Element contents
Plural Pasts
Historiography between Events and Structures
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 December 2023
Summary
What is history about? This Element shows that answers centred on the keyword 'past events' are incomplete, even if they are not simply wrong. Interweaving theoretical and historical perspectives, it provides an abstract overview of the thematic plurality that characterizes contemporary academic historiography. The reflection on different sorts of pasts that can be at focus in historical research and writing encompasses events as well as non-events, especially recursive social structures and cultural webs. Some consequences of such plurality for discussions concerning historical methodology, explanation, exemplification, and representation are also outlined. The basic message, reinforced throughout, is that the great relevance of non-event-centred approaches should prompt us to talk more about “histories” in the plural and less about “history” in the singular.
- Type
- Element
- Information
- Online ISBN: 9781009036337Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication: 14 December 2023
References
Ankersmit, Frank, Meaning, Truth, and Reference in Historical Representation. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Araújo, André de Melo, ‘Imagens da simultaneidade e os impasses da narrativa: O caso da “Synopsis historiae universalis” (1766) de Johann Christoph Gatterer’, Tempo 21 (2015), 192–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Assmann, Jan, Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aumüller, Matthias, ‘Text Types’, in Hühn, Peter, Pier, John, Schmid, Wolf, & Schönert, Jörg (eds.), Handbook of Narratology, Volume 2. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014, 854–67.Google Scholar
Bachmann-Medick, Doris, Cultural Turns: Neuorientierungen in den Kulturwis senschaften. Hamburg: Reinbek, 2006.Google Scholar
Balmaceda, Catalina, ’La Antigüedad clásica: Grecia y Roma’, in Aurell, Jaume, Balmaceda, Catalina, Burke, Peter, & Soza, Felipe (eds.), Comprender el passado. Una historia de Ia escritura y el pensamiento histórico. Madrid: Akal, 2013, 9–58.Google Scholar
Bell, David A., ‘Total History and Microhistory’, in Kramer, Lloyd & Maza, Sarah (eds.), A Companion to Western Historical Thought. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006, 262–76.Google Scholar
Bösch, Frank, ’Das historische Ereignis’, in Dokupedia-Zeitgeschichte. Potsdam: Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung, 2020. http://dx.doi.org/10.14765/zzf.dok-1754.Google Scholar
Braudel, Fernand, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, 2 vols. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Capdevila, Luc, Paraguay bajo la sombra de sus guerras: Historia, memoria y construcción política, siglos XIX/XXI. Madrid: Sb, 2021.Google Scholar
Carr, David, ‘Narrative Explanation and Its Malcontents’, History and Theory 47 (2008), 19–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Casati, Roberto & Varzi, Achille, ‘Events’, in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2020. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2020/entries/events/.Google Scholar
Cassirer, Ernst, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Volume 1: Language. London: Routledge, 2021.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chatman, Seymour, Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1978.Google Scholar
Chazel, François, ‘Social Structure’, in Baltes, P. & Smelser, N. (eds.), International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2001, 15233–7.Google Scholar
Cheng, Eileen Ka-May, Historiography: An Introductory Guide. London: Continuum, 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christian, David, Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, Elizabeth A., History, Theory, Text: Historians and the Linguistic Turn. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Coseriu, Eugenio, Sincronía, diacronía e historia: El problema del cambio linguistico. Madrid: Gredos, 1978.Google Scholar
Croce, Benedetto, ‘La storia ridotta sotto il concetto generale dell’arte’, Atti dell’Accademia pontaniana, XXIII (1893), 118–49.Google Scholar
Daston, Lorraine, ‘Baconian Facts, Academic Civility, and the Prehistory of Objectivity’, in Megill, Allan (ed.), Rethinking Objectivity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994, 37–63.Google Scholar
Davis, Natalie Z., The Return of Martin Guerre. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983.Google Scholar
Doratioto, Francisco, Maldita Guerra: Nova história da Guerra do Paraguai. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2002.Google Scholar
Dosse, François, History of Structuralism, Volume 1: The Rising Sign (1945–1966). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Dosse, François, ‘Historical Event between the Sphinx and the Phoenix’, in Tamm, Marek (ed.), Afterlife of Events: Perspectives on Mnemohistory. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, 27–43.Google Scholar
Droysen, Johann G., Historik: Vorlesungen über Enzyklopädie und Methodologie der Geschichte. Munich: Oldenbourg, 1971.Google Scholar
Durkheim, Émile, The Rules of Sociological Method and Selected Texts on Sociology and Its Method. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.Google Scholar
Elder-Vass, Dave, ‘Material Parts in Social Structures’, Journal of Social Ontology 3 (2017), 89–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epstein, Brian, The Ant Trap: Rebuilding the Foundations of the Social Sciences. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epstein, Brian, ‘Social Ontology’, in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2018. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/social-ontology/.Google Scholar
Fillion, Real, ‘The Continuing Relevance of Speculative Philosophy of History’, Journal of the Philosophy of History 8 (2014), 180–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Førland, Tor E., Values, Objectivity, and Explanation in Historiography. London: Routledge, 2017.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gadamer, Hans-Georg, Gesammelte Werke, Band I: Wahrheit und Methode. Tübingen: Mohr, 1990.Google Scholar
Geertz, Clifford, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic Books, 1973.Google Scholar
Giddens, Anthony, The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. London: Polity, 1997.Google Scholar
Ginzburg, Carlo, The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Ginzburg, Carlo & Poni, Carlo, ‘Il nome e il come: scambio ineguale e mercato storiografico’, Quaderni storici 14 (1979), 181–90.Google Scholar
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, Zur Farbenlehre, Band II. Tübingen: J.-G. Cotta‘sche Buchhandlung, 1810.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, Peter E., ‘Contextualism and Criticism in the History of Ideas’, in Moyn, Samuel & McMahon, Darrin (eds.), Modern Intellectual History: Reappraisals and New Perspectives for the Twenty-First Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013, 32–55.Google Scholar
Haslanger, Sally, ‘What Is a (Social) Structural Explanation?’, Philosophical Studies 173 (2016), 113–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hempel, Carl G., ‘The Function of General Laws in History’, Journal of Philosophy 39 (1942), 35–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hobsbawm, Eric, Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914–1991. London: Abacus, 1995.Google Scholar
Hughes-Warrington, Marnie, Big and Little Histories: Sizing Up Ethics in Historiography. London: Routledge, 2021.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huizinga, Johan, The Autumn of the Middle Ages. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 1996.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Humboldt, Wilhelm von, ‘On the Historian’s Task’, History and Theory 6 (1967), 57–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iggers, Georg G. & Wang, Q. Edward, A Global History of Modern Historiography. Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2008.Google Scholar
Jay, Martin, ‘Historical Explanation and the Event: Reflections on the Limits of Contextualization’, New Literary History 42 (2011), 557–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jung, Theo & Karla, Anna, ‘Times of the Event: An Introduction’, History and Theory 60 (2021), 75–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kansteiner, Wulf, ‘Argumentation, Beschreibung und Erzählung in der wissenschaftlichen Historiographie’, in Sandkühler, Thomas & Blanke, Horst Walter (eds.), Historisierung der Historik: Jörn Rüsen zum 80. Geburtstag. Köln: Böhlau, 2018, 151–68.Google Scholar
Kansteiner, Wulf, ‘History beyond Narration: The Shifting Terrain of Bloodlands’, in Berger, Stefan, Brauch, Nicola, & Lorenz, Chris (eds.), Analysing Historical Narratives: On Academic, Popular and Educational Framings of the Past. New York: Berghahn, 2021, 51–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karla, Anna, ‘Controversial Chronologies: The Temporal Demarcation of Historic Events’, History and Theory 60 (2021), 134–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kleinberg, Ethan, Haunting History: For a Deconstructive Approach to the Past. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2017.Google Scholar
Kocka, Jürgen, Sozialgeschichte: Begriff – Entwicklung – Probleme. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986.Google Scholar
Koselleck, Reinhart, Vergangene Zukunft: Zur Semantik geschichtlicher Zeiten. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1989.Google Scholar
Koselleck, Reinhart, Begriffsgeschichten: Studien zur Semantik und Pragmatik der politischen und sozialen Sprache. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2010.Google Scholar
Kuukkanen, Jouni-Matti, Postnarrativist Philosophy of Historiography. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuukkanen, Jouni-Matti, ‘Fact’, in Berger, Stefan (ed.), Bloomsbury History: Theory and Method. London: Bloomsbury, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781350970885.072.Google Scholar
Little, Daniel, New Contributions to the Philosophy of History. Dordrecht: Springer, 2010.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mahdi, Muhsin, Ibn Khaldûn’s Philosophy of History: A Study in the Philosophic Foundation of the Science of Culture. London: Routledge, 2016.Google Scholar
Malerba, Jurandir, Ensaios: teoria, história e ciências sociais. Londrina: Eduel, 2011.Google Scholar
Martin, John L., Social Structures. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marx, Karl, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. New York: International Publishers, 1963.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977.Google Scholar
Mauldin, Erin Stewart, ‘Environmental History’, in Berger, Stefan (ed.), Bloomsbury History: Theory and Method. London: Bloomsbury, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781350970847.043.Google Scholar
Megill, Allan, Historical Knowledge, Historical Error: A Contemporary Guide to Practice. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Mergel, Thomas, ‘Kulturgeschichte der Politik’, in Bösch, Frank & Danyel, Jürgen (eds.), Zeitgeschichte: Konzepte und Methoden. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012, 187–203.Google Scholar
Munz, Peter, The Shapes of Time: A New Look at the Philosophy of History. Middletown, NY: Wesleyan University Press, 1977.Google Scholar
Offenburger, Andrew, ‘The Xhosa Cattle-Killing Movement in History and Literature’, History Compass, 7 (2009), 1428–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ohara, João, The Theory and Philosophy of History: Global Variations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pedersen, Susan, ‘What Is Political History Now?’, in Cannadine, David (ed.), What Is History Now? Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002, 36–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peires, Jeffrey B., The Dead Will Arise: Nongqawuse and the Great Xhosa Cattle-Killing Movement of 1856–7. Johannesburg: Raven Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Pereira, Mateus H. F., ‘A história entre os inimigos do evento e os advogados da estrutura’, Ler História 57 (2009), 59–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peters, Gabriel, Percursos na teoria das práticas sociais: Anthony Giddens e Pierre Bourdieu. São Paulo: Annablume, 2015.Google Scholar
Phillips, Mark S., Society and Sentiment: Genres of Historical Writing in Britain, 1740–1820. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pomian, Krzysztof, ‘Evento’, in Enciclopédia Einaudi, Volume 29. Lisbon: INCM, 1993, 214–35.Google Scholar
Raphael, Lutz, ‘Die “Neue Geschichte” – Umbrüche und Neue Wege der Geschichtsschreibung in internationaler Perspektive (1880–1940)’, in Küttler, Wolfgang, Rüsen, Jörn, & Schulin, Ernst (eds.), Geschichtsdiskurs, Volume 4. Frankfurt: Fischer, 1997, 51–89.Google Scholar
Raphael, Lutz, Geschichtswissenschaft im Zeitalter der Extreme: Theorien, Methoden, Tendenzen von 1900 bis zur Gegenwart. Munich: Beck, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reill, Peter H., The German Enlightenment and the Rise of Historicism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975.Google Scholar
Retz, Tyson, Progress and the Scale of History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Revel, Jacques, Proposições: Ensaios de História e Historiografia. Rio de Janeiro: Ed. UERJ, 2009.Google Scholar
Rickert, Heinrich, The Limits of Concept Formation in Natural Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Ricœur, Paul, Time and Narrative, Volume I. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 1984.Google Scholar
Ritchie, Katherine, ‘Social Structures and the Ontology of Social Groups’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 100 (2020), 402–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rocha, Magalhães, Sabrina, Os periódicos e a crítica da história: A recepção de Lucien Febvre por seus contemporâneos. Vitória: Milfontes, 2021.Google Scholar
Roth, Paul A., The Philosophical Structure of Historical Explanation. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2020.Google Scholar
Rüsen, Jörn, Rekonstruktion der Vergangenheit: Grundzüge einer Historik II: Die Prinzipien der historischen Forschung. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986.Google Scholar
Rüsen, Jörn, Historik: Theorie der Geschichtswissenschaft. Cologne: Böhlau, 2013.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ryan, Marie-Laure, ‘Toward a Definition of Narrative’, in Herman, David (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, 22–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scholtz, Oliver R., ‘Philosophy of History: Metaphysics and Epistemology’, in Kaiser, Marie, Scholz, Oliver R., Plenge, Daniel, & Hüttemann, Andreas (eds.), Explanation in the Special Sciences: The Cases of Biology and History. Dordrecht: Springer, 2014, 245–53.Google Scholar
Serna, Justo & Pons, Anaclet, La historia cultural: autores, obras, lugares. Madrid: Akal, 2013.Google Scholar
Sewell, Jr, William, Logics of History: Social Theory and Social Transformation. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sreedharan, E., A Textbook of Historiography, 500 BC to AD 2000. Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan, 2017.Google Scholar
Tamm, Marek, ‘Introduction’, in Tamm, Marek (ed.), Afterlife of Events: Perspectives on Mnemohistory. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, 1–23.Google Scholar
Tozzi Thompson, Verónica, ‘Narrativism’, in van den Akker, Chiel (ed.), The Routledge Companion to Historical Theory. London: Routledge, 2022, 113–28.Google Scholar
Tucker, Aviezer. Our Knowledge of the Past: A Philosophy of Historiography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van den Akker, Chiel, The Exemplifying Past: A Philosophy of History. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018.Google Scholar
Veyne, Paul, Writing History: Essay on Epistemology. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984.Google Scholar
Weinstein, Barbara, ‘History without a Cause? Grand Narratives, World History, and the Postcolonial Dilemma’, International Review of Social History 50 (2005), 71–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Welskopp, Thomas, ‘Die Sozialgeschichte Der Väter: Grenzen und Perspektiven der Historischen Sozialwissenschaft’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft 24 (1998), 173–98.Google Scholar
White, Hayden, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Baltimore MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973.Google Scholar
White, Hayden, The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Woolf, Daniel, A Global History of History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.Google Scholar
- 2
- Cited by