Microhistory: A Fun Place to Start

In the historical field, there's a subfield called "microhistory". This avenue of research and writing focuses on "small" stories about specific people at specific times in the past. Microhistory as a methodology emerged in the 1950s and 1960s, and was a response to the work of social historians that tended to be macro in both focus and conclusions. In other words, social historians at the time tended to make general, summative statements about human events, and microhistorians emerged to argue that this hid the everyday experience of normal people. This was especially true for people who were "normal exceptions," so people exceptional enough to show up in historical records for some reason but not major paradigm shifters or massive game changers (a truly miniscule percentage of the human experience). Normal exceptions are far more common, microhistorians argue, and yet can reveal so much about everyday life.

Thus this subfield emerged into the 1970's, producing some truly engaging and fascinating works of historical research. Some have even spawned films and tv series, which is no surprise given how much they bring history to life.

Microhistories are not without their controversies. The enjoyable aspect of microhistories is that they deal extensively with events "on the ground" at the time researched, serving almost like a time machine to the time and place in question. Yet historians also use that reconstruction to make broader arguments about the past, theses that some historians feel are a bridge too far with the sources available.

If you want to read a tad more about microhistory as a field, check out this short essay.

But that's a debate we can explore another day. Today you can consult this (short) list of great books to acquire if you want a light read on the compelling and engaging historical topics they cover. Microhistories make great introductory books for anyone who is hesitant to read about history because more than anything else, they really bring the past alive. Enjoy!

• Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms (1976)

• Carlo Ginzburg, The Night Battles (1983)

• Geoffrey Parker, ed., Unmaking the West (2006)

• Johan Huizinga, Homo ludens (1950)

• John Keegan, The Face of Battle (1976)

• Melissa Mohr, Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing (2016)

• Natalie Zemon Davis, The Return of Martin Guerre (1982)

• Richard L. Kagan, Lucrecia’s Dreams (1990)

• Robert C. Davis, The War of the Fists (1994)

• Shannon French, The Code of the Warrior (2003)

• Simon Singh, The Code Book (1999)