewed as a form of cultural anthropology, and just as anthropological research is often conducted from within, microhistorical research may be best understood from within as well. This, of course, entails an insertion of the author into his own historical narrative, and certainly this is the case with Ginzburg and Isaac. Ginzburg—the son of a father murdered by Nazis—must refute claims that he may be dehistoricizing Menocchio in order to empathize with him. As a commoner used by elites with power over him, Menocchio provides an excellent canvas on which to paint one’s own personal picture.[22] Still, Ginzburg’s careful handling of the historical material makes this a tenuous position to hold. Rhys Isaac introduces himself into Landon Carter’s story several pages into his narrative, describing his own “fascination with the past” and his conviction that “Landon Carter’s diary…should be systematically read for the riches it contained.”[23] One wonders whether the story is more about him than Carter, though if it does not obscure the telling of the historical narrative, has it really contravened the aim of history?
In conclusion, microhistory, though it has its drawbacks, represents one of the many ways history diversified in the 1970s and 80s, and it remains a methodological tool often employed by historians interested in subjects that otherwise would be given only brief treatment in larger historical works. On the one hand, it utilizes many of the social science tools bequeathed to it by the Annales School, but on the other, it tells a historical story that is deeply narrative in structure and eschews the impersonal tone of those histories against which it reacted. Western historiography has undergone numerous changes in its long history, and microhistory is simply another in a long line of historical writing and thinking, and it is particularly well-suited as a companion of contemporary social, cultural, and intellectual history. As, in part, a product of the societies that produce them, these major historical trends illuminate not only the time periods on which they comment, but also the time periods from which they spring.
In conclusion, microhistory, though it has its drawbacks, represents one of the many ways history diversified in the 1970s and 80s, and it remains a methodological tool often employed by historians interested in subjects that otherwise would be given only brief treatment in larger historical works. On the one hand, it utilizes many of the social science tools bequeathed to it by the Annales School, but on the other, it tells a historical story that is deeply narrative in structure and eschews the impersonal tone of those histories against which it reacted. Western historiography has undergone numerous changes in its long history, and microhistory is simply another in a long line of historical writing and thinking, and it is particularly well-suited as a companion of contemporary social, cultural, and intellectual history. As, in part, a product of the societies that produce them, these major historical trends illuminate not only the time periods on which they comment, but also the time periods from which they spring.
[1] Michael Bentley, Modern Historiography: An Introduction, 37.
[6]T. Stoianavich, French Historical Method: The ‘Annales’ Paradigm, quoted in Michael Bentley, Modern Historiography, 107.
[8]Thomas Keuhn, The Annales School and Microhistory, Lecture Hardin Hall, Clemson University, 19 October 2009.
[10]Jim Sharpe, “History from Below” in New Perspectives in Historical Writing, ed. Peter Burke, 31.
[15]Rhys Isaac, Landon Carter’s Uneasy Kingdom: Revolution and Rebellion on a Virginia Plantation, 193.
[16]Ibid., 7, and Paul Anderson, Sources and Themes in Southern History, Lecture Hardin Hall, Clemson University, 16 November 2009.
[19]Paul Anderson, Sources and Themes in Southern History, Lecture Hardin Hall, Clemson University, 16 November 2009.
[20]Giovanni Levi, “On Microhistory,” in New Perspectives on Historical Writing, ed. Perter Burke, 93.
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