The Old New History Charles Tilly

THE OLD NEW SOCIAL HISTORY

AND THE NEW OLD SOCIAL HISTORY

Charles T i l l y

Un ive r s i t y of Michigan

October 1980

Revised ve r s ion of a-.keynote add res s t o t h e

Conference on New D i r e c t i o n s i n H i s to ry , S t a t e

Univers i ty of New York A t Buffa lo , 3-4 October 19.80

-1- S o c i a l His tory Renewed?

I n t h e s p r i n g of 1968, t h e learned jou rna l Daedalus convened a covey

of h i s t o r i a n s . The group included some e s t a b l f s h e d sages , such as F e l i x G f l b e r t .

It a l s o brought i'n people -- f o r example, Frank Manuel, Eugene Genovese, Lee

Benson, and David Rothman -7 who had been exp lo r ing new techniques and m a t e r i a l s ,

o r a t tempt ing t o employ i n h i s t o r i c a l a n a l y s i s i d e a s and procedures which had

grown up i n t h e s o c i a l s c i ences , A number of them were coming t o be known a s

p r a c t i t i o n e r s of something c a l l e d t h e New S o d a 1 His tory ,

S e w r a l of t h e p a r t i c i p a n t s prepared memoranda i n advance, and some of t he

memoranda d e a l t w i th such e s o t e r i c t o p i c s a s ' ' c l iometr ics" and "prosopography."

The words t r i pped the tongue, bu t s t k r r e d t h e imagimation, For i n t h e 19.60s,

many h r s t o r i a n s f e l t t h a t h i s t o r i c a l theory and prac tkce a l 2 k e were undergoing

g r e a t changes. Some f e l t t h e changes t o t h r e a t e n t h e proper performance of t he

h i s t o r i a n ' s func t ion: Jacques Barzun, f o r one, fulminated a g a i n s t "psycho-history"

and "quanto-history1' as pseudo-history. Others f e l t t h a t h i s t o r y f i n a l l y s tood on

t h e th re sho ld of Science; Lee Benson, f o r example, spoke of t h e l i k e l i h o o d t h a t

" the cond i t i ons w i l l e x i s t i n t h e n o t d r s t a n t f u t u r e f o r American p o l i t i c a l

h i s t o r i a n s t o achieve t h e s c i e n t i f i c e s t a t e p red ic t ed by Buckle, o r , more

p r e c i s e l y , . , , t h a t such cond i t i ons w i l l e x i s t f o r those i n d i v i d u a l s a b l e and

w i l l i n g t o pay t h e psychologica l c o s t s r equ i r ed t o break f r e e from o l d rou t ines"

(Benson 1970 11966]: 292, Most a l e r t h i s t o r r a n s , whether w i t h f e a r o r hope, sensed

t h a t t h e p ro fe s s ron faced imminent choices whose consequences could profoundly

t ransform t h e h i s t o r y , and t h e h i s to r iog raphy , they had l ea rned .

P a r t i c i p a n t s kn t h a t 1968 meeting d isagreed about t h e f u t u r e of t he p a s t .

Yet they agreed about t h e d e s i r a b i l i t y of d i scuss ion . So Daedalus f lew on t o

ano the r conclave, t h i s one i n Rome. Then came a p a i r of j ou rna l i s s u e s , and f i n a l l y

a whole book. The book, publ ished i n 1972, appeared under t h e t i t l e H i s t o r i c a l

S tud ie s Today, Its t o p i c s covered a wide range: q u a n t i t a t i v e h i s t o r y , t h e New

- - . _ - --I .- . , ,

-2- I

Urban History, oral history, an epitaph for the old poli,ti.cal history, a

mixed assessment of recent applications of psychology to historical analysis, and

-- as promised -- a thoughtful treatment of prosopography,

Convened today, how would a similar set of historians pronounce on the

future of history? What has come of the 1960s' promises? What changes in

historical practice have occurred since then? Idhat lessons have we learned?

Concentrating on social history, broadly defined, let us wander among these

questions, without making too strenuous an effort to lock their answers in place,

Let us pay particular attention to the historical endeavors which in the 1960s 4

began to display the stigmata of social science: self-conscious explicat2on of

concepts and models; deliberate comparison of individuals, groups, places or

events (often many of them) placed within a common framework; fixation oii

reliable forms of measurement, frequently involving numerical treatment of

evidence. Economic history, archeology, demographic history, urban history,

plus some kinds of political, labor, agricultural and family history qualify.

Diplomatic history, intellectual history, the history of science, art history,

and other branches of , agricultural, labor and political history, in

contrast, generally remained alo6f from the New Social History and its

entanglements in the social sciences, Important changes were and are occurring

in those fields as well, but I shall neglect them here, in favor of the fields -

I know best: the various enteiprises known loosely as, social history, - - - - - -c2

/- ~-\---- Lawrence ~tone, ~Sopographerj and Prophet --

r

In those fields, prosopography became more than a catchword. It became

a crucial practice. Through all Daedalian discussions, -the chief

prosopographer present was Lawrence Stone, the distinguished historian of

England. Stone had published a massive collective biography of the English

aristocracy, and was then engaged in a vast analysis of the changing

character of England's landed classes. The centerpiece of. ghaf analysis

was, in Fact, an anbitious venture in prosopography: a large catalog of four

"samples" of country houses and their owners down thkough the centuries. Lat~rence

and Jeanne C. FaQtier Stone once described that study as

designed to apply statistical methods of analysis to data of varying

quality, in order to test some subjective impressions and traditional

assumptions about English social structure and social mobility in the

Early Modern and Modern periods. [A footnote at this point credits

grants from the Yathematical Social Science Board and the National

Science Foundation.] It is generally agreed that England was historically

the first of the modernizing societies of the world, and in particular

that she was the ficst to industrialize and the first to evolve a stable

and broad based constitutional structure. For over a century it has been

part of conventional wisdom that these phenomena can be partly explained

in terms firstly of the slow growth of the middle class of business and

professional men, and secondly of the ease with which this middle class

could move upward through the social and political systems. So far,

however, there is no reliable body of statistical information with which

to check and evaluate the truth of this bold and far-reaching hypothesis.

This particular study is narrowly focused on a single aspect, namely the

degree of interpenetration of the landed and n?erchant/professional classes

as tested by the changing compositidn of the local rural elites (Stone and

Stone 1972 : 56) . In this study, then, prosopography would begin to verify previously hypothetical

arguments concerning social mobility in England from 1540 to 1879. A "reliable

body of statistical evidence" would supplant the "subjective impressions and

traditional assumptions" which had so far prevailed.

Writing his more general statement for the 1972 Historical Studies Today,

Lawrence Stone displayed cautious optimism. If historians kept their heads and

hearts, he suggested, prosopography could sharpen their eyes. Prosopography,

collective biography, or "multiple-career-line analysis," he pbinted out, all

referred to a rather old procedure which had simply?acquired a new range of

applications. It was "the investigation of the common background characteristics

of a group of actors in history by means of a collective study of their lives:'

(Stone 1972: 107). That old procedure, properly followed, had healing

powers. It could, he declared,

combine the humane skill in historical reconstruction :rl--,--- -

through meticulous concentration on the significant

detail and the particular example, with the statistical

and theoretical preoccupations of the social scfentists;

it could form the missing connection between political history and social

history which at present are all too often treated in largely watertight

compartments, either in different monographs or in.different chapters of

. . a single volume. It could help reconcile history to sociology and

psychozogy. And it could form one string among many to tie the exciting

developments in intellectual and cultural history down to the social,

economic, and political bedrock (Stone 1972: 134).

Thus the new ways in history could lead historians to basic social processes

without losing them their contact with day-to-day experience.

Lawrence Stone certainly had his finger on the right button. In one form or

another, collective bi0grap.h~ surely constituted the single.most influential

innovation in the historical practice of the postwar period. It was not, of course,

entirely new: Sir Lewis Namier had long since biographized eighteenth-century

Parliaments, Roman historians had been perpetrating prosopography for decades,

and collective biography'is one name £-or Crane Brinton's old book on the

Jacobins. Nevertheless, at. least £bur,: features distinguished the colldctive . -- - -

biography begun in the 1940s from its predecessors: 1) its extension from G

clearly-visible elite populations to run-of-the-mill militants, ordinary

workers, and even entire communities; 2) the corresponding increase in the

sheer numbers of persons described; 3) the wide use of statistical description,

sometimes including statistical models adopted from the social sciences; and,

finally, 4) the sheer range and frequency of its application. Urban history,

population history, labor history, and some branches of political, economic,

and intellectual history all created their own standard forms of collective

biography. Later, the histories of the family, of migration, and of racial

and ethnic minorities incorporated collective biography as a central procedure.

Historians acted as if they ~--% -. -- % - - -

be l i eved Stone 's 1972 credo: t h a t c o l l e c t i v e biography revea led t h e p a t t e r n

of even t s and s o c i a l r e l a t i o n s whi le main ta in ing contict w i th i nd iv idua l

exper ience . Second Thoughts

A decade a f t e r t h e Pr ince ton meeting, however, Lawrence Stone had l o s t

h i s o l d z e s t f o r t h e new ways. I n 1979, he h a i l e d t h e " r ev iva l of n a r r a t i v e . "

He concluded t h a t even t s had come back i n t o s t y l e , as t h e techniques and

determinism which had captured t h e h i s t o r i a n s of t h e 1960s began t o l o s e t h e i r

appea l . "Many h i s t o r i a n s , " wrote Stone,

now b e l i e v e t h a t t h e c u l t u r e of t h e g ~ o u p , and even t h e w i l l of t h e

i n d i v i d u a l , a r e p o t e n t i a l l y a t l e a s t as important c a u s a l agen t s of change

as t h e impersonal f o r c e s of m a t e r i a l ou tpu t and demographic growth.

There i s no t h e o r e t i c a l reason why t h e 1 a t ~ e r should always d i c t a t e

t h e former, r a t h e r than v i c e ve r sa , and indeed evidence 2s p i l i n g up of

examples t o t h e c o n t r a r y (Stone 1979: 9 ) .

The "bedrock" had crumbled t o sand. The new ways had become o l d ways, suspec t

i n t h e i r t u r n ,

Three d i f f e r e n t s o r t s of so i -d i san t " s c i e n t i f i c " h i s t o r y were t h e r e f o r e ,

accord ing t o Stone, l o s i n g t h e i r fo l lowings ; t h e Marxis t economic model, t h e

French e c o l o g i c a l demographic model, and t h e American c l i o m e t r i c method. The

suppor t e r s of a l l t h r e e had onee, s a i d Stone, claimed t o be on t h e i r way t o

c a s t - i r o n s o l u t i o n s

f o r such h i t h e r t o b a f f l i n g ques t ions as t h e causes of "great revolu t ions"

o r t h e s h i f t s from feudal ism t o c a p i t a l i s m , and from t r a d i t i o n a l t o modern

s o c i e t i e s , This heady optimism, which w a s s o apparent from the 1930s

t o t h e 1 9 . 6 0 ~ ~ was b u t t r e s s e d among t h e f i r s t two groups of " s c i e n t i f i c

h i s t o r i a n s " by t h e b e l i e f t h a t m a t e r i a l cond i t i ons such a s changes i n

t h e r e l a t i o n s h i p between popula t ion and food supply, changes i n t h e means

of product ion and c l a s s c o n f l i c t , were t h e d r i v i n g f o r c e s i n h i s t o r y .

Many, b u t n o t a l l , regarded i n t e l l e c t u a l , c u l t u r a l , r e l i g i o u s , psychologica l ,

l e g a l , even p o l i t i c a l , ~ d e v e l o p m e n t s as mere epiphenomena. Since economic

and/or demographic determinism l a r g e l y d i c t a t e d t h e content of t h e new

genre of h i s t o r i c a l r e sea rch , t h e a n a l y t i c r a t h e r than t h e n a r r a t i v e

mode was b e s t s u i t e d t o organize and p r e s e n t t h e d a t a , and t h e d a t a

themselves had as f a r a s p o s s i b l e t o be q u a n t i t a t i v e i n na tu re (Stone

The r e v i v a l of n a r r a t i v e , i t fo l lows , r e g i s t e r s t h e d e c l i n e of t h a t "economic

and/or demographic determinism." A s t h e au tho r of s t u d i e s of c l a s s s t r u c t u r e ,

s o c i a l mob i l i t y , educa t iona l enro l lments , and t h e p a t t e r n of r evo lu t ion -- a l l s i & i f i c a n t l y informed by t h e models and methods of contemporary s o c i a l

s c i ence -- Stone should know whereof he speaks.

What caused t h e revdval of n a r r a t i v e ? What caused t h e , d e c l i n e of

a n a l y t i c c h i s t o r y ? Stone c a t a l o g s these causes :

1. widespread d i s i l l u s i o n wi th economic determinism i n h i s t o r y , most l i k e l y promoted by a d e c l i n e i n t h e i d e o l o g i c a l c o d t m e n t of western i n t e l l e c t u a l s -- e s p e c i a l l y when i t came t o Marxism;

2. rev ived awareness of t h e importance of p o l i t i c a l and m i l i t a r y power;

3 . t h e mixed record of q u a n t i t a t i v e work, e s p e c i a l l y when c a r r i e d out by l a r g e r e sea rch teams, based on computers, and embodied i n s o p h i s t i c a t e d mathematical procedures.

These new cond i t i ons , a s Lawrence Stone sees t h e s i t u a t i o n , f r eed h i s t o r 2 a n s

t o t r y once more " to d i scove r what w a s going on Pnside peop le ' s heads i n t h e

p a s t , and what i t w a s l i k e t o l i v e i n t h e p a s t , ques t ions which i n e v i t a b l y

l e a d back t o t h e use of n a r r a t i v e " (Stone 1979: 1 3 ) .

Stone saves h i s s t r o n g e s t d i sapproval f o r t h e work of "c l iomet r ic ians ."

(He names only the . i . nev i t ab l e Robert Fogel and S tan ley Engerman, l eav ing h i s

r eade r s t o r e c a l l t h e bad examples "we a l l know.") The c l i o m e t r i c i a n s

" spec i a l i ze i n t h e assembling of v a s t q u a n t i t i e s of d a t a by teams of a s s i s t a n t s ,

t h e use of t h e e l e c t r o n i c computer t o process it a l l , and t h e a p p l i c a t i o n of

h igh ly s o p h i s t i c a t e d mathematical procedures t o t h e r e s u l t s obtained", (Stone 1979:

11 ) . Against t h e s e procedures , Stone lodges t h e o b j e c t i o n s t h a t h i s t o r i c a l d a t a a r e

too u n r e l i a b l e , t h a t r e sea rch a s s i s t a n t s cannot be t r u s t e d wi th t h e a p p l i c a t i o n

of o s t e n s i b l y uniform pu le s , t h a t coding l o s e s c r u c i a l d e t a i l s , t h a t mathematical

r e s u l t s a r e incomprehensible t o t h e h i s t o r i a n s t hey a r e meant t o persuade, t h a t

t h e s t o r a g e of evidence on computer t apes blocks t h e v e r i f i c a t i o n of conclus ions

by o t h e r h i s t o r i a n s , t h a t t h e i n v e s t i g a t o r s tend t o l o s e t h e i r w i t , g race ,

and sense of p ropor t ion i n t h e p u r s u i t of s t a t i s t i c a l r e s u l t s , t h a t none of

t h e b i g ques t ions has a c t u a l l y y i e lded t o t h e bludgeoning of t h e big-data

people, t h a t " in gene ra l t h e s o p h i s t i c a t i o n of t h e methodology has tended t o

exceed t h e r e l i a b i l i t y of t h e d a t a , wh i l e t h e use fu lnes s of t h e r e s u l t s seems --

up t o a p o i n t -- t o be i n i n v e r s e c o r r e l a t i o n t o t h e mathematical complexity

of t h e methodology and t h e grandiose s c a l e of da ta -co l lec t ion ' ' (Stone 1979: 1 3 ) ,

For t h i s eminent European s o c i a l h i s t o r i a n , t h e l a r g e e n t e r p r i s e s which took

shape i n t h e 1960s have obviously l o s t t h e i r a t t r a c t i o n s .

E.J. Hobsbawm, l i kewise an eminent European s o c i a l h i s t o r i a n , has

r e c e n t l y publ ished a commentary on Lawrence S t o n e t s l a t e r e s say , Hobsbawm

doubts t h a t t h e r e v i v a l of n a r r a t i v e is s o ex tens ive as Stone sugges ts , and

ques t ions i n any c a s e whether i t c o n s t i t u t e s a r e j e c t i o n of t h e e a r l i e r hopes

f o r s o c i a l . h i s t o r y . The v i s i b l e changes i n h i s t o r i c a l w r i t i n g , according t o

Hobsbawm, more l i k e l y represent :

1. experiments i n present ing t h e r e s u l t s of complex h i s t o r i c a l analyses;

2. a t tempts a t syn thes i s of those va r i ed r e s u l t s ;

3 . t he extens ion of the ideas and procedures of s o c i a l h i s t o r y t o areas

of inqui ry -- notably p o l i t i c a l h i s t o r y -- which had previously been

l e f t a s ide ; and

9

4. t h e d e s i r e t o have a well-defined and sharply-portrayed s o c i a l

s i t u a t i o n s e r v e - a s t h e h i s to r iograph ica l junct ion between l a r g e s o c i a l

processes and individual h i s t o r i c a l experience.

These f a c t o r s , r e p l i e d Hobsbawm t o Stone,

demonstrate t h a t i t i s poss ib le t o exp la in much of what he surveys

a s t h e cont inuat ion of p a s t h i s t o r i c a l e n t e r p r i s e s by o the r means,

ins t ead of a s proofs of t h e i r bankruptcy. One would no t wish t o deny

t h a t some h i s t o r i a n s regard them a s bankrupt o r undes i rable and wish

t o change t h e i r d iscourse i n consequences, f o r va r ious reasons, some

of them i n t e l l e c t u a l l y dubious, some t o be taken se r ious ly . Clearly

some h i s t o r i a n s have s h i f t e d from "circumstances" t o "men" ( including

women), o r have discovered t h a t a simple base /supers t ruc ture model and

economic h i s t o r y a r e not enough, o r -- s ince t h e pay-off has been very

s u b s t a n t i a l -- a r e no longer enough. Some may w e l l have convinced

themselves t h a t t h e r e i s an incompat ib i l i ty between t h e i r " s c i e n t i f i c "

and " l i t e ra ry1 ' funct ions . But it i s n o t necessary t o analyse t h e present

fashions i n h i s t o r y e n t i r e l y a s a r e j e c t i o n of t h e p a s t , and i n so f a r a s

they cannot be e n t i r e l y analysed i n such t e r m s , i t w i l l not do (Hobsbawm

1980: 8).

The issue is squarely joined. On the one side, Stone interprets recent trends

in the writing of history as signs of disillusion with what we must now, alas,

'. call the old new social history, as augurs of the rise of the new old social

history. On the other side, Hobsbawm sees the same trends, somewhat minified

by comparison with Stone's estimates of them, as likely evidence that historians

are now building on the accomplishments of the sort of social history that

began to flourish in the 1960s.

Both our observers agree that historical practice has recently shifted,

even if they disagree on the extent of the shift. They differ in their views

of the attitude that shift reflects, and of the relation between the new practices

and the old. On the whole, my reading of recent trends resembles Hobsbawm's

more than Stone's. I think, however, that Hobsbawm misses the extent to which

historians of a decade ago oversold themselves on the explanatory powers of

the social sciences, not realizing that those disciplines were much more effective

in specifying what had to be explained and in ruling out superficial explanatiions

than in producing explanations that could satisfy the average historian. The

overselling made disappointment, and a new search for deep causes, inevitable.

Hobsbawm also fails to bring out the paradoxical link between the demographic

and economic determinisms which many of us began to favor in the 1960s, and a

sort.?of voluntaristic populism -- a belief, in its simplest form, that ordinary

people make their own history.

To a large extent, the dialectic of historical research, rather than

alterations in historians' consciousness, accounts for the shifts in

practice from the 1960s to the 1970s. We ought to take pleasure from the

fact that the competing.exp1anations of the shift themselves fall into a

I I determinist" and a "mentalist" mode. The debate between Hobsbawm and Stone

recalls one of the old, fundamental disagreements about the natures of history,

historiography, and social reality.

How the Models Matter: New (and Newer) Urban History

Should we care about these historiographical currents? I think so.

They affect the definitions and justifications all of us offer for the historical

enterprise. They influence the system of priorities and rewards we impose on

each other. And, most important, they affect historical practice at its most

vulnerable point: the doctoral dissertation. The number of Ph.D.s in history

awarded each year in the United States is down from its early-70s peak of more

than a thousand to the vicinity of 900. Yet it is probably still true that

the majority of all person-hours devoted to professional historical research

goes into the preparation of doctoral dissertations. It could well be true that

the majority of all pages of professional history published report research

undertaken for doctoral dissertations. (We can measure the perverse

individualism and/or inefficiency of professional history by the fact that

most dissertation-writers only acquire the essential skills of their trade --

locating documents in archives, criticizing and synthesizing those documents,

linking their findings to the existing literature, and so on -- in the course

of doing their dissertation research, and largely on their own.) The subjects

and styles of those dissertations, so far as I can tell, respond much more

decisively to shifting assessments of the viability of one sort of research

or another than do the works-in-progress of the discipline's veterans. Students

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look to the future, and their teachers encourage them to take the risks.

When history's authorities credit one model or discredit another, their colleagues

often challenge them vigorously and sometimes modify their own practices in

small ways, But it is their students who really change direction. Those

students, even today, hold future practice in their hands.

My favorite example is quite germane to our general topc. It concerns

the so-called New Urban History, (During the meeting for which I prepared

the earlier version of this essay, Michael Frisch handed me an already-published

article of which I was unaware; it makes all the pajor~points which follow, and

more, wi'th far fuller documentation: Frisch 1979. I dontt know whether to be

pleased with the independent confirmation of my analysis, or dismayed at the

duplication of effort,) Early in the 1960s, Stephan Thernstrom demonstrated

that information from widely-available sources such as city directories and

manuscript censuses could be reshaped into origin-destinati6nz:tables similar

to those sociologists used to analyze occupational mobility from father to son

or within a workerts own career, (Therstrom himself has graciously reminded

us that Harrfet Owsley, Frank Owsley, Merle Curti, and Sidney Goldstein had done

some of the pathbreaking technical- work; nevertheless, it was Thernstrom's

Poverty and Progress that made young historians take notice,)

In the case of Newburyport, Massachusetts, Thernstrom produced evidence

indicating that ethnic groups had not simply differed int their rates of "success,"

but had adopted somewhat different strategies for securing their familiest

futures; that in the aggregate little occupational- mobility occurred, but the

net movementtwas~slightly upward; that occupational

mobility had not declined substantially over time; and that unskilled

workers were very likely to.move on -- to leave the city -- when they didntt

move up. The demonstration attracted attention because of its technical virtuosity.

It attracted attention because Thernstrom managed to expose the false historical

assumptions sociologist Lloyd Warner had made concerning Newburyport (his

famous YankeetCity). Most of all, it attracted attention because it bore,

at least indirectly, on great questions of American history: Was nineteenth-

century America the land of opportunity? Did that promise fade for America's

later immigrants? Did mobility and ethnic fragmentation reduce the chances

for working-class militancy in the United States?

Graduate students were especially quick to see the promise of this new

form of collective biography. Soon dozens of doctoral dissertations were in

progress,pursuing the historical analysis of social mobility community by

community, group by group, and source by source. At a famous meeting on the

nineteenth-century century held at Yale University in 1968, Thernstrom and

a crowd of collaborators -- mainly youngsters, by the standards of the

historical profession -- identified themselves as a new school of historical

practice. When Thernstrom and Richard Sennett edited the conference papers,

they published their book with the subtitle Essays in the New Urban History.

Then, with a lag for the agonies of writing and rewriting, came the

flood of theses; articles, and monographs: Philadelphia, Omaha, Chicago, Milwaukee,

Boston, Birmingham, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Hamilton, Poughkeepsie, Troy,

Kingston, and, yes, Buffalo arrived under the microscope in the company of many

other North American cities. Although the analysis of social mobility never

generated the excitement elsewhere that it did in North America, collective

biographers likewise began sorting out manuscript census records and similar

sources as the means of reconstructing city popu1ations:in Europe and other parts

-14-

of t h e world, For t h e most p a r t , t h a t was what h i s t o r i a n s meant when they

spoke of t h e New Urban His tory .

Looking back a t t h i s t o r r e n t of a c t i v i t y i n 1975, Stephan Thernstrom

commented wryly t h a t "I a m now i n c l i n e d t o b e l i e v e t h a t , j u s t as t h e Holy Roman

Empire was n e i t h e r ho ly , Roman, no r a n empire, t h e new urban h i s t o r y i s no t s o

new, i t should n o t be i d e n t i f i e d a s urban, and t h e r e i s some danger t h a t i t

w i l l cease t o be h i s t o r y " (Thernstrom 1977: 44) . H e pointed ou t t h e dangers

of t hough t l e s s i m i t a t i o n , u n c r i t i c a l compi la t ion of d e f e c t i v e sources ,

bu reauc ra t i zed team re sea rch , and s loven ly s l i d i n g i n t o t h e uncouth p rose of

s o c i a l sc ience . He d i d n o t , however, p o i n t o u t t h a t t h e wave he had s t a r t e d

was spending i t s e l f .

Why and how? F i r s t , t h e i nhe ren t l i m i t s of t h e one-ci ty occupat iona l

mob i l i t y s tudy were becoming i n c r e a s i n g l y v i s i b l e . There was t h e d i f f i c u l t y

of t r a c i n g t h e l i v e s of people who a r r i v e d o r l e f t o u t s i d e t h e c i t y i t s e l f --

and, f o r t h a t matter, o r d i s t i n g u i s h i n g a r r i v a l o r depa r tu re from erroneous

r eco rd ing and, more impor tan t , non-reco'rding. There was t h e u n c e r t a i n t y t h a t

averages o r v a r i a t i o n s over many c i t i e s , based on t h e occupat iona l t i t l e s

r epo r t ed f o r a d u l t males, a c t u a l l y r ep re sen ted t h e s t r u c t u r e of American

oppor tuni ty . There were t h e debatab le assumptions about c l a s s and mob i l i t y

b u i l t i n t o t h e very method: t h a t occupat ions formed a well-defined, u n i t a r y

rank o rde r ; t h a t t h e c e n t r a l i s s u e s concerned t h e r a t e s and pa ths of achievement

by i n d i v i d u a l s , f a m i l i e s , and groups; t h a t one could reasonably postpone t h e

a n a l y s i s of l abo r markets and employers' h i r i n g s t r a t e g i e s u n t i l t h e d i f f e r e n t i a l s

were t h e r e t o be expla ined . There were o t h e r t e c h n i c a l and conceptual problems

which c r i t i c s and p r a c t i t i o n e r s had uncovered,

Second, urban historians were finding the statistical answers yielded

by their historical sociology unnecessarily thin. As Peter Decker put it, at

the close of his own recent collective biography of San Francisco's white-collar

workers in the nineteenth century,

The internal differences, if recognized at all by historians, are too

often described only through statistical measures and techniques.

Rarely are they explained within the social context in which they occur.

This context includes the hopes, aspirations, and anxieties of those whose

lives are being measured, To exclude these considerations, through the

?A - ,, - exclusive use of quantitative techniques, is to disregard how individuals

perceive their own reality and to preclude any normative judgments regarding

social mobility in a society (Decker 1978: 250),

We have in Decker's statement a summary of the thoughts which have been

occurring to a great many historians -- not just American urban historians -- working

in the shadow of social science, They have discovered facts we all should

have recognized long ago: that statistical analyses in themselves almost never

yield unambiguous conclusions; that the effective use of social-scientific

procedures generally requires more, not less, explicit statement of arguments

than the average historical account; that on the whole existing social-scientific

approaches work far better at discrediting superficial explanations and at

specifying what has to be explained than at generating explanations which

historians are likely to find adequate. To the extent that an adequate explanation

entails reconstructing historical actors' experiences of the situations in

which they found themselves, collective biography and similar techniques (for

all their power in other regards) hold little promise of yielding such explanations. -.

. - - . -. - - . ~ .

Alternatives and Syntheses a - .

I

Not that all students of-American cities had bitten;.as far into the

statistical apple as the predecessors whom Decker castigates. Urban labor

historians, in particular, had managed to construct a kind of populist history

which gave ample attention to the.organization of work, the quality of life,

the everyday struggles, the forms of militancy. Alan Dawley's treatment of

Lynn's leatherworkers combined the now-standard analyses ,of occupational mobility

with searching examinations of belief and action. David Montgomery recreated

the rhythms of work in-Pittsburgh, as he and Bruce Laurie both revealed the .

patterns of organization and competition underlying the brawls and protests

of nineteenth-century Philadelphia. A German, Dirk Hoerder, discerned the

doctrines of popular sovereignty embedded in the workers' riots of revolutionary

Massachusetts. Herbert Gutman mounted a great quest for working-class.culture

and the making or unmaking of that American working class. Gutman and others,

in fact, drew a good deal of their inspiration from European social and labor

historians such as E. J. ' Hobsbawm, George ~udg, Michelle Perrot and E. P . Thompson. - --

2

American urban h i s t o r y involves much more a c t i v i t y I haven ' t mentioned:

t h e enormous conca tena t ion 9f s t u d i e s of n ine teenth-century Phi lade lphia

coordinated by Theodore Hershberg; O l i v i e r Zunz' e x q u i s i t e l y f i n e ana lyses of

land use and popula t ion d i s t r i b u t i o n i n D e t r o i t ; Al lan P red ' s t rea tments of

t h e time-geography of American urbaniza t ion ; examinat ions of American urban

migra t ion , of t h e development of r a c i a l s eg rega t ion , of urban women's work

exper iences , of job-f inding and t h e c r e a t i o n of occupat iona l communities, of

power and c l a s s i n our c i t i e s , and more, and more. "Urban h is tory ' ' overflows

i t s banks, and. sp reads i n t o t h e whole p l a i n of American s o c i a l l i f e . Any one

g e n e r a l i z a t i o n about urban h i s t o r y t h e r e f o r e i n v i t e s a t l e a s t two except ions.

Yet i n very gene ra l terms my d e s c r i p t i o n holds : i n most p r e c i n c t s of

American urban h i s t o r y , t h e 1960s brought a quickening of enthusiasm f o r s e l f -

conscious concep tua l i za t ion and modeling, f o r d e l i b e r a t e (and o f t e n q u a n t i t a t i v e )

comparison of m u l t i p l e u n i t s , and f o r r i go rous measurement; t h i s s o r t of

e n t e r p r i s e , w i t h i t s soc ia l - sc ience over tones , tended t o s e p a r a t e from t h e

f i n e q u a l i t a t i v e s t u d i e s of i n d i v i d u a l and group exper ience which cont inued;

a s t h e 1970s moved on, more and more doubts about t h e adequacy of t h e s o c i a l -

s c i e n t i f i c model a r o s e among i t s fo l lowers and i t s c r i t i c s , and urban h i s t o r i a n s

t r i e d i n c r e a s i n g l y e i t h e r t o en r i ch t h e i r p a l l i d c o l l e c t i v e b iographies wi th

co lo r ings of i n d i v i d u a l experience o r t o d i scove r t h i c k e r a l t e r n a t i v e s t o t h i n

conclusions about s o c i a l mob i l i t y and s t r a t i f i c a t i o n .

The model a p p l i e s l e a s t w e l l t o t he f i e l d s of h i s t o r i c a l work which -

developed i n c l o s e s t concer t wi th s p e c i f i c s o c i a l s c i ences : archeology,

economic h i s t o r y , demographic h i s t o r y . Researchers i n t h e s e f i e l d s tended --

and s t i l l tend -- t o g e t t h e bulk of t h e i r t r a i n i n g o u t s i d e of h i s t o r y proper ,

and t o fo l low t h e i n t e l l e c t u a l agendas of t h e s o c i a l s c i ences r a t h e r than of

h i s t o r y . For b e t t e r and f o r worse, t h a t o r i e n t a t i o n t o s o c i a l s c i e n c e i n s u l a t e d

them from t h e p r i o r i t i e s and p r e s s u r e s of o t h e r h i s t o r i a n s . Even i n t hese

f i e l d s , neve r the l e s s , some s h i f t s occurred -- away from t h e dazz l ing chrome-and-

g l a s s c o n s t r u c t i o n s of t h e 1960s, l e t u s say , toward t h e more e l e g a n t , subdued

wood and b r a s s of t h e l a t e 1970s. Economic h i s t o r i a n s who were thoroughly

conversant w i th economic models and econometr ics (such a s Jan d e Vr ies , t he

au tho r of a'-superb-.:text on The Economy of Europe i n a n Age of C r i s i s ) showed

t h a t they cared t o r o o t t h e i r ana lyses i n t h e t ime, p l a c e , and h is tor iography

of t h e changes they were s tudying ,

On t h e demographic s i d e , Kei th Wrightson and David Levine have given u s

t h e sp l end id example of t h e i r book on an Engl i sh v i l l a g e , Te r l ing (Essex), from

1525 t o 1700. A c o l l e c t i v e biography of t h e e n t i r e recorded popula t ion over

t h e two c e n t u r i e s forms t h e book's backbone, The f i n e demographic r econs t ruc t ion

provided a s e n s i t i v e index of changing fottunes-among d i f f e r e n t c l a s s e s of t he

popula t ion , as w e l l a s some s i g n s - a s n t o c t h e c h a r a c t e r of l o c a l s o c i a l s t r u c t u r e .

It showed,'for~exam@le,"that i n Te r l ing t h e age a t marr iage and f e r t i l i t y , and

n o t m o r t a l i t y , were t h e prime agen t s of demographic c o n t r o l . While t h e short-run

i m p l i c a t i o n s of epidemic m o r t a l i t y were of r e a l consequence, they were of l i t t l e

importance i n t h e long run" (Wrightson and Levine 1979: 72). Thus t h e s t r i c t

Malthusian p f c t u r e of old-regime popula t ions p e r i o d i c a l l y decimated by plague m

and famine because they :outgrew t h e i r r e s o u r c e s : f a i l s t o . . f i t a 1 t h e f a c t s . . - -

Yet a l l was n o t buco l i c harmony i n Te r l ing : t h e demographic evidence L I

l i k e w i s e r e v e a l s t h e growth of a l a r g e c l a s s of poor r u r a l l a b o r e r s , t h e

i n c r e a s i n g d i v i s i o n of t h e p a r i s h between landed haves and l a n d l e s s have-

no t s . That is where Wrightson and Levine provide us wi th a model f o r t h e

l o c a l s o c i a l h i s t o r y of t h e f u t u r e . For i n s t e a d of r e s t i n g wi th t h e i r impressive

demographic evidence, they delved i n t o c o u r t r eco rds , church r eco rds , manorial

r eco rds , t a x r eco rds , and every o t h e r s c r a p they could g e t t h e i r

_ -. _ --= --.-- ------- -- -.

hands on i n o rde r t o t r a c e t h e -

material conditions of existence, the routines of everyday life, the

structures of power and punishment, the affirmations of faith and disbelief.

Never have we seen more clearly the emergence of a confident, comfortable

class of local notables in pious, sober, responsible but (above all) firm

control of the many hirelings who worked their land. Never have we had better

displayed the mechanisms and consequences of the processes of rural proletarianization

which took place so widely in Europe.

Wrightson and Levine did an extraordinary piece of work, but their general

style of analysis was not unique. Alan Macfarlane and his collaborators have

undertaken a similarly comprehensive -- and computer-coordinated -- analysis of a single parish, Earls Colne, from 1400 to 1750. Jean-Claude Perrot has

made the demographic history of eighteenth-century Caen the . thread for the stitching together of the city's whole round of life. As Hobsbawm

suggests, these new, thick, demographically-informed community studies do not

represent an abandonment of analytic history, They show us skilled analysts

broadening the range of their analyses, and seeking effective ways to comunicate

their results..

Is Cra.ssness American?

Wightson and Levine are not Americans or American-trained; the Briton and

the Canadian learned their demographic history in a Cambridge which has for years

been a fount of the art. E.A. Wrigley of Cambridge and Louis Henry of Paris,

very likely the two most influential figures in the creation of the demographic

history we know today, have wider followings in Britain, France, and the rest

of Europe than in North America. In this field, as in the labor history over

which. such figures as E.J. Hobsbawm, E.P. Thompson and their allies have

exercised so great an influence, Europeans have commonly led the way. Although

critics, European and American, of quantificat2on and of social-scientific

models in history have sometimes portrayed them as quintessential expressions of

American vulgarity and imperialism, in fact the initial impulse to both has - ' I .

often come from Europe, and their fullest versions have commonly appeared\

outside . - of the United 'States?

The situation resembles the paradoxical processes by which almost

every city of the Roman Empire, except Rome, received a "Roman" ground

plan, with its ordo and decumanus, or by which the purest specimen of French

feudalism, with grants actually extending through a chain of subordinates from

sovere$gn to peasant, appeared not in France but in Quebec. For the really

massive building of centralized, team-operated, computer-based files of

"process-produced" historical data, we go to Germany. For the creation

of national demographic series extending over centuries of experience, we

go to France and Brttai'n. For the coordinatfon, .standardi'zation and ... - - . . ..-

computer linking of large numbers of demographically-based community-studies, - - - - - - P - - -

we go to Sweden. Perhaps the most surprising case is this one: if current

signs are reliable, almost unimaginably large files of evidence on historical

population changes will soon start to become available in, of all places,

mainland China. By comparison with these efforts, American forays into

historical compilation and computation look modest indeed.

Let me not exaggerate. When one of these large enterprises has taken

shape, Americans have usually appeared somewhere on the scene, For example,

AmerikancRonald Lee has figured importantly in the Cambridge Group's work on

reconstructing English population trends, and AmerixancJames Lee (no relation)

is playing an important part in Chinese-surveys of their sources for demographic

history. Furthermore, some rather large American undertakings have strongly

influenced research through the rest of the world. Two examples are the country-

by-country analyses of fertility decline conducted by the Princeton group 'at

Ansley Coale created in the 1960s, and the huge collections of machine-readable - - --

evidence created by the Michigan-based Inter-University Consortium for Political

and Social Research since the 1950s. Still, the American reputation for Big

Data and bigger research teams has been greatly exaggerated. In international

perspective, the American historical profession includes more than its share

of individual investigators, carrying their handwritten notes about with them,

and using no machines more exotic than a typewriter-,or- photocopier.

Will Anthropology Save Us?

That American individualism may help explain one of the major reactions to

the alleged excesses of social-scientific history: the self-conscious turn to

anthropology as a guide to historical reconstruction. The "anthropology" in

question has an odd connection to:the discipline which goes by that name,

with its controversies over evolution -and materialism, its debates over the

origins of ideologies of honor, its explorations of the intricacies of kinship

and language, its chronicles of the rise and fall of peasantries and rural -- - - - - - - -

proletariats. We might better call the anthropology to which a number of

historians have been turning their hopes "retrospective ethnography." The.

idea is to recreate crucial situations of the. past as a thoughtful participant-

observer would have experienced them. Some advocates of retrospective ethnography

adopt the Gilbert Ryle/Clifford Geertz program of "fhfck description''; they

tend to hold up as exemplars Natalie Davis' dramatic reconstructions of

sixteenth-century festivals and follies, not to mention Geertz' own portrayal

of a Balinese cockfight. William Sewell has recently written a book about French

workers in the era of the Revolution which pivots an analysis of changing

conceptions of property and group identity on the Geertzian idea that alterations

in fundamental concepts are the bases of deep socfal change, and that those

alterations show-up in the language of claims and contention, More such

efforts are to come.

Although. the phrase ''retrospective ethnography" has not gained any

currency in th.e historiographical literature, hsstortans followfng this .

-~ -- . - ... ~ . -- - - - - -

path. often make a delrberate point of their turn to anthropology, afid: of:

- ttiefr?.dissa~isfaction with the old new social history, Sewell himself

explicitly invokes cultural anthropology and Clifford Geertz, and self-

consciously describes his move away from the structures and determinisms

of standard social history. The preface to Bryan Palmer's study of skilled

workers in Hamilton, Ontario, from 1860 to 1914 includes an exceptionally

clear statement of the alternatives.. It deserves quotation at length:

Hamilton, as many social historians are well aware, has become one of the

-. . , most intensely studied communities in North America. Michael B; Etz

\> and his ongoing Canadian Social History Project have utilizedr.,quantitative

. - --- - - - - - - -- L-

data to launch one of the more sophisticated community studies in the - -_ -. - - - -- - history of social scientific inquiry. While Katzvs work demands respect,

particularly his structural analyses of inequality, transiency, and social

mobility, it remains an open question as to how much numerical data can

tell us about culture or conflict. It thus seemed fitting to probe-?

traditional sources (newspapers, manuscript and archival holdings, and local

records) to see what they could offer. While such material is truly

impressionistic, it has yielded an impressive collection of data that

tell us'much about obscure corners 6f the nineteenth- and ear3.y twentieth-

century world,

Beyond the data, however, looms the theoretical framework within which

this study evolves. While sections of thebook have been somewhat influenced

by my wrestling with a kind of structuralist theory , . . the attachment is to a structuralisn: rooted in historical analysis, informed but not

dominated by the approach of the anthropologist, It is, in short, the

structuralism of Levi-Strauss, rather than the structuralism of Althusser.

Where one has, at least, a partial respect for history and empirical

findings, the other 3s unashamedly antihistorical, masking abstraction .-.

with the reification of theory,

This study, then, is no marriage of the social sciences and history.

If i.t does not totally accept the judgement of Richard Cobb.that it is

unlikely that historians will ever get much profit from the company of

social scientfsts, it cannot argue with Elizabeth Fox-Genovesets and

Eugene I).;:..-.Genovesevs recent remarks on the dangers inherent in promiscuous

I' borrowing" from other disciplines. Far too often, the historian's own

lack of rigour has moved him toward the sociologist; the psychologist, the

economist, or the anthropologist; and the theoretical gains have been

minimal. These advocates of the interdiscPplinary approach have often

succumbed to the worst kind of defeatism, for in looking for answers to

history's jmterpretive problems they have subordinated Clio to the

jargonistic antihumanism of the social sciences, replete with their

clinical sterility and elaborate control mechanisms. The past, however,

was never so tidy (Palmer 1979: xii-xiii).

Palmer calls, instead, onxthe tradition of "empirical Marxism'' exemplified by

E.P. Thompson. Culture and conflict are to be his themes, sympathetic reconstruction

his method. Although Palmer does not summon Clifford Geertz to testify against

the impoverished rigidity of social-scientific history, he does advocate a program

of thick description*

The 6est-known recent exa~ple of retrospective ethnography, however, has

less to do with.Clifford Geertz, and more to do with the old-fashioned village

study. Enmanuel Le Roy Ladurieps spectacular Montaillou~gives an account of

life and love in a fourteenth-century Pyrenean community. It follows an outline

that could easily have guided an ethnography done fifty years ago: sex, courtship,

marriage, lffe-cycles, gatherings, forms of solidarity, and on down the '

checklist. CIt would convey the texture of the book a bit more faithfu1.l.y -- and explain some of i.ts best55elling appeal -- to enumerate the subjects as

-- . ..- .

- - .- - - -- .-

sex, courtship, sex, marriage, sex, life-cycles, sex . , . and so on,) But Le

Roy Laduri.e does the standard ethnography with exceptional panache, and with an

extraordinary source: the transcript of the Inquisitionts searching interrogations

I of local people. Montaillou nurtured heresy, and the inquisitive bishop sent to

track down the heretics followed the trail of mistaken belief into the routines,

crises, and peccadillos of day-to-day-life. Le Roy Ladurie had the cleverness

to handle the transcript like an oral-history tape, splicing its testimonies

together wtih his own commentaries, comparisons, and speculations. Result: -

a revelation. The reader finds himself in the very midst of a weird, earthy, and -

yet somehow familiar round of life.

Le Roy Ladurie did not, to be sure, invent the method entirely on his

own. Ethnographers such as Oscar Lewis had long since substituted tape

recorders for notebooks, and inserted long strips of their taped interviews

into their books on rural and urban life. A::whole-rgild-.of !!6ral historians,"

with its publics running from general readers to antiquarians through the

students of recent history, has sprung into being. Within French history,

Le Roy Ladurie had the splendid example of Alain Lottin, who built a

broad reconstruction of Lille's seventeenth-century social life 6n the base

of a journal kept by a modest textile artisan. Instead of settling for an

edition of the text with a long introduction and learned footnotes, Lottin

chose to interweave the phrases of the journal with his own portrait,of the

man, his milieu, and the city as a whole. The portrait relies on the standard

sources of demographic, economic, and institutional history. Lottin's Chavatte,

ouvrier 1illois~thBrefore lies somewhere between the structural history of Levine and L

Wrightson and the retrospective ethnography of Le Roy Ladurie. -- -

Yet another variant of anthropological work has appeared in the history

of women and feminism. Ethnographers often put a great deal of their effort

into notkg the concrete connections within some important segment of the

population. Similarly, some of the most-read American research on women -- C -

for example the writings of Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, and Nancy Cott,

,-- attempts to reconstruct the networks and solidarities linking women

to each other. The-traci,zg of interpersonal networks ranges from informal to

precise, just as it does in anthropology. In both its'.historical .and2kts - . - -'.:

anthropological version, the network analysis serves two purposes: first, to

clarify how members.of~the.group copeLwith:difficulties they face in other

arenas of their lives; second, to help explain the solidarities and conflicts

that show up in public affairs. This approach becomes controversial, obviously,

to the extent that it reduces women's public claims to expressions of their

private preoccupations. Competing historiographical traditions, after all,

base women's involvement in the struggles for abolition, suffrage, and women's

rights on the articulation of real interests, on the,development of a

s6lidary, self-conscious social movement, or both.

A similar division appears in the history of the family, On the

"anthropological" side (to stretch the term a bit), we:have writers such

as Philippe ~ribs, Randolph Trunbach, Edward Shorter, and our mentor Lawrence

Stone. Although they disagree among themselves in many regards, they converge

on the interpretation of changes in family life as expressions of changes in

/ attitudes, -mentalites, Weltanschauungen. Thus for ~ri6s the rise of overriding

individualism in our own era has broken the old solidarity of the family. On

the "materialist" and "political" sides (to use a pair of equally tendentious

t e rms) , we have such i n t e r p r e t a t i o n s a s t h a t of Louise T i l l y and Joan S c o t t ,

who p o r t r a y a l t e r a t i o n s i n family s t r u c t u r e under i n d u s t r i a l c a p i t a l i s m a s

c o l l e c t i v e s h i f t s i n s t r a t e g y condi t ioned . .espec ia l ly by changes i n t h e

o r g a n i z a t i o n of product ion. Since contemporary anthropology a c t u a l l y con ta ins

e n e r g e t i c spokesmen f o r "ma te r i a l i s t " and " p o l i t i c a l " accounts of s o c i a l l i f e ,

t h e d i s t i n c t i o n between an th ropo log ica l and o t h e r approaches t o s o c i a l h i s t o r y

begins a t t h i s p o i n t t o l o s e a l l c l a r i t y . Never the less , t h e d i s t i n c t i o n remains.

It r e p r e s e n t s an o l d d i v i s i o n wi th in anthrophlogy i t s e l f : between those who, on

t h e wh6le, g ive explana tory p r i o r i t y t o c u l t u r e , b e l i e f , o r w i l l , and those who

g ive p r i o r i t y t o material cond i t i ons and power.

Mater ia l i sm Lives

Despi te a l l I have s a i d , mater ia l i sm has by no means disappeared from

s o c i a l h i s t o r y , A s Hobsbawm's r e p l y t o Stone i n d i c a t e s , s o c i a l and economic

h i s t o r i a n s have been t r y i n g t o s o r t ou t and s y n t h e s i z e t h e mass of new evidence

t h a t has been accumulating on t h e wor ld ' s l a r g e economic, p o l i t i c a l , and

s o c i a l t ransformat ions . For European h i s t o r y s i n c e 1400 o r s o , t h e grand themes::

have been t h e concen t r a t ion of c a p i t s l , t h e growth of a p r o l e t a r i a n l a b o r f o r c e ,

t h e c r e a t i o n of powerful n a t i o n a l s t a t e s and systems of s t a t e s , t h e emergence

of mass p o l i t i c s a t a n a t i o n a l s c a l e , t h e r i s e and f a l l of European hegemony,

t h e d e c l i n e of f e r t i l i t y and m o r t a l i t y . Hobsbawm himself has made important

c o n t r i b u t i o n s t o t h e s y n t h e s i s . Far from wi the r ing away, t h e d i scuss ion of

t h e s e themes i s ga in ing i n coherence and energy.

By and l a r g e , t h i s work ( l i k e Hobsbawm's) is broadly Marxis t i n conception:

a t a minimum, i t begins w i th a n a l y s i s of t h e o rgan iza t ion of product ion and

its impl i ca t ions f o r c l a s s formation. On t h e small s c a l e , t h e work of Wrightson

and Levine exemplifies the sort of synthesis which has its counterparts

in other work on England, France, Germany, and Sweden. On the large, promising

recent syntheses take the form of Kriedte, Medick and Schlumbohm's essays

on procoindustrialization (for all their loose ends), of Lis and Soly's survey

of poverty and capitalism in Europe (for all its lack of attention to variation

from region to region), of Immanuel Wallersteinrs second, seventeenth-century

volume on the European world-system (for all its controversial treatment of the

"strength" of different seventeenth-century states).

The award for the most sumptuous (if not for the most conclusive) recent

synthesis goes hands down to Fernand Braudel's giant three-volume exploration

of capitalism and material life from the fourteenth century onward, Braudel's

scope extends beyond Europe to the world as a whole, He takes in almost all

the social history I have been reviewing, and more. Demography, technology,

communications, geography, politics and cultural production flow together,

and through each other, in his account, Braudel finds parallels, common threads,

and interdependencies where the rest of us barely dare to venture factual

summaries. Hard to classify as a Marxist -- or as anything else -- Braudel nonetheless comes through as a thoroughgoing materialist, That materialism

appears at each of the three "levels" treated by the book's successive volumes:

the routines and constraints of everyday life; commercial structures and

capitalism; world economies and interdependence. By the start of the third

volume, indeed, Braudel is trying to use Immanuel Wallerstein's model of

the world-economy as the means of organizing the whole vast historical experience.

Braudel abandons that effort without quite saying so, but he never abandons

the linkage of the full range of social experience to the structures of

product ion , d i s t r i b u t i o n , and consumption. He b e l i e v e s and demonstrates

t h a t t h e m a t e r i a l cond i t i ons of everyday l i f e va ry i n consonance wi th s h i f t s i n

t h e i n t e r n a t i o n a l economy. H e shows t h a t t hose m a t e r i a l cond i t i ons shape

t h e f u l l range of human o rgan iza t ion , from s e x t o b e l i e f t o power s t r u c t u r e .

I n o rde r t o do so , he draws r epea t ed ly on demographic ana lyses , on l o c a l economic

s t u d i e s , on t h e whole a r r a y of t o p i c s which have made h i s j ou rna l Annales a

byword f o r h i s t o r i c a l innovat ion .

Notice, as you read Braudel and o t h e r syn theses , how l i t t l e they exemplify

t h e r e v i v a l of n a r r a t i v e , how r a r e l y they r e l y on r e t r o s p e c t i v e ethnography,

how much they b u i l d t h e i r c a s e s on t h e ve ry q u a n t i t a t i v e , demographic, and

s o c i a l - s c i e n t i f i c works:which Lawrence Stone has condemned t o bankruptcy,

Somehow they r e f u s e t o go broke. Works of t h e o ld new s o c i a l h i s t o r y have n o t ,

i t is t r u e , locked t o g e t h e r i n t h e S c i e n t i f i c His tory Lee Benson once a n t i c i p a t e d .

They have, on t h e con t r a ry , made t h e h i s t o r i c a l s p e c i f i c i t y of s o c i a l

s t r u c t u r e s and processes a l l t h e more apparent . But t h e o ld new s o c i a l h i s t o r y

has made i t p o s s i b l e t o connect i n d i v i d u a l exper ience w i t h l a r g e s o c i a l processes

more c l e a r l y , p r e c i s e l y and f u l l y than eve r be fo re . Research and w r i t i n g i n

t h a t ve2n cont inue t o t h r i v e i n economic h i s t o r y , i n t h e h i s t o r y of t h e family,

i n demographic h i s t o r y , i n t h e h i s t o r y of popular r e b e l l i o n and c o l l e c t i v e

a c t i o n , i n t h e h i s t o r y of school ing and l i t e r a c y , i n h i s t o r i c a l s t u d i e s of

pover ty , ag ing , g e n e t i c s , migra t ion , crime, s t r i k e s , e t h n i c i t y . . . even i n

urban h i s t o r y . The p r a c t i t i o n e r s of t h e o l d new s o c i a l h i s t o r y have found

i t p e r f e c t l y f e a s i b l e t o i nco rpora t e i n t o t h e i r model-mongering, comparative,

quantitative,~:collective-biographical endeavors t h e devices and. i n s i g h t s of

r e t r o s p e c t i v e ethnography. We must end up agree ing wi th t h e Lawrence Stone of

1972, i f n o t of 1979, and wi th t h e E.'J. ..Hobsbawm of..1980: t h e mission of

s o c i a l h i s t o r y i s s t i l l t o " t i e t h e e x c i t i n g development i n i n t e l l e c t u a l and

c u l t u r a l h i s t o r y down t o t h e s o c i a l , economic, and p o l i t i c a l bedrock."

REFERENCES

This b ib l iography inc ludes every i tem c i t e d i n t h e t e x t , a t l e a s t one r e p r e s e n t a t i v e i t e m . b y each au thor mentioned, a number of r e c e n t w r i t i n g s on h i s to r iog raphy , ' p l u s a v a r i e t y of r e c e n t works i n s o c i a l h i s t o r y . S o c i a l h i s t o r i a n s have been producing p u b l i c a t i o n s a t f a r too f a s t a pace f o r t h i s t o be anyth ing l i k e a comprehensive inven to ry , and my reading i s too s e l e c t i v e f o r i t t o be a r e p r e s e n t a t i v e b ib l iography. I have t r i e d simply t o provide two o r t h r e e examples of each kind of r e sea rch d iscussed i n t h e paper , p l u s twenty o r t h i r t y t i t l e s g iv ing t h e f l a v o r of t h e , s o c i a l h i s t o r y being produced i n t h e 1970s.

0 Sune Akerman, Hans C h r i s t i a n Johansen and David Gaunt

1978 eds . , Chance and Change: S o c i a l and Economic S tud ie s i n H i s t o r i c a l Demography i n t h e B a l t i c Area. Odense: Scandinavian U n i v e r s i t i e s P re s s .

Ronald Aminzade

1977 "Breaking t h e Chains of Dependency: from P a t r o n a g e . t o Class P o l i t i c s i n Toulouse," Jou rna l of Urban Hi s to ry , 3: 485-506.

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1960 L' Enfant et l a v i e f a m i l i a l e sous l ' a n c i e n regime. P a r i s : Plon

1971 ~ i s t d i r e des popula t ions f r a n ~ a i s e s e t de l e u r s a t t i t u d e s devant l a [1948] v i e depuis l e XVIIIe s i e c l e . P a r i s : S e u i l .

Alan Armstrong

1974 S t a b i l i t y and C h a n g e i n a n E n g l i s h c o u n t y Town. A s o c i a l Study of York 1801-1851. Cambridge: Cambridge Univers i ty P re s s .

William 0. Aydelot te

1971 Quan t i f i ca t ion i n His tory . Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.

W i l l i a m 0. Aydelot te , Allan Bogue and Robert Fogel

1972 eds . , The Dimensions of Q u a n t i t a t i v e Research i n His tory . Pr ince ton: Pr ince ton Univers i ty Press .

Josef Barton

1975 Peasants and St rangers . I t a l i a n s , Rumanians and Slovaks i n an American C i ty , 1890-1950. Cambridge: Harvard Univers i ty Press .

Jacques Barzun

1974 C l io and t h e Doctors. Psycho-History, Quanto-History and His tory . Chicago: Univers i ty of Chicago P r e s s .

Lee Benson

1966 "Quantification, Scientific History, and Scholarly Innovation," American Historical Association Newsletter, 4: 11-16.

Helmiit :Berding

1980 ed., "Wege der neuen Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte," special issue of Geschichte und Gesellschaft, vol. 6, no. 1.

Albert Bergesen

1980 ed., Studies of the Modern World-System.. New York: Academic Press.

Heinrich Best and Reinhard Mann

1977 eds., Quantitative Methoden in der historisch-sozialwissenschaftlichen Forschung. Stuttgart : Klett-Cotta.

Anton Blok

1974 The Mafia of a Sdcilian Village, 1860-1960. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Peter Borscheid

1978 Textilarbeiterschaft in der Industrialisierung. Soziale Lage und obil lit it in ~Grttember~ (19. Jahrhundert). Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta.

Fernand Braudel

1979 Civilisation matgrielle, Economie, et Capitalisme, XVe-XVIIIe si;cle. Paris: hikind Colin. 3 vols.

Rudolf Braun

1978 "Early Industriiilization and Demographic Change in the Canton of Zurich," in Charles Tilly, ed., Historical Studies of Changing Fertility. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Crane Brinton

1957 The Jacobins. An Essay in the New History. New York: Russell [I9301 and Russell.

Sten Carlsson

1977 ~rzknar, mamselle;, jungfrur och pigor. Ogif ta kvinnor i det svenska standsumhallet. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.

Centre de la ~e'diterran'ee Moderne et Contemporaine, universitk de Nice

1974 Les migrati'.ons dans les pays &diterranCens au XVIII;~~ et au d6but du XIX;~~. Nice: Centre de la Ngditerrange Moderne et Contemporaine . Cahiers de la ~gditerrange, ~grie Spsciale, No. 2.

Jean-Claude Chesnais

1976 Les morts violentes en France depuis 1826. Comparaisons internationales. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, INED, Travaux et Documents, Cahier 75;

Jean Chesnaux

1976 Du faisons table rase? Paris: Maspgro.

Howard Chudacoff

1972 Mobile Americans. Residential and Social Mobility in Omaha 1880-1920. New York: Oxford University Press.

Samuel Clark

1979 Social Origins of the Irish Land War. Princeton: Princeton University Press::

Jerome Clubb and Erwin K. Scheuch

1980 Historical Social Research. The Use of Historical and Process- Produced Data. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta.

Ansley Coale, Barbara Anderson and Enna Harm

1979 Human Fertility in Russia since the Nineteenth Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Miriam Cohen

1977 "Italian-American Women in New York City, 1900-1950: FJork and School," in .c;,-Milton ~antor'and Bruce Laurie, eds., Class, Sex, and the Woman Worker.

Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood, Carol .:Conell

1980 "The Impact of Union Sponsorship on Strikes in Nineteenth-Century Massachusetts." Unpublished doctoral dissertation in sociology, Uni'versi'ty of Michigan.

Werner Conze

1976 ed., Sozialgeschichte,der-FAmilie.in."dero-Neuzeit Europas. Stuttgart: Ernst Klett.

Kathleen N. Conzen

1976 Immigrant Milwaukee, 1836-1960. Accomodation and Community in a Frontier City. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Alain Corbin

1975 Archaisme et modemite) en Limousin au XIXe si&le. Paris: Marcel ~ivizre. 2 vols.

Nancy F. Cott

1977 The Bonds of Womanhood. "Woman's Sphere" in New England, 1780- 1835. New Haven: Yale University Press.

~ames E. Cronin

1979 Industrial ~onf lict in Modern Britain. London : Croom Helm.

Merle Curti

1959 The Making of an American Community. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Adeline Daumard

1973 ed., Les fortunes fransaises au XIXe sizcle. Paris : Mouton.

John Davis

1980 "Social Anthropology and the Consumption of History," Theory and Society, 9: 519-537.

Allen T, Davis and Mark H. Haller, eds.

1973 The Peoples of Philadelphia. A History of Ethnic Groups and Lower-Class Life, 1790-1940. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Natalie Zemon Davis

1975 Society and Culture in Early Modern France. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Alan Dawley

1976 Class5 and Community. The Industrial Revolution in Lynn. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Marianne Debouzy

1979 "Aspects du temps industriel aux Etats-Unis au dgbut du XIXe si$cle," Cahiers Internationaux.de Sociologie, 67: 197-220.

Peter R. Decker

1978 Fortunes and Failures. White-Collar Mobility in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Ellen DuBois et al.

1980 "Politics and Culture in Women's History: A Symposium," Feminist Studies, 6: 26-64.

CI Jacques Dupaquier

1979 La population rurale du Bassin Parisien \a lle/poque de Louis XIV. Paris: Editions de lrEcole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales.

Glen H. Elder, Jr.

1974 Children of the Great Depression. Social Change in Life Experience. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Ingrid Eriksson and John Rogers

1978 Rural Labor and Population Change. Social and Demographic Development in East-Central Sweden during the Nineteenth Century. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.

John Foster

1974 Class Struggle and the Industrial Revolution. Early Industrial Capitalism in Three Towns, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

Rainer Fremdling and Richard Tilly

1979 eds., Industrialisierung und Raum. Studien zur regionale Differenzierung im Deutschland des 19. Jahrhunderts. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta.

Gunnar Fridlizius

1975 "Some New Aspects on Swedish Population Growth," Economy and History, 18: 3-33, 126-154.

Michael Frisch

1972 Town into City. Springfield, ~~ssachusetts and the Meaning of Community, 1840-1880. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

1979 "American Urban History as an Examp&&.. of Recent Historiography," History and Theory, 18: 350-377.

Franfois Furet

1978 Penser la ~e'volution fran~aise, Paris : Gallimard

Fransois Furet and Jacques Ozouf

1977 Lire et gcrire. ~'al~habe/tisation des fransais de Calvin > Jules Ferry. Paris: Editions de Minuit. 2 vols.

William A. Gamson

. 1975 The Strategy of Social Protest. Homewood, Illinois: Dorsey.

David Gaunt

1977 "Pre-Industrial Economy and Population Structure: The Elements of Variance in Early Modern Sweden," Scandinavian Journal of History, 2: 183-210.

,,-: - . . _ - I _ _ _ . _ ' .

.. I. - Clifford Geertz

1973 The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books.

Henry A. Gemery and Jan S. Hogendorn

1979 eds., The Uncommon Market. Essays in the Economic History of the Atlantic Slave Trade. New York: Academic Press.

Felix Gilbert and Stephen R. Graubard

1972 eds., Historical Studies Today. New York: W.W. Norton.

Peter G. Goheen

1970 Victorian Toronto, 1850 to 1900: Pattern and Process of Growth. Chicago: University of Chicago Department of Geography. Research Paper No. 12.7.

Sidney Goldstein

1958 Patterns of Mobility, 1910-1950. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Jack Goody, Joan Thirsk and E.P. Thompson

1976 eds., Family and Inheritance: Rural Society in Western Europe, 1200-1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Harvey J. Graff

1979 The Literacy Myth: Literacy and Social Structure in the Nineteenth- Century City. New York: Academic Press.

Clyde Griffen and Sally Griffen

1978 Natives and Newcomers. The Ordering of Opportunity in !lid-Nineteenth-Century Poughkeepsie . Cambr.kdge':- Harvard University Press.

Franz Gschwind

1977 ~ev"dkerungsentwick1ung und Wirtschaftsstruktur der Landschaft Base1 im 18. Jahrhundert. Liestal: Kantonale Drucksachen- und Materialzentrale.

Herbert Gutman

1976 Work, Culture and Society in Industrializing America. New York: Knopf.

Myron P. Gutman

1980 War and Rural Life in the Early Modem Low Countries. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Michael Haines

1977 Fertility and Occupation: Population Patterns in Industrialization. New York: Academic Press.

Michael P. Hanagan

1980 The Logic of Solidarity. Artisans and Industrial Workers in Three French Towns, 1871-1914. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

John R. Hanson I1

1980 Trade in Transition. Exports from the Third World 1840-1900. New York: Academic Press.

Tamara K. Hareven

1977 ed., Family and Kin in Urban Communities, 1700-1930. New York: New Viewpoints.

1978 ed., Transitions. The Family and the Life Course in Historical Perspective. New York: Academic Press.

Tamara K. Hareven and Maris A. Vinovskis. .+::

1978 eds., Family and Population in Nineteenth-Century America. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Douglas Hay et al.

1975 Albion's Fatal Tree, Crime and Society in Eighteenth-Century England. New York: Pantheon.

Louis Henry and Yves Blayo

1975 "La population de la France de 1740 % 1860,'' Population, 30: 71-122.

Theodore Hershberg

1978 "The New Urban History. Toward an Interdisciplinary History of the City," JoufiaZ of Urban History, 5: 3-40.

Theodore Hershberg et al.

1979 "A Tale of Three Cities: Blacks and Immigrants in Philadelphia: 1850-1880, 1930 and 1970," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 441: 55-81.

Susan E. Hirsch

1978 Roots of the American Working Class: the Industrialization of Crafts in Newark, 1800-1860. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

E.J. Hobsbawm

1973 Revolutionaries. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

1975 The Age of Capital, 1848-1875.. London: Weiderifeld & Nicolson.

1980 "The Revival of Narrative: Some Comments,".-East and Present, 86: 3-8

E. J. Hobsbawm and George ~ud&

1969 Captain Swing. London: Lawrence & Wishart.

Dirk Hoerder

1977 Crowd Action in a Revolutionary Society: Massachusetts 1765-1780. New York: Academic Press.

Kristian Hvidt

1975 Flight to America: The Social Background of 300,000 Danish Emigrants. New York: Academic Press.

Frederick Cople Jaher

1973 ed., The Rich, the Well Born, and the Powerful: Elites and Upper Classes in History, Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Karlbernhard Jasper

1977 Der Urbanisierungsprozess dargestellt am Beispiel der Stadt ~ h n . Cologne : ~heinisch-~estfglischen Wirtschaftsarchiv zu ~b'ln.

. Hans Christian Johansen

1975 Befolkningsudvikling og familie Struktur: det 18. arhundrede. Odense: Odense University Press.

Robert Eugene Johnson

1979 Peasant and Proletarian. The Working Class of Moscow in the Late Nineteenth Century. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

Tennna Kaplan

1977 Anarchists of Andalusia, 1868-1903. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Michael B. Katz

1975 The People of Hamzlton, Canada West. Farhily and Class in a Mid- Nineteenth-Century City. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Hermann Kellenbenz

1975 ed,., Agrarische Nebengewerbe und Formen der Reagrarisierung im Spatmittelalter und 19.120. Jahrhundert. Stuttgart: Gustav Fischer.

John Knodel

1978 "European popiilations in the past: family-level relations," in Samuel Preston, ed., The Effects of Infant and Child Mortality on Fertility. New York: Academic Press.

1979 "From Natural FertZlity to Family Limitation: The Onset of Fertility Transition in a Sample of German Villages," Demography, 16: 493-521.

Jurgen Kocka

1977 Sozialgeschichte. Begriff - Entwicklung - Probleme. ~Gttin~en: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

Wolfgang ~Gllman

1977 !.'Zur ~ev~lkerun~sentwicklun~ der Neuzeit , " in Reinhart Koselleck, ed., Studien zum Beginn der modernen Welt. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta.

Reinhart Koselleck

1977 ed., Studien zum Beginn der modernen Welt. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta.

Peter Kriedte, Hans Medick and ~ C r ~ e n Schlumbohm

1977 Industrialisierung vor der Industrialisierung. Gewerbliche Warenproduktion auf dem Land in der Formationsperiode des Kapitalismus. ~gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

Barbara Laslett

1975 "Household Structure on an American Frontier: Los Angeles, California, in 1850," American Journal of Sociology, 81: 109-128.

Bruce Laurie

1973 "Fire Companies and Gangs in Southwark: the 1840s," in Allen F. Davis and Mark H. Haller, eds., The Peoples of Philadelphia. A History of Ethnic Groups and Lower-Class Life 1790-1840. Philadelp.hia: Temple University Press.

1980 Working People of Philadelphia, 1800-1850. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

R. Lawton

1973 "Rural Depopulation in Nineteenth Century England," in Dennis R. Mills, ed., English Rural Communities: The Impact of a Specialised Economy. London: Macmillan.

Peter Laslett, Karla Oosterveen and Richard M. Smith

1980 eds., Bastardy and its Comparative History. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Franfois Lebrun

1971 Les hommes et la mort en Anjou aux 17e et 18e si$cles. Essai de d6mographie et de psychologie historiques. Paris : Mouton.

James Lee

1978 "Migration and Expansion in Chinese History," in William H. McNeill and Ruth S. Adams, eds., Human Migration. Patterns and Policies. Bloomington: ,

Ronald Demos Lee Indiana University Press.

1977 ed., Population Patterns in the Past. New York: Academic Press.

1978 Econometric Studies of Topics in Demographic History. New York: Arno Press,

Lynn Hollen Lees

1979 Exiles of Erin. Irish Migrants in Victorian London. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Jacques Le Goff and Pierre Nora

1974 eds., Faire de l'histoire. Paris: Gallimard. 3 vols.

Yves Lequin

1977 Les ouvriers de la rggion lyonnaise (1848-1914). Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon. 2 vols.

Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie

1975 Montaillou, village occitan de 1292 a 1324. Paris: Gallimard.

1979 Le Carnaval de Romans. De la Chandeleur au mercredi des Cendres 1579-1580. Paris: Gallimard.

Ron J. Lesthaege

1977 The Decline of Belgian Fertility, 1800-1970. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

David Levine

1977 Family Formation in an Age of Nascent Capitalism. New York: Academic Press.

Oscar Lewis

1961 The Children of Sanchez. Autobiography of a Mexican Family. New York: Random House.

Catharina Lis and Hugo Soly

1979 Poverty and Capitalism in Pre-Industrial Europe. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: HumanTties Press.

Val Lorwin and Jacob M. Price

1972 eds., The Dimensions of the Past. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Alain Lottin

1968 Vie et mentalit; d'un lillois sous Louis XIV. Lille: E. Raoust.

Sven Lundqvist

1977 ~olkrgrelserna i det svenska samhallet, 1850-1920. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.

Alan Macfarlane, Sarah Harrison and Charles Jardine

1978 Reconstructing Historical Communities. Cambridge: Cambridge . University Press.

Reinhard Mann

1979 "Zur Soziologie des Widerstandes im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland," photoduplication of typescript. Cologne: Institut fzr Angewandte Sozialf orschung, Universitst zu ~b'ln.

Ted Margadant

1980 French Peasants in Revolt. The Insurrection of 1851. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

-- -- - . . - - - -41- -- - -

Sture Martinius

1977 Peasant Destinies: The History of 552 Swedes Born 1810-12. Stockholm; Almqvist & Wiksell.

Horst Matzerath r 8

1978 "Industrialisierung, Mobilitat und sozialen Wandel am Beispiel der ~tgdte Rheydt und Rheindalen," -in Hartmut Kaelble et al., eds., Probleme der Modernisierung in Deutschland. Opland: Westdeutscher Verlag.

Peter D. McCl6lland

1975 Causal Explanation and Model Building in History, Economics, and the New Economic History. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

-- - . - - -

Thorns McKeown *

1976 The Modern Rise of Population. New York: Acad6mic Press.

Franklin Mendels

1978 "Aux origfnes de la proto-industrialisation," Bulletin du Centre dfHistoire Economique et Sociale de la ~ 6 ~ i o n Lyonnaise, no. 2:

I-.?.:. 1-25.

1980 "Seasons and regions in agriculture and industry during the process of industrialization," in Sidney Pollard, ed., Region und Industrialisierung. Studien zur Rollen der Region in der Wirtschaftsgeschichte der letzten zwei Jahrhunderte. ~gttin~en: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

Joel Mokyr

1976 Industrialization in the Low Countries, 1795-1850. New Haven: Yale University Press.

David Montgomery

1972 "The Shuttle and the Cfoss: Weavers and Artisans in the Kensington Riots of 1844," Journal of Social History, 5: 411-446.

1979. Worker's Control in America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Paul J. ~zller

1977 ed., Die Analyse prozess-produzierter Daten. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta.

Frank Munger

1979 "Measuring Repression of Popular Protest by English Justices of the Peace in the Industrial Revolution," Historical Methods, 12: 76-83.

Lewis Namier

1957 The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George 111. London: Macmillan. Second edition,

* Bo Ohngren

1974 Folk i rgrelse. ~amh~llsutvecklin~, flyttningsmonster och fo1krb;elser i Eskilstuna, 1870-1900. Uppsala : Almqvis t & Wiksell.

Frank Owsley and Harriet Owgley

1949 Plain Folk of the Old South. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.

Bryan D. Palmer

1979 A Culture in Conflict. Skilled Workers and Industrial Capitalism in Hamilton, Ontario, 1860-1914. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.

William N. Parker and Eric L. Jones

1975 eds., European Peasants and their Markets. Princeton: -- Princeton University Press.

Jean-Claude Perrot

1975 ~engse dlune ville modeme. Caen au XVIIIe si&cle. Paris: Mouton. 2 vols.

Michelle Perrot

1974 Les ouvriers en grLve. France 1871-1890. Paris: Mouton. 2 vols.

1980 LIImpossible prison. Recherches sur le systzme pdnitentiaire au XIXe siscle. Paris: Seuil.

Thomas L. Philpott

1978 The S1umy;andLthe Ghetto. Neighborhood Deterioration and Middle-Class Reform, Chicago 1880-1930, New York: 0xford.University Press.

Elizabeth Pleck

1978 Black Migration and Poverty. Boston 1865-1900. New York:?Academic Press.

Allan Pred

1973 Urban Growth and the Circulation of Information: The United States System of Cities 1790-1840. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

R.N. Pullat

1977 ed., Problem'i istoricheskoi demografii SSSR. Tallinn: Institute of History of Academy of Sciences, Estonian LSSR.

Toni Richards

1980 "Two Essays in the Analysis of a Demographic System: France 1740-1909." Unpublished doctoral dissertation in sociology, University of Michigan.

Daniel Roche

1978 Le siscle des 1umi;res en province. ~cadgmies et acadgmiciens provinciaux, 1680-1789. Paris: Mouton. 2 . ~ 0 1 ~ .

H.K. Roessingh

1979 "Tobacco Growing in Holland in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: A Case Study of the Innovative Spirit of Dutch Peasants," Acta Historiae Neerlandicae, 11: 18-54.

John Rogers

1980 ed., Family Building and Family Planning in Pre-Industrial Societies. Uppsala: Family History Group, University of Uppsala .

David Rothman and Stanton Wheeler

1980 eds., Social History and Social Policy. New York: Academic Press, forthcoming.

George ~ude'

1978 Protest and Punishment. The Story of.:'the Social and Political Protesters transported to Australia, 1788-1868. Oxford: Clareridon Press.

Jane Schneider and Peter Schneider

1976 Culture and Political Economy in Western Sicil*. New York: Academic Press.

John C. Schneider

1980 Detroit and the Problem of Order, 1830-1880. A Geography of Crime, Riot, and Policing. Lincoln: University of Nebraska.Press.

Leo F. Schnore

1975 ed., The New Urban History. Quantitative Explorations by American Historians. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Lawrence Schof er

1975 The Formation of a Modem Labor Force. Upper Silesia 1865-1914. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Michael Schwartz

1976 Radical Protest and Social Structure. The Southern Farmers' Alliance and Cotton Tenancy, 1880-1890. New York: Academic Press.

..jR.A. Schweitzer

1979 "A Study of Contentious Gatherings in Early Nineteenth-Century Great Britain," Historical Methods, 12: 1-4.

William H. Sewell, Jr.

1980 Work and Revolution. The Language of Labor from the Old Regime= to 1848. New York: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming.

Alan Sharlin

1978 "Natural Decrease in Early Modern Cities: A Reconsideration," Past and Present, Z9: 126-138.

Edward Shorter

1975 The Making of the Modern Family. New York: Basic Books.

Theda Skocpol

1979 States and Social Revolutions. A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Carroll Smith-Rosenberg

1975 "The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations Between Women in Nineteenth-Century America," Signs, 1: 1-30.

David L. Snyder

1975 "Industrial Setting and Industrial Conflict: Comparative Analyses of France, Italy, and the United States," American Sociological Review, 40: 259-278.

Allan H. Spear

1967 Black Chicago: The Making of a Negro Ghetto, 1890-1920, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Arthur L. Stinchcornbe

1978 Theoretical Methods in Social History. New York: Academic Press.

Traian Stoianovitch

1976 French Historical Method. The Annales Paradigm. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Lawrence Stone

1965 The Crisis of the Aristocracy, 1558-1641. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

1966 "Social Mobility in England, 1500-1700," Past and Present, 33: 16-55.

1969 "Literacy and Education in England, 1640-1900," Past and Present, 42: 69-139.

1972a The Causes of the English Revolution, 1529-1642. London: Routledge, 4 Kegan Paul.

1972b "Prosopography," in Felix Gilbert and Stephen R. Graubard, eds., Historical Studies Today. New York: W.W. Norton.

1973 Family and Fortune. Studies in Aristocratic Finance in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

1977a The Family, Sex, and Marriage in England, 1500-1800. New York: Harper & Row.

1977b ''History and the Social Sciences in the Twentieth Century," in Charles F. Delzell, ed., The Future of History. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.

1979 "The Revival of Narrative: Reflections on a New Old History," Past and Present, 85: 3-24.

Lawrence Stone and Jeanne C. Fawtier Stone

1972 "Country Houses and their Owners in Hertfordshire, 1540-1879," in William 0.:. Aydelotte, Allan G. Bogue and Robert William Fogel, eds., The Dimensions of Quantitative Research in History. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Yoshio Sugimoto

1975 "Structural Sources of Popular Revolts and the Tobaku Movement at the Time of the Meiji Restoration," Journal of Asian ~tudiks, 34: 875-889.

Jan Sundin and Erik Soderlund

1979 eds., Time, Space, and Man. Essays on Microdemography. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.

Stephan Thernstrom

1964 Poverty and Progress. Social Mobility in a Nineteenth-Century City. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

6 1

1968 "Notes on the Historical Study of Social Mobility," Comparative Studies in Society and History, 10: 162-172.

1973 The Other Bostonians: Poverty and Progress in the American Metropolis, 1880-1970. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

1977 "The New Urban History," in Charles F. Delzell, ed., The Future of History. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.

Stephan Thernstrom and Richard Sennett

1969 Nineteenth-Century Cities: Essays in the New Urban History. New Haven: Yale University Press.

E.P. Thompson

1975 Whigs and Hunters. The Origin of the Black Act. New York: Pantheon.

1978 "Eighteenth-Century English Society; Class Struggle without Class?" Socral History, 3: 133-165.

Paul Thompson

1978 The Voice of the Past. Oral History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Louise A. Tilly

1977 "Urban Growth, Industrialization, and Women's Employment in Milan, Italy, 1881-1911," Journal of Urban History, 3: 467-484.

1980 "Social History and its Critics,'' Theory and Society, forthcoming.

Louise A. Tilly and Joan W. Scott

1978 Women, Work, and Family. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston

Richard Tilly

1980 Kapital, Staat,und sozialer Protest in der deutschen Industrialisierung. &ttingen : Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht .

Marcel Trudel

1976 ~ontrgal, La formation d'une societe, 1642-1663. Montreal: FIDES

Randolph Trumbach

1978 The Rise of the Egalitarian Family: Aristocratic Kinship and Domestic Relations in Eighteenth-Century England. New York: Academic Press.

Herman Van der Wee and Eddy van Cauwenberghe

1978 eds., Productivity of Land and Agricultural Innovation in the Low Countries (:l250-1800). Louvain: Leuven University Press.

Ia. E. Vodarskii

1977 "Naselenie Rossii v.,kontsee xvii-nachalie xviii veka (problemti, metodika issledovaniia, rezulttatri)," in R.N. Pullat,: ed., Problempi istoricheskoi demografii SSSR. Tallinn: Institute of History, Academy of Sciences, Estonian SSR.

Heinrich Volkmann

1977 "Modernisierung des Arbeitskampfs? Zum Formwandel von Streik und Aussperrung in Deutschland 1864-1975,'' in Hartmut Kaelble et al., Probleme der Modernisierung in Deutschland. Sozialhistorische Studien zum 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Opland: Westdeutscher Verlag.

Michi51 Vovelle

1980 Ville et campagne au 18e si&cle (Chartres et la Beauce). Paris: Editions Sociales.

Jan de Vries

1974 The Dutch Rural Economy in the Golden Age, 1500-1700, New Haven: Yale University Press.

1976 The Economy of Europe in an Age of Crisis, 1600-1750. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kenneth 14.:. Wachter et al.

1978 Statistical Studies of Historical Social Structure. New York: Academic Press.

Daniel Walkowitz

1978 Work City, Company Town: Protest Among the Iron and Cotton-Workers of Troy and Cohoes, New York, 1855-1884. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Immanuel Wallerstein

1974, The Modem World System. New York: Academic Press. Volumes 1918 -I and I1 of projected four volumes.

David Ward

1971. Cities and Irrrmigrants: A Geography of Change in Nineteenth Century America. New York: Oxford Uliiversity Press.

W. Lloyd Warner et al.

1963 Yankee City. One-volume abridged edition. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Michael Weber, John Bodnar, and Roger D. Simon

1980 Migration and Urbanization: Poles, Blacks and Italians in Twentieth Century Pittsburgh. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, forthcoming.

Hans-Ulrich Wehler

1977 ed., "Analyse von sozialen Strukturen." Special issue of Geschichte. und Gesellschaft, vol. 3, no. 4.

J. Dennis Willigan and Katherine A. Lynch

1980 Sources and Methods of Historical Demography, New York: Academic Press, forthcoming,

Christer Winberg

1975 ~olk2knin~ och proletisering kring den sociala strukturomvandling Sveriges Landsbygd under der agrara revolutionen,. Gothenburg: p

Historfska Institutionen i ~gtebor~.

Stephanie Graumann Wolf

1976 Urban Village. Population, Community, and Family Structure in Germantown, Pennsylvania, 1683-1800. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Gavin Wright

1978 The Political Economy of the Cotton South. Households, Markets, and Wealth in the Nineteenth Century. New York: W.W. Norton.

Keith Wrightson and David Levine

1979 Poverty and Piety in an English Village. Terling, 1525-1700. New York: Academic Press.

E .A. Wrigley and R; S .:. .Schof.ield .'. 1980 The Population History of England, 1541-1871: A Reconstruction.

London: Edward Arnold, forthcoming.

Virginia Yans-McLaughlin

1977 Family and Community. Italian Immigrants in Buffalo, 1880-1930. Ithaca: Cornell University Pres..

Olivier Zunz

1977 "The Organization of the American City in the Late Nineteenth Century: Ethnic SEructure and Spatial Management in Detroit," Journal of Urban History, 3 : 443-466.

The Center for Research on Social Organization is a facility of the Department of Sociology, University of Michigan. . Its primary mission is to support the research of faculty and students in the department's

- Social Organization graduate program. CRSO Working Papers report current research and reflection by affiliates of the Center; many of them are published later elsewhere after revision. Working Papers which are still in print are available from the Center for a fee of 5 0 ~ plus the number of pages in the paper ( 8 8 ~ for a 38-page paper, etc.). The Center will photocopy out-of print Working Papers at cost (approximately 5~ per page). Recent Working Papers include:

209 "A Study of Contentious Gatherings in Early Nineteenth-Century Great Britain," by R. A. Schweitzer, January 1980, 4 pabes.

. .

210 " Enumerating and Coding contentious Gatherings in ~ineteenth-century Britain,"by Charles ill^ and R. A. Schweitzer, February 1980, 84 pages.

211 "The Texture of.Contention in Britain, 1828-1829," by R. A. Schweitzer, Charles Tilly, and John.Boyd, February ,1980, 150 pages .'

212 "How (And to Some Extent, Why) to Study British Contention," by Charles Tilly, February 1980, 61 pages. '

213 "States, Taxes and ~roletarians," by Charles Tilly, March 1980, 27 pages.

2i.4 " Chariva.ris, Repertoires, and ~olitics, " by Charles Tilly, April 1980, 25 pages.

215 "Gehkral Strikes and Social Change ,in Belgium," by Carl Strikwerda, April 1980, 25 pages. , .

216 "Two Xodels of the School Desegregation Cases," by Joseph Sanders, May 1980, 75 pages.

217 "Two Experiments on the Effects of Social Status on Responsibility Judgement,'' - by Joseph Sanders, . -- Thomas Regulus, and V.- Lee Hamilton, May 1980, 34 pies,

-- Request copies of these papers, the completelists of Center Working Papers and other reprints, or further information about Center activities from:

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