HIST 97K: "What is Social History?"

Professor Sidney Chalhoub. For a long time, the writing of history focused mainly on kings, politicians, landlords, slave owners, capitalists –that is, on those with the means to write letters, autobiographies, official documents. In the past decades, historians have increasingly studied the lives of people not apparently entitled to have their histories told: peasants, slaves, women, industrial workers. Social History is the study of the experiences of those who lived most or all of their lives submitted to the power and the oppression of others. What did these people do with what was done to them? What sources are there to investigate this question and how should historians analyze them?