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What Difference Does It Make?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Tamara K. Hareven
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Extract

Almost 30 years have passed since the “new” social history and its related fields fired the imagination of historians and other social scientists, particularly sociologists, anthropologists, and psychologists. Perhaps the time has come to ask: What difference does it make? What has been the impact of these new historical efforts on our understanding of more general patterns in history?

The new social history and its subdisciplines have become so established that they are not viewed as new anymore. Younger generations of scholars take them for granted. On the other hand, those of us who witnessed their emergence and helped develop them still remember the sense of promise and discovery and the frantic search for methodologies with which to answer new questions. The excitement led to collaborations and to an enduring sense of kinship among practitioners.

Type
President’s Address
Information
Social Science History , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , Fall 1996 , pp. 317 - 344
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1996 

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