Doing Microhistory

Catalog description

The genre of microhistory was expressly invented in the 1970s to recover the voices of people usually neglected in the past, often based on scanty sources. It's an exciting and risky endeavor, as the historian often has to fill in details lacking in the sources, a historical tightrope act. Class includes three sessions with authors of microhistory who share how they met these challenges:Profs. Zipperstein and Stokes (Stanford) and Getz (San Francisco State).