From Social History to the History of Society Author(s): E. J. Hobsbawm Source: Daedalus, Vol. 100, No. 1, Historical Studies Today (Winter, 1971), pp. 20-45 Published by: The MIT Press on behalf of American Academy of Arts & Sciences Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20023989 Accessed: 23/03/2009 03:18 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mitpress. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The MIT Press and American Academy of Arts & Sciences are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Daedalus. http://www.jstor.org E. J. HOBSBAWM From Social History to the History of Society essay is an to a This attempt observe and analyze, not to state or to is personal credo express (except where this clearly stated) the this at author's preferences and value judgments. I say the to are outset in order distinguish this essay from others which or for their defenses of pleas the kind of history practiced by it at authors?as happens social history does not need either the to two com moment?but also avoid misunderstandings especially mon in discussions heavily charged with ideology. All discus are. sions about social history to The first is the tendency for readers identify authors with the views they write about, unless they disclaim this identification even so. in the clearest terms and sometimes when they do The or second is the tendency to confuse the ideological political moti vations of research, or its utilization, with its scientific value. Where or or as is often ideological intention bias produces triviality error, case we the in the human sciences, may happily condemn motiva a tion, method, and result. However, life would be great deal simpler our were those if understanding of history advanced exclusively by we are in or in on with whom agreement sympathy all public and even private matters. Social history is at present in fashion. to seen None of those who practice it would care be keeping with all those who come under the same ideological company is more than to historical heading. Nevertheless, what important define one's attitude is to discover where social history stands today if after two decades of unsystematic copious development, and it whither might go. I term The social history has always been difficult to define, and no to until recently there has been great pressure define it, for it has lacked the institutional and professional vested interests which 20 Social History to the History of Society on until normally insist precise demarcations. Broadly speaking, at name?it was in the present vogue of the subject?or least of the senses. it the past used in three sometimes overlapping First, or more referred to the history of the poor lower classes, and spe move cifically to the history of the movements of the poor ( "social even more ments"). The term could be specialized, referring to essentially the history of labor and socialist ideas and organiza reasons tions. For obvious this link between social history and the or movements history of social protest socialist has remained strong. A number of social historians have been attracted to the subject were or as because they radicals socialists and such interested in subjects of great sentimental relevance to them.1 was on a Second, the term used to refer to works variety of to in terms as human activities difficult classify except such "man rea ners, customs, everyday life." This was, perhaps for linguistic a since the sons, largely Anglo-Saxon usage, English language lacks suitable terms for what the Germans who wrote about similar sub in a manner? jects?often also rather superficial and journalistic or was called Kultur- Sittengeschichte. This kind of social history not oriented the lower particularly toward classes?indeed rather more the opposite?though the politically radical practitioners tended to pay attention to them. It formed the unspoken basis of was what may be called the residual view of social history, which in put forward by the late G. M. Trevelyan his English Social as It History (London, 1944) "history with the politics left out." no comment. requires term was common The third meaning of the certainly the most and for our purposes the most relevant: "social" was used in com bination with "economic history." Indeed, outside the Anglo Saxon world, the title of the typical specialist journal in this field before the Second World War always ( I think ) bracketed the two as in u. words, the Vierteljahrschrift fuer Sozial Wirtschaftsgeschi chte, the Revue dHistoire E. 6- S., or the Annales d'Histoire E. ?r S. It must be admitted that the economic half of this combination was were overwhelmingly preponderant. There hardly any social histories of equivalent caliber to set beside the numerous volumes to economic devoted the history of various countries, periods, and were subjects. There in fact not very many economic and social 1939 otie can a histories. Before think of only few such works, admittedly sometimes by impressive authors (Pirenne, Mikhail W. mono Rostovtzeff, J. Thompson, perhaps Dopsch), and the 21 D DALUS or was graphic periodical literature even sparser. Nevertheless, the habitual bracketing of economic and social, whether in the or definitions of the general field of historical specialization under the more banner of economic is specialized history, significant. an to It revealed the desire for approach history systemati one. cally different from the classical Rankean What interested historians of this kind was the evolution of the economy, and this in turn it on interested them because of the light threw the struc ture and in more on changes society, and especially the relation as ship between classes and social groups, George Unwin ad mitted.2 This social dimension is evident even in the work of the most or economic so as narrowly cautiously historians long they to claimed be historians. Even J. H. Clapham argued that economic was history of all varieties of history the most fundamental be cause was it the foundation of society. The predominance of the over we economic the social in this combination had, may suggest, two reasons. It was to a economic partly owing view of theory which refused to isolate the economic from social, institutional, and other elements, as with the Marxists and the German historical to over school, and partly the sheer headstart of economics the other social sciences. If to history had be integrated into the social economics was the one it had to come sciences, primarily to terms with. One might go further and argue (with Marx) that, whatever the essential inseparability of the economic and the social in human society, the analytical base of any historical inquiry into the evolu tion of human societies must be the process of social production. the a None of three versions of social history produced spe academic field social until the at cialized of history 1950's, though one time the famous Annales of Lucien Febvre and Marc Bloch the economic its dropped half of subtitle and proclaimed itself was a purely social. However, this temporary diversion of the war now years, and the title by which this great journal has been a a known for quarter of century?Annales: ?conomies, soci?t?s, well as nature its civilisations?as the of contents, reflect the origi nal and essentially global and comprehensive aims of its founders. nor Neither the subject itself, the discussion of its problems, de in veloped seriously before 1950. The journals specializing it, still few in number, were not founded until the end of the 1950's: we may perhaps regard the Comparative Studies in Society and His as an tory (1958) the first. As academic specialization, social new. history is therefore quite 22 Social History to the History of Society and What explains the rapid development growing emancipa in The could tion of social history the past twenty years? question be answered in terms of technical and institutional changes within deliberate the academic disciplines of social science: the speciali zation of economic history to fit in with the requirements of the economic and of which the rapidly developing theory analysis, is an and "new economic history" example; the remarkable world as an wide growth of sociology academic subject and fashion, turn which in called for subsidiary historical service-branches to cannot analogous those required by economics departments. We as neglect such factors. Many historians (such the Marxists) who had previously labeled themselves economic because the prob were in were not or even lems they interested plainly encouraged ex considered by orthodox general history, found themselves a economic truded from rapidly narrowing history and accepted or if welcomed the title of "social historians," especially their mathe matics were is in poor.