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and
expanding group.
He also surveys social
history
developments
in France
An-
nales and
the U.S.
( social-scientific
history ).
For Eley the turn
to Marxism was
absolutely
central.
He
was
deeply
influenced
by authors
like Raymond
Williams, Antonio Gramsci,
and particularly
Edward P.
Thompson,
whom
he
selected
as
his model. As
a
result,
Eley
developed
a
strong
identification
with a specific
type of social
history that was
still defined
by
the
belief
in
the primacy
of
socio-economic
factors of explanation,
which
was highly
interested
in culture
in
the
sense of embedded
cultural
practices, and which
heavily
I
would say, narrowly)
concentrated on
the history of class
(especially
the
working
class)
while pursuing
a
totalizing ambition, namely,
the
aim
of
understanding
the
history
of
society
at large
from
the perspective
of
Marxist class
analysis. Under
the
heading
Optimism,
the
first part of the
book
manages well
to
reconstruct the
excitement,
the dynamics,
and the productivity
of
those years.
Eley
shows why
it
was
a
good time
to
become
a
social historian
with broad interests in
societal his-
tory.
He
revives
the
high
hopes
young social historians
with his
profile
then
cher-
ished with
respect
to changing
the discipline as well
as the world.
In
the second part
of the book (61-114)
Eley
tries
to
show
that,
how,
and why
these hopes
have failed.
For that purpose
he rehashes
an old controversy
that he
had with
a German group
of
social historians
(including
this reviewer) in the
1970s, and
that seems
to have left
its
scars.
He recollects how
his initial excite-
ment
about
the Bielefeld
School
turned
into disappointment.
The
controversy
related
to specifics
of
research
on the
German
Kaiserreich
(especially
by
Hans-
Ulrich Wehler);
to the
comparative
interpretation
of modern
German
history rela-
tive
to the West
and
with regard
to
the
breakdown
of German democracy under
the onslaught
of Nazism
in
1933
(the
Sonderweg
debate); and to
the relation
be-
tween
structure/process
and
perception/agency
in
social-historical explanation.
In
retrospect
I concede that Eley
had
many
good
points. Positions
he then attacked
have been
modified
later
on,
the advocates
of
the Sonderweg
thesis
have
learned
to
historicize their
position,'
and
there
was indeed an
overemphasis on
structures
and processes
here and there
to be corrected in
the following
years. In retrospect
it
is
quite clear that
Eley's
The
Peculiarities
f
German
History:
BourgeoisSociety
and
Politics
in Nineteenth-CenturyGermany,
which
he co-authored
with David
Blackbourn,
2
had a productive
influence, for
example, on the
emerging research
about the bourgeoisie
of
nineteenth-
and twentieth-century
Europe, a
field that al-
lowed
German
historians
in the 1980s
to
interconnect social
and
cultural history
in a specific way.
(This
is an
important
development,
not
mentioned
in
Eley's
account at all.) In other
aspects
of the
controversy,
I think we
were
right, and
Eley
was
wrong:
the victory of
fascism in some
European
countries
cannot
be suf-
ficiently
explained in
terms
of
capitalist
crisis
nor by the immediate turbulences
following
World War
I,
but
was made
possible
and
was facilitated
by long-term
JORG N
KOCKA
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The reconstruction
of
perceptions
and
actions
is
indispensable,
but
cannot
replace
the analysis
of
structures
and
processes
that
both
condition (not
determine)
as
well
as
follow
them
(frequently
in
unintended
and
unanticipated
forms).
Eley
had
no
access
to the
Weberian
spirit in which
we
in
Bielefeld
used
social
con-
cepts
and
theories, including
Marxist
ones.
From
Weber one
could
learn to avoid
any kind
of
social
determinism
and
to
understand
how much
one's conceptual
choices
always depend
on one's own
cultural
constellation
and normative
orienta-
tion,
which
change
and
are
not shared
by everybody.
From
Weber
one
could
learn
that
even
the most
comprehensive
history
of
a whole
society
cannot but
be
selec-
tive
and
constructed
according
to
the research
interests,
questions, and
concepts
of
its
author, that
is,
it
cannot really
be total
and
is
never
definitive.
For Eley
we were
not
Marxist
or
culturalist
enough, while
at
the
same
time
we
were
too
liberal
and
perhaps too
Social
Democratic
(94).
His presentation
of West German
social
history
in
the 1970s
is
one-sided
and partisan.
He likes to
divide
the
world
between
friends
and foes, and
he
remembers
well
who belongs
to whom.
Finally,
everything
was
very
much
in flux
in
the 1970s,
including
in
the small
Bielefeld
grouping.
Why
should
such a normal
and
interesting
controversy
among
social
historians have
led
Eley
into
deep
doubts
about
the
potential
of his
variant
of
social
history
and
of social
history
in
general?
His
other arguments
are better.
In a well
considered
and
fair
reconstruction
of
the
outstanding
work
by
Tim Mason
(on Nazism
and
the working
class)
and
of
his
failure to
develop
this into
a
comprehensive ( totalizing )
analysis
of
German
fascism
from
a social-historical,
class-analytical
point
of
view,
Eley
manages
to
show
that
there
are
limits
to what
social-historical
analysis
can
reach,
particularly
if it
works from
a Marxist
class-analytical
standpoint
A
a Thompson.
In addition,
this
type of
social
history
faced
other limits
when
confronted
with non-class
is-
sues
like
gender, increasingly
discussed
and
dramatized
by feminists.
Eley
plausi-
bly
argues
that
he,
like
other social
historians,
became
aware
of
such
limits in
the
late
1970s
and
1980s.
He convincingly
shows
that
this
sobering
learning
process
was
decisively
supported
by the
changing
political
climate
of
the
late 1970s
an d
1980s,
when, not only
in
Britain, the
left
lost
out
and
the
Forward
March
of La-
bour in which
many
socialists
had
still believed
came
to
a halt (to
use
the title
of
Hobsbawm's
famous
speech
of
1978).
In those years
at
many
places, small
cracks
became
visible,
at
least
more
visible
than
before,
in
the widespread
(though
never
universal)
belief
in
the
superiority
of
the
social-historical
paradigm.
Eley traces
them
well.
I think that
the
shift
of
the
Zeitgeist
described
by
Eley
had many
ramifications
and
causes
hard
to
identify
in
a
short
book.
The
decline of
the intellectual
power
of Marxism
was, after all,
a
worldwide
phenomenon,
following several
decades
in
which
Marxist
ideas
had
experienced
a
surprising
revival
that
may
be
even
harder
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source of collective
identity
than
as a medium
that showed the changeability of
the
world.
Eley has interesting things to
say
about
this topic
(148-155).
On the
other
hand, I
think
that
Eley
tends to overstate
his case. Throughout
the book he overstresses
the
impact
of politics on
the
historical discipline
and
underestimates
the
degree
to
which
it
follows
a
logic
of
its
own.
In
addition,
the
crisis he
describes
was
much
more a crisis of
the class analytical standpoint
of Thompsonian
social
history (112)
than of other
variants of
social history
or
social history
in general.
But
the
main
thrust
of his argument
is
convincing.
The
time in which
nearly everybody
had
wanted
to become
or at least be called
a so-
cial
historian
ended in
the late 1970s
and early 1980s.
It had
lasted
not more than
a
decade.
The
third part of
the book (115-182) is
a
fascinating
account
of how Eley, now
at the University of Michigan,
reacted to this
perceived
crisis: by programmati-
cally
moving
away from social
history, by fully
embracing
the
cultural
turns
of
the 1980s
and
1990s,
by deeply
plunging
into the
post-structuralist,
culturalist
mood of the time.
Eley combines
a
vivid account of
single conferences, forma-
tive
encounters,
and
specific
reading
experiences
with short
introductions
into
an
impressive number
of fresh, at least
newly perceived,
intellectual
departures and
scholarly
fashions,
and
then tries
to
make clear
why he joined them.
Taking
the
turn (121) would
be
the
appropriate
heading for
the
whole chapter.
Eley
deals
with
the
challenges
and
opportunities
of gender
history (very important for him),
new social
theorizing, Anglo-American
cultural studies,
the
renewed
alliance
be-
tween history
and
anthropology,
non-class
issues like
race and post-colonial
think-
ing
about transcultural entanglements,
as
well as the nearly promiscuous
(143)
boom
in public
memory work
as
a form
of nostalgia
for
the present (Fredric
Jameson), which
in
my view,
however,
did not lead to
blurring
the lines
between
professional
history
and other
forms
of
historical remembrance
but to the
rise
of
a
new subfield:
history
of
memory, Eley
has much
to
say
about
the linguistic
turn
and postmodern
thought, about
decentering
the
writing of
history, and the
importance
of subjectivity,
this last in
relation to older
trends
like microhistory
and
everyday
history. Some of
his miniatures
are
brilliant,
and many
of
them
not
only strongly partisan
in an affirmative
sense, but
also informative,
particularly
for
readers who,
like
this
reviewer,
have
been more
reluctant
in
embracing
the
cultural
turn in all its
facets. I particularly
like
Eley's
short
exposition
of what
Foucault
meant
for
him
and may
offer
to
historians
(127-129),
as well as his well
informed
genealogy of
the postcolonial
impact on
historical
thought
and writing
in England,
the
U.S., and India
since the 1980s
(138-148).
Backing
Away
from
the
Social
(155)
can be seen
as
the common
denomina-
tor of
most of these
trends, as
well as a
growing
distance
from economic
history
and reasoning.
It
is
surprising how affirmative
and
uncritical
Eley's
account
of
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other hand it
is irritating
to
read
how
little Eley-who
continues
to
see
himself
as
a
Europeanist -has
to say with
respect
to
the
fundamental
caesura
around
1989-1991
about
what
it
meant
for intellectuals
from
the
left and
for
historical
thought
and
writing.
Here
he has lost
contact
with
the changing
reality of histori-
cal
scholarship and
thought,
at least in
Europe. If
this is the price
to
be
paid
for his
cultural
turn with
a
Marxist
flavor, it
is
too
high.
In
a short final
chapter,
titled Defiance,
Eley starts his
own reflections
about
the
costs
and
the shortcomings
of the last
decades'
move
toward cultural
history.
He
realizes that,
in practical
historical research and
writing, the
hotly
debated op-
position between
social history
and cultural
history is
frequently transformed
into
interesting
combinations
that bring elements
from
both sides together.
(This
is, I
want to
add, very true
and
at
least
as old
a phenomenon as the
heated
debate
on
social
vs.
cultural
history itself.
If
one takes this
seriously,
it
relativizes
the weight
of
this debate quite
a
bit.) Eley
also
concedes that
important large-scale
problems
like state-formation,
nation-building,
class conflict,
revolutions, capitalism,
social
inequality,
and
long-term
changes
of
whole
societies have been
utterly
neglected
or driven underground
under the
impact of the
different cultural,
linguistic,
and
other turns
that kept us
busy.
He
hopes
that the possibility
will
be regained
of
grasping
society
as
a
whole,
of
theorizing
its
basis of cohesion and
instability, and
of analyzing
its form
of
motion
(201-202). He
throws
skeptical
glances
at
what
happens
outside
the
new cultural histories,
for example, global
history
and
histori-
cal
sociology. Grand
narratives
can't
be
contested
by
skepticism
and
incredulity
alone,
least of all
when new or
refurbished grand
narratives
are so
powerfully
reordering
the
globe (203).
For these
tasks so central
for
a politically commit-
ted
history
on
the
left he
does
not
find
much
in
the
new
cultural
histories. He
is
correctly convinced that
a simple
return to
the social
history of
the 1960s and
1970s is impossible. But
he wants
to explore how
and
in what
form
the
earlier
moment of social history
might be
recuperated (xii).
He
concludes with the
quest
for
new
histories of society
that would profit
from both shocks
of innovation in
my lifetime,
the social
history wave and
the new
cultural history (203).
All that
is well
and
good. It resonates
with
many
previous criticisms
of cul-
turalism
and
with skeptical
voices
from inside the
cultural historical
camp
that,
ever since
the
late 1990s,
have
started
to
look
beyond the
cultural turn.
It fits
recent experiments
of younger
historians with new
variants of
social-cultural
his-
tory under the name
of history of
practice.
The
new curve
in
Eley's intellectual
biography
deserves full support.
But so far it
remains vague,
indeterminate, and
in a way
helpless.
If Eley
means
it
seriously he will have
to distance
himself
more
clearly, certainly
not from
the many rich
results and
impressive
achievements
of
the
discipline's
cultural
turn
in
general,
but from the
anti-analytic, anti-structural,
voluntaristic, and fragmentizing
thrusts central
to
some
of
its
theories and prac-
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KOCKA
are not even touched upon by Eley, who, after
all, is
not really interested in com-
parison.
Other social historians
have
dealt
with the changing
times, the new is-
sues,
and the challenges
of cultural history
in very different
ways neither practiced
nor
described by Eley:
by critical debate,
by partial rejection
and partial adoption
of
new
thoughts
and
challenging alternatives,
by
intensive learning,
by
combining
openness to change
with the virtue
of consistency. Social
history has undergone
a
deep
restructuring,
has lost old opponents and
gained new
ones,
became
even
more
heterogeneous,
more fragmented, and still
harder to delineate;
it entered into
many
new
combinations
and penetrated
historical thought
and writing
in
general.
It remains
lively,
dynamic,
and
good
for
surprises, in numerous
forms
and
in
many countries.
Presently
its
transnationalization
is
well
on the way.'
Today
the
concept
social
history
is less
in
vogue
than
some
decades
ago.
Social
history
is
presently
less
political
and
utopian than
in
the 1960s and 1970s.
Compared with
those
early years, social
history
is
now
less of
a program,
but more of a
reality.
rich literature
is
available that offers
many impulses
and building
blocks to any-
body interested
in writing histories
of societies.
But it needs
new viewpoints,
questions, and categories
to bring them
together and off
the ground.
JURGEN
KOCKA
Free University
of Berlin
3.
Informative overviews,
reflections,
and
examples documenting
recent developments in
social
history
worldwide can be
found
in
Journalof Social History 37, no.
(Fall
2003). Just a
few
examples
from a German
and European perspective include
Hans-Ulrich
Wehler's four-volume history of
German
society,
Deutsche
Gesellschaftsgeschichte
Munich:
C. H.
Beck, 1987-2003); a
final volume
on
the
period
1949-1990
will
appear
in
2008; G6ran
Therborn,
European Modernity
and Beyond: h
Trajectory
o
European
Societies
1945-2000
(Newbury
Park, CA: Sage
Publications,
1995);
Charles
S.
Maier, Consigning the 20th
Century to
History: Alternative
Narratives for the
Modern Era,
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COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
TITLE: Returning to Social History?
SOURCE: Hist Theory 47 no3 O 2008
Wesleyan University is the copyright holder of this article and it is
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