Microhistory Powerpoint is on the website Dr Jonathan

Microhistory (Powerpoint is on the website) Dr Jonathan Davies j. d. davies@warwick. ac. uk

The development of microhistory • Einaudi “microstorie” and Quaderni Storici • Ginzburg, Giovanni Levi, Edoardo Grendi, Carlo Poni et al • history from below • history of mentalities • Alltagsgeschichte - history of everyday life

The development of microhistory • dissatisfaction with large-scale analysis • quantitative analysis (Annales) • disillusion with grand narratives • “…struggling to eliminate the distortions produced by the gigantification of historical scale, which has crushed all individuals to insignificance under the weight of vast impersonal structures and forces” [Edward Muir]

Carlo Ginzburg • born 1939 in Turin • son of Leone and Natalia Ginzburg

• use of court records • The Cheese and the Worms (Il formaggio e i vermi; Einaudi, 1976; English trans. 1980) • Night Battles (I Benandanti; 1966) • Domenico Scandella aka Menocchio • Inquisition trials 1582 -6 and 1599

The Cheese and the Worms • “in my opinion, all was chaos, that is, earth, air, water, and fire were mixed together; and out of that bulk a mass formed – just as cheese is made out of milk – and worms appeared in it, and these were the angels. . . ”

• “Microhistory as a practice is essentially based on the reduction of the scale of observation, on a microscopic analysis and an intensive study of the documentary material” • “microscopic observation will reveal factors previously unobserved. . . Phenomena previously considered to be sufficiently described and understood assume completely new meanings by altering the scale of observation. It is then possible to use these results to draw far wider generalizations. . . ” [Giovanni Levi, “On Microhistory”, pp. 101 -2]

Scale • individuals or small groups eg. Montaillou, Carnival at Romans, Return of Martin Guerre • primary sources • tiny details eg. Pickett’s Charge • jeux d’echelles (Jacques Revel)

Evidence • The “evidential paradigm” (Ginzburg) • anomalies • the “exceptional normal” (E. Grendi) • clues, traces, hints

The Return of Martin Guerre by Natalie Zemon Davis (1983) • “That it is an unusual case serves me well, for a remarkable dispute can sometimes uncover motivations and values that are lost in the welter of the everyday. My hope is to show that the adventures of three young villagers are not too many steps beyond the more common experience of their neighbours, that an imposter’s fabrication has links with more ordinary ways of creating personal identity” [p. 4]

• anthropology/ ethnography • “thick description” (Clifford Geertz)

Sources • trials as sources • highlighting the gaps • distortion, partiality, process of research • the historian as hunter • truth, not relativism

Criticisms • (too? ) compelling stories • relationship of margins to centre? • relationship of micro to macro? • causes of historical change?