A Clown in Regal Purple: Social History and the Historians Author(s): Tony Judt Source: History Workshop, No.

7 (Spring, 1979), pp. 66-94 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4288223 . Accessed: 24/10/2011 17:50
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ESSAYS

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A Clown in Regal Purple: Social History and the Historians by Tony Judt

This is a bad time to be a social historian.[1] On the face of it, this seems an unlikely suggestion. The last two decades have seen a proliferation of journals and books in the field, and more men and women than ever before are writing and studying social history. The old emphasis on institutions and events has been replaced by an interest in all manner of 'social' concerns, and the discipline has all the appearance of health and energy. What, then, is wrong? The answer is that social history is suffering a severe case- of pollution. The subject has become a gathreringplace for the unscholarly, for historians bereft of ideas and subtlety. The writings thus produced are without theoretical content, a failing disguised by an obsession with method and technique. They represent collectively a loss of faith in history. In their reaction against the chronological imperatives of political or economic history, social historians have all but lost touch with the historical events altogether. There is a constant striving for 'scientific' status, a requirement commonly met by the undignified and indiscriminate borrowing of terms and tools from other disciplines. One journal avowedly declares its commitment to 'interdisciplinary history', as if the support of other subjects were required for history to remain a plausible undertaking. In these circumstances the study of the past becomes a playpit for the unattended urchins of other disciplines: computer scientists, parsonian sociologists and structural anthropologists wallow around under a benevolent editorial eye. Small wonder that social history elicits scorn and distaste from the traditional empiricists, who at least retain their faith in history, for all that they do not know what that is.

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Ride HogarthHudibrasISkimmington My purpose in this article is to discuss the dominant characteristics of much modern social history, and then to offer some reflections on the origins of these. I should stress that, for two reasons, this is not a strictly theoretical account of the problem. In the first place, I do not believe that any properly theoretical thinking informs most of the writings under consideration. As a consequence, it might be misleading to attempt a single analytical explanation for them, the more so in that there is clearly more than one school of thought at work. [2] Second, the task of an initial critique of the subject is to focus clearly on what is at fault, and how this came to be. The reader is thus offered here a historical account of 'modern' social history; clearly, a more analytical investigation remains to be done. Why, it may be asked, do we need a critique of modern social history? The response is that a whole discipline is being degraded and abused; a few more years of the work currently published in certain European and American journals, [3] and socitil history will have lost all touch with the study of the past. Certain areas of historical investigation, notably the history of women, of revolutions, of industrialisation and its impact, have proved especially vulnerable. In these fields received ideas and stereotyped models too often take the place of theoretical insight or careful research, while certain specialists resemble Bertrand Russell's savages in their aptitude for imagining a mystical connection between words and things. Thus a term such as 'modernisation' or some 'model' of progress is applied to a historical situation, which in its circular turn becomes source and justification for claims made on behalf of the word or concept in question. As such writings come progressively to

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be revealedas sterileand vacuous, so will social historylose the groundgained in recentyears. It is not hardto envisagea reaction,a few years hence, in favour of 'old fashioned' history, with the social kind dismissedas a soft option for the 'unserious'. Thereis also a moreimportantpoint at stake. Historyis aboutpolitics. By this I but meannot the debatesor electoralfortunesof parliamentarians, the meansand purposesby which civil society is organisedand governed.The failureto consider to this dimensionhas two consequences, be discussedlater. One is that whole areas becomeincomprehensible; sincethey cannotaltogetherbe of the humanexperience and ignored,we areoffereda varietyof alternative mostlybizarreaccountsof them. of The recenthistoriography revolutionsis the most obvious instance.Politics are reducedto events of marginalsignificance,explicablein psychologicalterms, or mere footnotes to a serial descriptionof 'long term social change'. The second of consequence the divorceof politicalfrom social historyis the insultingdenialto people in the past of theirpoliticaland ideologicalidentity. Consciousnessof any that relatingto class, is glossed over or paraphrased,so that kind, particularly human society in the past takes on an oddly impersonal,neo-hegelianquality. -the proper and Strangely,then, modern social history fails at its first hurdle
sympathetic account of people.

Further,historyis not just about politics,it is politics.Thereis a very clearand consistentmessagecontainedin the writingsof manymodernsocial historians,and it concernsthe present.Concealedbeneathlayersof terminological neutralityand objectiveanalysis,is a dominant tendencywhichis both philistineand conservative. It is against this aspect of modern social history that criticismmust initially be of directed,just as the time is long overduefor acknowledgement the hollow and shallowcharacter muchthat passesfor reflectivethoughtin the field. Something of to whenone of its leadingpractitioners, ratherodd has clearlyhappened a discipline the editorof the Journalof SocialHistory,canpontificatethus:The social historianmust seek sharedvaluesand life styles on the basis of his definitionof social structure,for this is what his enquiryis all about.[4] I The most strikingcharacteristic manysocial historians of (otherthan their inability to write the English language) is their enthusiasmfor 'modernisationtheory'. Originallyconceived and employed by economists and others as a means of the accountingfor and characterising developmentof the 'third world', this allis purposeexplicandum now very frequently offeredas a framework describing for the courseof Europeanhistory. A combinationof neo-darwinism functional and sociology,it stringsthe past out along a linearcontinuum.Thusany givenevent, or attitude,can be labelled'pre-modern' 'backward-looking', no concernas to or with the relativeor historicist identityof the tag. DavidApter, a leadingexponentof this approach,clearlystatesthat he sees 'developingcommunities' strungout in this as way, all of thempursuing single,determined, a upwardpath to the present.In place of a WhiggishEnglandwe are offered 'the modernworld', and all incidentsalong the lineareeithercausallylinkedto some stagein the processor, wherethis is whollv implausible,declaredto be 'atavistic'. [5]

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The nonsensical,teleologicalaspectof sucha viewvwas implicitin the optimistic of application it to Africaor Asia; it becomeseven moreobviouslyuntenable when offered in the dimensionof time ratherthan space. Here the usual approachis to presenthistoryas dividedinto two quite distinctcategories,dichotomies,with all socialand humanattributes labelled'traditional' 'modern'.[6]The implicationis or risible, the result occasionallyhilarious. One definition of a modern, developed structuraldifferentiasociety offers the following attributes:-high participation; or tion;highlyrationalised secularised culture;nation state; capacityto meet most internalor externalchallenges.The authoremphasises that the conceptis 'linear', though he acknowledgesthat 'setback' may occur. It presumablyfollows that classical Athenscouldnot properly more'modern'thanpresent-day be Italy, yet the definitions(withtheirEuro-centred to pretensions normativestatus)would suggest otherwise. [7] A variation thisthemeis CharlesTilly'suse of 'urbanisation' a description on as for a processhe elsewherelabels modernisation; defines the formeras market he expansion plus state centralisation. The theory he derives from this is that urbanisation breedsresistance whereit has occurredin both vigorousand uneven form. That is to say, undercertainconditionsmodernisation breedsrevolt, a view Tilly has since put forth on many occasions. Here, as elsewherein his work, one mustchoose betweena megahistorical theorywithoutexplanatory value, and a redescriptionin pretentiousterms of a particularprocess which could better be described its empirical in detail.The modelofferedis simultaneously overblownand redundant. [8] The fact that the term'modernisation' consistently is used, despiteits epistemologicalvacuityis a reminder it is servinga multitude ideologicalpurposes.To that of be modernis to be wherethe 'historicalprocess'intendedyou to be. It follows that all evidenceof a willingness adaptto the demandsof a modernsocietyis, on the to face of it, confirmation the modernised of natureof the personor groupin question. Conversely,those who fail so to adapt, who 'protest' against the changes in question, are 'backward-looking'and the subject of much properly puzzled investigation.Thus Karen Offen admiresthe 'middle-classviews' of nineteenthcentury French artisans 'towards' women and wonders whether this laudable did characteristic not go in tandemwith 'modernisation'. Peter Stearnsmakes [9] much of the growing 'adaptability'of Europeanworkers to the conditions of modern manufacture.[10] for William Sewell, we learn from his pen that As peasantswho cameto live in a city were more upwardly mobile than the old urban working-class, thisleadshim to suggestthat the formerwere'morereceptiveto and all kindsof modernideas'. It is clear, in the context, that Sewellregards'modern' ideas and behaviouras synonymouswith competitivebehaviourin the labour market. ] LikePatriciaBranca,he clearlybelievesnot just in the rationality the [11 of market, but in the purposefulinevitabilityof that rationality. Capitalist social relations(never describedas such) are synonymouswith modernism,so that it becomesproperto enquire,not why a given labour force came to accept its own subjugation,but why it might ever have been so retrograde to fail to do so.[12] as All that remainsfor the historianis to classify, along the continuum,what shall or shallnot count as 'modern'.Wholedisciplinescan be subsumedthis way- Offen, again, actuallytakes the view that what she calls 'women's issues' may serve as 'indicators broadsocialchangein societiesundergoing of modernisation'. The a [13] priori assumptionthus breedsa definitionwhich can be redeployedto prove the originalbelief.

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Two things are happeninghere, both of them inimicalto the study of history. The first is a simple failure of intelligence.Take the following example:Edward is Shorterhas decidedthat a high rate of illegitimacy a good workingdefinitionof modernity.He has gone on to discoverthat the 'single highestgroup most prone [sic] to illegitimacywas urban domestic servants'. Because of this he warns the to studentof industrial capitalismagainst'attachingtoo muchimportance factories and the moderneconomy'.[14]His artificiallyestablishedcriterionhas become a norm, a truth-definition,from which all available empiricaldata may be rearranged. Yet without any definition of 'modernity' (except by reference to we illegitimacy) havea meretautology- and a ratherdramatically one at that. silly Apter is little better.He offers two centralhypotheses.'One is that the greaterthe degreeof modernisation a system,the greaterthe tendencyto embourgeoisement in - whilethe greater the degreeof industrialisation, greaterthe tendencytowards the GivenApter's point of view, the first is a tautology, the second a radicalisation.' truism.Not surprisingly, find thatnineteenth-century we Europewas both bourgeois and threatenedby radicals.Q.E.D! We have actuallylearntnothing. [15] Secondly,and more profoundlyinimicalis the necessarilydualist structureof all modernisation theories.Tillydividesprotestinto pre-modern modern,Sewell and dividesartisansfrom proletarians pre-selected on criteriaof adaptabilityto bourgeois attitudes, and so forth. This is rubbish -the changing characterof rural protest in late nineteenth-century France has nothing to do with definitions of modernity,any more than we have any reason to expect workersin Marseillesto desire upward mobility.[16] Nor can such views account for the existence of or capitalismbefore industrialisation, the time-lagbetween the birth of classical economicsand its politicalapplication.How could such a globally dichotomous view of society make any sense of such inconvenientlycomplex matters? The answer,of course, is that it ignoresthem. Hence both the inadequacyof the new positivismwhenit comesto doing morethan namingthings, and its carefulrefusal to do eventhatin the realmof ideas. Yet its aspirations remainunapologetically allembracing,as they must. Onedevicefor avoidingtheseproblemshas been the enthusiastic of abstract use nouns and the passive voice. It has been well said that the popularity of 'modernisation' comes from its 'ability to evoke vague and generalisedimages'. When more precisionis requiredwe hear much about the active interventionof 'forces' and 'pressures'.As a result of these agencies,society 'becomes'modern, people are 'influenced'and 'undergo'changes.[171 are back here with what I We referredto as the neo-hegeliancharacterof this sort of writing. Shortersees the 'reintegration the lower classes into the structureof civil society' from 'about of 1875';herethereis a nicemixtureof the cavalier attitudeto chronology,the hegelian conceptionof 'resolution',and anachronistic satisfactionat the endingof the nasty conflictswhich characterised earlier,'transitional' the period.[18] A necessaryconsequence this enthusiasmfor terms such as 'modernisation' of and its accompanyingimpersonalagencies is the returnto a naive determinism. Events,conflictsand crisesare smothered under'long term' considerations, else or placedon a sub-sectionof the linearcontinuum,representing more or less positive stages in its path to self-fulfilment.Yet within all this there lurks a strangeand paradoxical emphasisupon free will. This is particularly markedin writingsupon the historyof women. While the historicalprocessunfolds unquestioned,women retain,apparently, free choice as to their role within the process. Thus we learn a

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to from PatriciaBrancathat what causeddomesticmanufacture persistwas 'sheer She traditionalism'. writesof factorygirlsand domesticservantsin the 19thcentury as if they chose their occupations (a choice influenced by their 'traditional'or 'family' nature),ratherin the mannerof a secretaryreadingthe small-adstoday. were preferred -'traditional job opportunities emphasised The point is repeatedly valid'. LouiseTillyand Joan Scottmakea similarpoint in their whentheyremained articleon women'swork.[19] The theory lurkingbehindall this seems to run thus: 'society' modernises a processoverwhichno-onehas any control.As it does so, it opens up little boxes for people to enter, options and roles between which they may choose. Women apparently displaya propensityfor choosingboxes whichremindthem of the (premodern)hole from which they have just emerged.Peasants and workersof both sexes occasionally kick the boxes over in atavistic frustration, but they too come aroundand choose the suitableadaptivestance.To the extent that eventually thesechoicesareconditioned anythingotherthanpersonaltaste, they are a result by of economic 'pressures' placed upon the individual by the evolving modern society.[20] It is this view, or some versionof it, which informsthe writingsof most of the historianswith whom this articleis concerned.If they fail to recogniseit, this will very possibly be because their satisfactionwith the heuristicpowers of the new positivismhas obviatedthe need ever to advancea theoreticalaccount of their undertakings.But theoretical inadequacy alone does not explain the patently incompletecharacterof such history. Not merelydoes the latter ignore both the of constraints the form of productionand the beliefs of individuals it also leaves wereactuallyeffected. It ignores, out the veryways in whichthe changesdescribed and is ignorantof, politics. II The editor of the Journalof Social History recentlyclaimed, with respectto the of achievements social history,that to is as Whenthe historyof menarche widelyrecognised equalin importance the [21] historyof monarchy,we will have arrived. Nothingcould illustratebetterthe conditionof the discipline.This sort of 'history with the politics left out' is inimical to the very enterpriseof social history. To of the extentthat politicsconcernsthe orderingand preservation power, it affected burgher. the seventeenth-century peasant no less than the nineteenth-century to Furthermore, so far as the socialhistorianis concerned accountfor changesin in the economicorder, shifts in social attitudes,or even the age of menarche,these themesmust lead rapidlyto an awarenessof events, of moments in time, which fashionableto emphasise. matterno less than the seamlesscontinuityit is currently And this awarenessin turn must invoke the attitudes and acts of those who intervened these events. Otherwisewe have not social history but retrospective in culturalanthropology of which more later. The study of the decisivemoment- a revolt, a piece of legislation,a vote, or an of simplyan economicslump- requires awareness historyas a dynamicprocess,

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and movingratherthan static, but movedby people. The obsessionwith structures withwhatpeopleate and how manychairsthey owned, is a featureof demography, the pages of Annales, much alteredsince the halcyon days of Bloch and Febvre. journalsas Similar'static'obsessionsinformthe pages of certainEnglish-speaking well. Such concernsare not laudablein themselves.They representthe mindless behind them. scrapingof the historicaldustbin, with no questionor problematic They are, however,harmless exceptwhen deployedin such a way that both the and of dimension humanexperience the politicaldimensionare readout of history. that the rejectionof political concernsdoes most It is in such circumstances powerthatlies at the root of much damage.Moreprecisely,it is a refusalto consider writingon the subjectof changein the past.[22]Power, after all, is the disgraceful with keyconceptin the studyof society.EvenCharlesTilly, little enoughconcerned of of to admitthat most explanations the behaviour men the subject,is constrained of of such as Colbertrequirean appreciation the 'processof the aggregation power that was going on'. [23] This is a rareadmissionfrom a modernsocial historian -it is reducedin value by a completelack of concernwith but it remainsabstract that power, on whosebehalf, and to the the centralquestions:who was exercising of detriment whom?Any glossingover of such questions,as in the substitutionof and and 'traditional' 'modern'for 'pre-capitalist' 'capitalist',shuts off all hope of why understanding societywas governedas it was, why it changedwhenit did, and how the populacewas affectedthereby. flow from this refusalto speakof, or allow for, politicaland Two consequences thusElizabethPleck economicpower.The first is a loss of politicaldifferentiation: to life by reference,in a single paragraph, the can study work, womenand family poorestfamily, an embassyand the White House. It is as though the conditions, attitudes and relationshipswere all the same, normativelydeterminedby such All as 'considerations' 'women'srole' or 'familystructure'. othermattersaside, the resultis that we learnnothingabout any of her examples,sincethe most important [24] factorshave been forgotten. and obvious differentiating The second consequenceis more serious. It may in principlebe possible to discusssocial classeswithoutreferenceto poweror politicalcontrol. But when the historiancomes to account for differences in attitude or beliefs, an odd thing happens.Denyingthe public sphere(that is, the political), the social historianis confined to the privatesphere- and thus, often, to psychologicalexplanations. Thus, becauseof the absenceof any graspof what the Genoveseshave called 'the of mediatingcharacter white poweron black consciousness',the historyof slaves becomes the history of a servile and quiescentgroup. Similarly,women, or the whenhistorians are appearto colludein theirown oppression: industrial proletariat, not concerned with the economic or political nature of that oppression, they submissiveor aconcludethat therewas somethinginnately(or at best historically) truth, aboutthe classor groupin question.Thisthen becomesa generalised political it andenergyis devotedto explaining in termsof the privateor collectivepsychology It of (biologicallyor sociallydetermined) the colludinggroup.[251 is the refusalto relationsof power whichencouragessuch limitedand pseudoconsiderclass-based accountsof the historyof individuals.Seen collectivelyand in terms psychological historicalsituation, understoodas struggle,such of class, located in a particular behaviourlooks very different. Here,it seemsto me, is the reasonfor the failureof most 'new' social historians is A to makeany senseof revolutions. revolution a strugglefor power,for controlof

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the state. It cannotbe understoodif its essentialcomponents parties,ideologies, power,class- havebeenleft out of the equation.No amountof number-crunching in the matterof 'collectiveviolence' or 'internalwars' can resolve this problem. study of violence, with Indeed, the fashionableenthusiasmfor the indiscriminate littleregardfor the natureof the act in question,nor its purposeand consequence,is the it actuallyinimicalto the studyof revolutions,violentor otherwise: emphasises form of the act at the expenseof its content. Certainkinds of violent act have far morein commonwith a wide rangeof non-violentactions than they do with other seem obliviousto this obviouspoint; kindsof violence.Manystudentsof revolution but its effect is all but to nullify their accountsof violent upheaval.[26] those of Withthis playingdown of the contentof historicalactions, particularly concernwithform. This, togetherwiththe a politicalnature,theregoes a heightened (here largely baneful) influence of Michel Foucault, has resulted in some very MichelePerrotis often guiltyof this of strangeinterpretations strikesin particular. in her otherwise thorough and scholarly these on French strikers, but hitherto depthsof subtletywereattainedin a recentpiece on strikesin northern unplumbed Francein the early 20th century.Virtuallyunreadable,the articlearguesthat the 'formal words' employed in strikes and strike demands did not representthe workers'innermostfeelings: these 'new words' (by which the authors mean the vocabularyof an organisedstrike) 'are themselvespart of a 'political' language life'. [27] game far removedfrom working-class Why 'far removed'?How do we know?-Only through a prior assumption concerningthe innately un-politicalcharacterof the working-class.The authors maintainthat to arguethat workersactedout of politicalmotivesis to tie workingstate of mindwhichmay 'be of our own invention'. class behaviourto a particular This sort of infinitely relativistic'Foucaultism'actually says nothing about anyto thing;but it does beara close familyresemblance the more commonlyheld view that 'all' women, 'all' peasantswere unpolitical.(Foucaultis a prominentFrench scholarand scholastic.)This is extremelypatronising,of course, and based on no shredof evidence.Indeed, in the case of Frenchstrikersit requiresa poker-faced denialof thatevidence.It also allowsthe authorsof suchviewsto dispensewith the groundthat they have shown politics politicaldimensionaltogether,on the circular The premiseis the conclusion to be of no concernto the peopleunderinvestigation. and vice-versa. instructive.We begin with paranoiaon the The resultof all this is remarkably subject of political history- 'Only if one tacks on a conclusion that relates to politicsis it fairly certainthat the historianswill take notice. . . '[28] And we are and carriedimmediately of necessityto the denialof any politicalideas to the bulk of the humanrace, past and present.When a politicalevent disturbsthe landscape of the pastit is confidentlyascribedto an abstraction,such as 'social mobilisation'. and Fromherewe advanceto the absurd:Matossian Schaferassureus that ' . . . after the Battleof Waterloo[1815],therewasa temporary shortageof young men and the was Restoration possible'.[291Hereat last is the nemesisof the new socialhistory:it obviousevents. can denypolitics,but it cannotdenycertainkindsof uncomfortably itself quiteunableto makeany senseof these Whatit can do, and has done, is render obfuscation.Until monarchyand its implications events, exceptby terminological are firmlyplaced back where they belong, in that position from which they have been dislodgedby the non-historyof, e.g., puberty,menarche(an instanceof the [30] seductivefacility of certain kinds of social history, as Perrot has observed),

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social history will remain in its present condition, bereft of any social or theoretical value.

BED2yW~~~~~~~~~~~~~~4
III The obsession with 'models', with the abstractions to which they lead, with the predictive value proclaimed on their behalf, has .S ........ resulted in some distortions of history which go beyond a failure to pay any attention to the dimension of politics. Among these distortions is the strange but revealing obsession with numbers. This is not the place to raise in full the discussion of statistical history, or 'cliometrics', a theme much debated elsewhere. What interests me here is not so much de Chirico Mannequin the fact that most historians cannot count,[31] but that they proclaim the need to do so. We have indeed succumbed to the 'delirium of statistical series',[32] when a recent review of the works of Maurice Agulhon can seriously take him to task for 'neglecting' to present 'systematic quantative evidence'. [33JThe reader of journals in this field is beset with numbers on all sides: how many domestic servants were there in nineteenthcentury Versailles, how many Frenchmen had blue eyes in 1815, how many eighteenth-century writers loved their mothers... ?[34] It would be too easy to dismiss all this as the last resort of people whose only intellectual skill is the ability to manipulate a pocket calculator; limitations of such a definitive nature are not always the source of the problem. The interest in numbers and their uses, is clearly linked to the absence of any properly conceived historical questions. It is of course true that a genuinely worthy undertaking might be assisted by a piece of quantative analysis, but it is interesting to note how very few of the truly original contributions to social history have been so assisted. All too frequent is the interest in numbers for their own sake. Thus Theresa McBride's work on nineteenth-century domestics contributes nothing to our understanding of the bourgeois household, and little enough to our knowledge of working women. So why do it? Because it is there. Servants can be counted, maps constructed, graphs drawn up and a piece of data thrown thereby into the historiographical pool. The same applies to the study of eye colour, family size, age of menarche, and anything else which has been counted for no other reason than it can be counted. A recent study of the 'transformation' of an Istrian village in modern times concludes thus:
. .

.....

..,

..

..

The foregoing analysis has dealt with the nuclear family as a unit, employing multiple regression to determine how and why families responded to what they perceived as modernisation. [35]

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This is a very typical instance of the resort to quantified and quantifiable data to compensate for the lack of an argument and the glaring absence of conceptual insight. As with words, so with numbers; reality disappears behind a blur of science. What results is often absurd beyond belief. Nor can it be said that the new social historians hide their five-watt bulb under a bushel. David Apter, after all, asserts the need for the 'ruthless elimination of ambiguity in order to take advantage of the possible application of computer techniques'. [36] Hence we move to the attempt by Matossian and Schafer to 'relate the pattern of family emotional interaction to political violence. . . ' by means of a computer; while Prof. Margadant's criticism of Agulhon in the above-mentioned review begins to make sense. After all, the subtle revelation and deployment of ambiguities in the latter's work is all tO-clear and frequent. [37] The real problem, then, is not quantification as such, but rather that writing-bynumbers may lead to and flow from a complete epistemological bankruptcy. Thus the author cannot make very much of the calculations themselves, especially when these quite patently contradict existing knowledge or common sense. What matters is intention, the question or questions which prompt the use of a particular source. Where such questions are absent, or where they are themselves founded upon hypotheses based on a theory or model derived from the sociologists, then the numbers may be deployed as skilfully as you will - the result is still to hide from the reader and writer alike the historical process purportedly described. And when serial data are absent, it is as though a crutch had been removed; the social historian is left, all too frequently, with nowhere to go and no means of getting there. [38] The most common use of quantified data comes in the application of models to history. It goes in tandem with the rigorous exclusion of the unquantifiable - hence, perhaps, the common lack of interest in anything before 1750. A model so applied is not a hypothesis to be tested, but a grid, rigorously and rigidly applied to the past, designed to exclude whatever does not fit. Two examples will serve to illustrate this. At the theoretical level we have David Apter (whom I quote again as a highly respected theorist of modernisation) affirming that: It may be necessary to treat explicitly as a testing ground for analytically derived propositions and, even in a roughand-ready fashion, to plunder events in order to do hindsight analysis. [39] So much for what they would like photographed JinneyFiennes by

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to do. Lest it be thoughtthat no-one would have the courageof such convictions, the readeris remindedof the thoughtsof Prof. Tilly on the subject of the Paris Commune. In one of his many pieces on 'collective violence', Tilly notes the uncomfortable anomalyof the Paris Commune,which fits none of his models and burststhe boundsof his explanationat everypoint. He attributesthis unfortunate in disappearance 1870 of the 'Frenchstate'; his theories situationto the temporary regarding relationshipof protestersto governmentthus remainvalid, since in the therewasno government. This is a neat trick, so Tilly repeatsit with rather 1870-71 In The another occasion. Rebellious more candour, on that in Centuryhe acknowledges his graphsmake 1871look ratherinsignificant the He historyof protestin France.This, he concedes,mayarisefrom 'our procedures'. were used consistentlyfor the then goes on to claim that, since these 'procedures' century,'we havelittle choicebut to treat 1870-71 period1830throughthe mid-20th as a doubtful case in the correlationbetween extent of violence and extent of take over in this way, one cannot politicalchange'.Whena historian's'procedures' help wonderingjust what, or who, is the doubtfulcase.[40] It may be truethat modelsshouldbe treatedas 'idealtypes', not intendedto fit any given set of facts and not in any way a conceptualresponseto empirically establishedresearch.But in that case they should be kept out of the hands of historians,for two reasons.In the first place, thereis a strongtendencyfor models of this sort to be essentiallydualist.Thus we are offered protest in its old or new of style, the alternatives a traditionalor modernsociety, and so forth. It has been is suggestedthat this dual classification a logicalnecessityin suchmatters,and that of attemptsto renderideal explanations this sort more flexible, in order that they might better 'fit' the 'spreadof empiricaldata are in principle wrong'[41](my italics).All otherobjectionsaside, this is nonsenseso far as the study of the past is let -such crude tools cannot even shape historicalperiodisation alone concerned interpretcomplexsourcematerials. juveniles toys out of the handsof academic Theothercase for keepingdangerous A is the usualone - theymayhurtthemselves. recentarticleactuallytriedto show a and verifiable connectionbetweenfamilyrelationships politicalviolence statistically in the 'modern'period. The methodemployedwas an investigation,throughtheir and biographies theirwork, of 157 writersof the 18th and 19thcenturies,with the aim of establishinga 'pattern' of parent-childrelationships.The conclusion, producedby means of a machine and presentedin graphic form, is a model, entitledPopulation,FamilyInteraction Political Violence.From it and grandiosely we learnthat a propensityto attack one's parentscorrelateswith revolution(thus reducingthe latter to an unfortunatecase of mass social pathology), while a tendencyto fratricidecorrelateswith 'foreign sectionalwar'. The period 1800 to was 1850,we understand, one in which the relations between mother and son remainedpositive and intense, while those betweenfatherand son grew more negativeand intense. Lettherebe no mistake.The aboveis a seriouspiece, publishedin the Journalof use SocialHistory.The astonishing of sourcesalone shouldhave consignedit to the editorialwaste-bin,but it is the carefulproductionof a model whichis of particular that some causalproof has been establishedas interestto us. We are to understand and other forms of violence in moderntimes, to the provenanceof revolutionary

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whichis definitiveby virtueof its graphicand quantifiedform, ratherthan through any force inherentin the argumentitself. few. Morecommonlyone instancesof this sortarerelatively Obviouslyludicrous as hearsof suchmodelsas the 'J curve'of risingexpectations a causeof revolution, or the not-dissimilarsuggestion that 'collective violence' is a response to rapid changesin the 'polity'. But the underlyingassumptionsare no less questionable. Why assume that 'traditional societies' (i.e. peasants) only rebel when their Therehave been manyinstancesof rebellionin defence expectations have changed? of perceivedinterests(common land, legal rights), even in times of little or no 'change'.People in the past had idealsand beliefs, not just 'interests'.This sort of model, derivedfrom economists'conceptionsof rationalactors, is extraordinarily to insulting the peopleit discusses. As to the Tillys'view on 'collectiveviolence', [43] the sortof changesit describes respondfar betterto analysisin more concreteterms: the conjunctionof improvingpricesfor wine, the first Napoleonicrepression,and thenpoliticalorganisation, makesperfectlygood senseof the morepeacablenature of ruralpolitics in Franceafter 1851. And how can a simple before/after model makesenseof the reversion 'collectiveviolence'in 1906-7,duringthe wine crisis to in the Languedoc? Another 'doubtfulcase', perhaps?[44] Even the debate over women's work in the 19th century, apparentlya more technicalissue, in fact derives from a fascination with models. Joan Scott and LouiseTilly have responded Shorter'sassertionof a total 'modernisation' the to of female experienceby proposing a counter-claim.It is suggested that women remained in traditional manyways,placingold wine in new bottles(or the opposite, to according taste). Yet both partiesare merelyre-working model of modernisaa tion: Shorterin a typicallyover-stated way; Scott and Tilly with more subtletyand with the symptomatic additionof the view that women had free-ranging choice in the matter. If we but ask whetherthereeverwas such a thingas the 'traditional' [45] woman,who was thustransformed, wholedebatecan be madeto disappear. the The question,however,impliesresearch, whichis not done; requires interestin an an [46] earlier and period,whichis not forthcoming; does not acceptthe conceptualpremise out of which the dispute apparentlyarises. There is no evidenceto suggest that women'modernised' the sense described,nor any to suggestthey sat aroundand in chosewhether not to modernise or in themselves a 'traditional, familiar'way. But so to dispensewiththe startingassumption wouldthrowout of gearthe veryprinciples upon which the new social history is grounded.No bishop, no king. And so the Emperorstrideson, naked. Enoughhas beensaid for it to be clearthat I take the obsessionwith modelsand theirancillary 'methods'to be the fundamental defect in muchrecentsocial history. The subjecthas becomethe testinggroundfor sociologicallyderivedpropositions, as was the case with economic historyin respectof neo-classicaleconomicssome years earlier. [47] Even when these propositionsprove regrettably'impossibleto
operationalise' (!!)[48] they cannot but impede the proper study of a past which just

will not conform to static, dyad-like,either/or, before/after formulations.However, they are not the only impediment. All too frequently the problem is

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compounded by the fundamentally unscholarly approach of the historians themselves. A large part of the ignorance on display apparently arises from an unawareness of the existence of civil society before the year 1500. [49] Research into the economic arrangements of the ancient world, and the recent animated debate over the medieval origins of capitalism, are matters of no apparent interest to most of the contributors to the leading American journals of social history. The results can be entertaining. Edward Shorter defines 'traditional society' as that obtaining in the period 1500-1700. Before the Renaissance there came, one supposes, 'pre-traditional' society. At least we cannot therefore accuse Shorter of believing for medieval times what he claims for the early modern period: It was a period of cultural homogeneity in which all popular strata behaved more or less the same, having similar social and sexual values, the same concepts of authority and hierarchy, and an identical appreciation of custom and tradition in their primary social goal, the maintenance of static community life. [50] Here, as elsewhere, Shorter is unwise enough to assert that which others merely assume. When we move forward in time, however, there is no such modesty. A recent article by Louise Tilly hinges its argument upon the proclaimed disappearance of major subsistence crises at least 100 years before the last food riots (of the mid19th century).[51] Prof. Tilly seems to be unaware not merely of the major subsistence crises of 1846, but also of the European-wide food shortage which followed the end of the Napoleonic era and which is the subject of a recent book. [52] In her work with Joan Scott, she claims that the rising wages of men made it less necessary 'for married women to work outside the home'.[53] The article concerns the 19th century, and it is simply inaccurate so far as much of France was concerned: by 1900 the wages of most married working-men would still not support a family, unaided. In this instance the lack of scholarly care shows in the careful avoidance of dates and places, so that the assertions become slippery and hard to pin down. This is not always the case, however: Patricia Branca goes so far so as to assert that 'in general it is fair to say that factories and women rarely mixed'. This can be investigated. [54] It proves to be fundamentally inaccurate, although the use of such cheat-words as 'in general', 'it is fair' (as distinct from 'it is true'?), 'rarely', make it impossible to accuse the writer of malfeasance.[55] The history of the family, like that of women, has also fallen victim to some odd and doubtful assertions. Smelser's misleading assertion concerning the 'familial' character of textile factory work is frequently repeated. Does the fact that the whole family worked in one factory or the same industry actually show anything very much about the survival of a unified 'family work force'? This is a matter for investigation. Recent work in France, at least, suggests that it has more to do with the availability, or otherwise, of employment, and with the conscious policy of the employer, who was rather more adept than the present-day historian at assessing the exploitative advantages of certain forms of labour organisation. These accounts are not of necessity mutually exclusive; but particular emphasis on the 'voluntarist' element, results in a wider failure to grasp the nature of social relations under capitalism. Another look at the evidence would not come amiss. This failure to make much sense of the modern factory and its initial impact

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upon the labour force is thus directly related to the refusal to write the word 'capitalism'.Here synonymswill not serve. Capitalistdoes not mean 'modern',or 'industrial', any more than 'pre-capitalist'can be replaced by 'agrarian'. The use presumptuous of such termshas misguidedmany social historians.Yet anyone who knew, for example,that there were thrivingindustriesin Europe well before 1500, or that capitalismin Europe had a very markedcommercialand agrarian character,would surelynot claim, as does MarilynBoxer, that women (and men) progressedfrom hearthto factorywith the comingof capitalism(my term) in the 19th century.[56]For that matter, the history of 'internalviolence' (revolutions) wouldbe muchcomplicated an acquaintance the writingsof RodneyHilton, by with or indeedof almost anyone else who has describedthe rural uprisingsof late medievalEurope. Entrancesto the polity, exits thence, social dislocation, rapid urbanisationand other synonyms for the emergenceof industrialcapitalismin westernEurope are a little helplessin the face of the events of the 14th century, though like all such inventionsthey could doubtlessbe adjusted. Ignoranceof the past is clearlyto be regretted and for itself. However,this in article is not intendedas a requiemto scholarship.Not every prominentsocial historianstands accused of ignorance(althoughvast learninghas not prevented Profs. Tilly and Stone from sayingsome veryodd things).Nor is the interestin the modernperiodan unworthyone; thereare some very respectable reasonsfor being interestedin what has happenedto Europe (and, with Europe, to the rest of the world) since the 18th century. My criticism is directed at the attitudes and assumptionsbehindthe choice of period, and, withinthis period, at the choice of subjectmatter.For the declinein the quality of the work of many modernsocial is historians directlyrelatedto the loss of interestin the furtherpast, to the dismissal of chronologyand events('histoireevenementielle),to an overtdistastefor political historyand to a determined pursuitof certainkinds of patterns,a pursuitwhich is undertaken throughveryspecificmethods.Clearly,the field thus ploughedattracts a certainsort of worker.The shire-horses the profession, tend to prefer steady of and monotonouslabour in the area of diplomaticor economic history, while the thoroughbreds chaseideas.Simpleassertions still aboutthe mediocrity manysocial of historianshave their place, but they cannot provide an account of why we have reached pass. Suchan accountrequires this consideration other, broadermatters. of

IV The proximatecauseof muchthat is wrongwith recentworkin social historyis the absenceof any genuineproblematic question.It is many yearsnow since Lucien or Febvreexhortedus to 'beginwith the problems',and it is clear that in the Englishworldno less thanin the pagesof his ownjournal,Annales, this advicehas speaking been forgotten. Without a clearlydefined problem,a reason for undertaking the research,historianscannot but flounderaround,grabbingdesperately whatever at

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passesfor an explanation a context for the materialunearthed.Why is Febvre's or adviceignored? Part of the answer lies in the structureof the profession, in the mode of production history.Badenough,as in France,to be 'assigned'a topic and told to of it an contribute answerto the patron'sown questions.Elsewhere is more frequently the case that the studentis directedtoward a source, most commonlyan archival have been recommended seriesor a statistical'run'. Thissourcewill almostcertainly either because it is 'workable' (that is, can be manipulatedquantatively, or convertedinto a diagramor map), or else becausethe professorhappensto have access to a micro-editionof it (common in the USA, where access to European holdings is a problem).The salient virtue of the source will be that it is as yet 'unused';the net effect of all this is a sort of academicvariantof the Oklahoma raceout acrossthe historicalplain, theirwagonsfull of land-grab. Younghistorians for fresh,crispgraph-paper, scrambling the last remaining plots of 'virgin'territory. Thus are we offered originalresearch. Whateveranswers the student derives from a reading of such material will necessarily dependuponthe questionswhichhe or she succeedsin imaginingduring the course of the research. Since the apprenticehistorian all too rarely begins with any problemto which an answeris sought, and since, Prof. Elton notwithstanding,it is all but impossibleto constructa problemout of a set of documents without some sense of why they were assigned, the usual pattern is to turn for directionto the professorand the professor'sown work. In many graduateschools this tendencyis reinforced the student'sobligationto take coursesfrom, and to by remainin close and dependentcontactwith their researchdirector. in This is the usual way in which ideas are transmitted such institutions,but in modernsocial historyan extra dimensionhas been added. The professoris all too the often passingon a model,or a theoremto be tested.As a consequence, studentis being asked to contributea building-blockto some historiographical edifice, the shape of which remainsunclear. Here the impact of the new positivismis at its each researcher sharpest: comes to believein the existenceof a 'proper'description of the past and is led to be content with seeing the doctoral thesis, or subsequent book, as a 'contribution'to that description.Proper obeisance is made in the directionof the governingmodel or method, but little furthereffort is spent on justifyingor explainingthe researchbeing undertaken:[57] is sufficientto have it exhausteda source, correlatedtwo or more statisticalseries, 'thrown light' on a hithertodarkenedcorner. A contributionhas been made. But to what? Theanswer,clearly,is that a contribution beingmadeto the construction a of is historical'science'. The 'desire for scientific status in the social sciences[58]has capturedthe latest generationof historians,just as it obsessed their nineteenthcenturyforebears.The resoluterejectionof the idealistand theoreticalconceptions of the intervening periodhas left socialhistoriansin somethingof a quandary. They will not acknowledge anythingwhich smacksof historicistor marxistthinking,yet they scorn the empiricists.They wish to be free to ascribesignificanceto anything they choose, while retaininga claim for the scientific status of their work. This precludesanything approachinga genuinely theoretical base. Theory has been replacedby discoursesupon method. It is this shift which accountsfor the formidableimpactupon social historyof the post-warschool of westernsociologists.It is extraordinarily difficultto conceive

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of some historicalmethodwhich would have servedas a substitutefor conceptual thought. The tools of the historian have traditionallybeen subservientto the intentions informingtheir use. But a certain sociology can place method at the forefront of its investigations,since it takes society as an undifferentiated unit, organised by function or structure.The role of the investigatoris that of a taxonomer, and in this role, pre-eminenceclearly attaches to the method of description classificationemployed.For historiansas for sociologiststhis must or presumethe non-involved statusof the observer.Smallsurprise,then, that Charles Tilly envieseconomistsbecausethey can agree on their criteria,and bemoansthe absence of such agreementamong historians. Like other social historians, he appears to accept uncriticallythe claim that economists and sociologists have value-freecriteria, and this credulousattitude is reflected in frequent borrowings.[59] As a consequenceof this enthusiasmfor the categoriesand assumptions the of sociologists,we find the uprisingof 1851accountedfor in termsof entrancesinto and exits from the polity, togetherwith increasing'social mobilisation'.[60] Social classes are determinedby status or 'outlook', while 'normative'factors such as income, property, occupation and so forth become the determinantsof social difference.Conflictsare 'resolved', political systemschosen. Changeover time is evoked, but never as a factor in any explanation.The only temporaldistinction madeis that between'traditional' and 'modern'society;both are equallypresented as coherentand rational-the formerinherently,(i.e. on its own terms),the latter immanently (i.e. really,and increasingly). New researchservesto 'fill in the gaps'. The resultwill be a properand completeaccountof society. Justwhythis blindbelief in the virtuesof attaininga scientificstatusfor history has re-emerged a very interesting is question.The belief clearlydates from the late 1950s,and can thus be linkedto the simultaneous enthusiasmfor 'scientific'status in the post-sputnikera and the loss of faith in philosophyand historyalike. More significantlyfor our purposes,it was a responseto the demandsmade upon the social sciencesto account for the eventsof the 1960s. Necessarily marginalto this historians'best hope was to offer guidelinesas to the predictability enterprise, of certainsortsof unsocialbehaviour. studyof revolutions, The violenceand protestof all kindscameinto vogue. Historians who could claima 'predictive' value for their findings, and who could offer suggestions as to the circumstancesin which revolutionhad been avoided or defeated, were at a premium. History acquired prophylacticqualities, and its practitioners came close to claiming experimental status for their findings.[61]Not surprisingly, such claimscould only be made for certainsorts of things-indeed, the demandonly existed for claims of a certain kind.For socialhistoryto be truesocial science,it had carefullyto eschewthe study of a numberof phenomena(politics, ideology)-or else so to apply the methods borrowedfrom the sociologistsas to renderthese phenomenasomethingaltogether different.Hereinlay the originsof the approachwhich has now become standard for dealingwith politics in general,and with ideology in particular. Thereis no place for politicalideologyin most modernsocialhistory,any more than there was in the sociology from which the latter derived. It has proved necessary,however,to acknowledge existence,both becauseideology indisputits ablyexisted,and becausea properly scientifichistoryoughtto be ableto accountfor it. Theusualapproach beento defuseits contentby a reductionist has accountof its form. This is achievedby ascribing ideologicalenthusiasms 'youth' (hencethose to

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accounts of the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 conceived in terms of a generationgap), and then providing the standard account of why young people adopt such extremist stances. This will go a long way, since most revolutionary movements were of necessity composed largely of young persons. [62] The ideas of political women have been defused, too. 'Material' issues, we learn, were the motives behind female participation in strikes and revolts: where women had no material motivation, they were simply out supporting the men for 'familial' reasons. Thus all revolutions which see active female participation are, obviously, by definition, about 'bread and butter' matters.[631 For the rest, they represent either a bad case of collective pathology or else youthful exuberance. The next step is to place ideology, along with every other dimension of human thinking, in the category of epiphenomena. This daring move dispenses altogether with the need to discuss ideas. We should not be surprised to find Edward Shorter in the forefront of the move to this end. Logic and rationality, he claims,

are just other words for ego control, the psycho-structural state of mind whence expressive sexuality flows. [641

The appeal of such an approach is that it both dismisses human thought and employs a properly 'scientific' method as the means to this end - in this case, psychoanalysis. Sometimes in place of Freud we are offered rabbits. Thus Matossian and Schafer reduce the history of wars and revolutions (including the French Revolution) to problems of 'crowding stress'. 1789 was the direct product, we learn, of a demographic explosion, while the ensuing peaks of political violence only tailed off when the population ceased to grow, in 1871. The subtle admixture of sociobiology and bad history is seductive. [65] Those who choose not to reduce ideas in this manner have instead devised means of defusing their content. Michele Perrot is a particular offender here, 'reading' strikes with the gay abandon of Barthes deciphering an advertisement for automobiles It is the 'signs' that count.[66] In skilful hands this is entertaining though not very informative in the end. But left to the drones, it is a device for denying to people in the past any mental independence whatsoever. Peter Stearns has laboured long and hard to show that the late nineteenth-century proletariat was not interested in revolutionary politics; small wonder that he is 'astonished' at the sudden opposition to long work-days which emerged in the 1890s, 'despite their longstanding in the trade'. Had he not been so resolute in denying the workers their ideas (and had he bothered to look), he would not have found the opposition to long hours 'sudden' in the least.[67] Attitudes of this kind produce histories of 'protest', which are rooted neither in time nor in popular support for an idea or doctrine. The ideas which mobilise social conflict are carefully and altogether divorced from the participants in that same conflict. This offers a double bonus. The significance of ideology is dismissed, since 'modern' social history is not interested in the views of an elite of the oppressed. Furthermore, the common people become, under 'normal' circumstances, stable and passive. Where protest was 'pre-modern', it is classed as atavistic and irrational. When protest has 'modernised' itself, it is usually said to have been organised around an ideology conceived on high and purveyed to the masses by parties and

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GeorgeScholz Industrialised peasants 1920 leaders. At no point do the peasants and workers themselves, men or women, acquire any political identity of their own. They never chose, or were politically conscious. They rebelled blindly, or followed a lead. This is the stuff of scientific history. It is not hrard see how it fitted in with the to requirements imposed upon themselves by historians who came to maturity in the early 1960s. But why is so much energy devoted to demonstrating these points? Why

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is it so important to deny that popular movements believed what they claimed to believe, wanted what they claimed to want, were made up of rational beings holding the views which they held? It is not only denied in order to trim the rough edges of a well-groomed positivist science. If this were so, better just ignore 'protest' altogether. The answer lies in the unacknowledged challenge to which many social historians are responding. Once the eighteenth-century peasant or the nineteenth-century striker is admitted to be holding the ideas which he or she proclaimed, and given that these ideas are not reduced to psychological illusions, then a whole alternative historical explanation of the past is invoked. It is a defiance of these assumptions which seems to motivate much of the search for a scientific redout.Consciously or no, many social historians are doing battle with the demon marxists. This is not always obvious. It is relatively rare to read someone within the new orthodoxy contrasting his or her point of view with 'the usual marxist interpretation'. I should add, though, that it is not at all rare for that interpretation to be totally misunderstood.[68] The usual approach is to reject from the outset any 'economic' interpretation of events, on the understanding that 'economic' and 'marxist' are the same thing. Instead we are offered a variety of alternatives, which seem to derive from the theories of Max Weber. The extent to which these function as attempts to circumnavigate all marxist reefs and sandbanks, may be deduced from their concern to avoid any reference to social class. When Charles Tilly writes of people entering or leaving the polity he is juggling with concepts of status; power confers prestige, social conflict is a result of attempts to smash 'open the door of the polity to some contender hitherto excluded'. The result of the conflict is seen as a re-arrangement of the social hierarchy. In a similar manner, Joan Scott invokes traditional 'culture' and social ties to account for the behaviour of Carmaux glassworkers. In her work with Louise Tilly considerable energy goes into the effort to avoid the use of class as a determinant in the economic position of women

Ben Shahn The TerwilligersOzark family, Arkansas,1935

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workers. [69] Where women come to occupy a very particularplace in capitalist production, as in the lower-paidsectionsof the textile industry,we are assuredby PatriciaBrancathat this was becausemen got out in searchof better paid work, while women 'saw less reason to change'.[70] The passivevoice and the abstract noun are here invoked most frequently in order to avoid the suggestion of of exploitation,or of humanintervention a class-basednature.Thus we learnwith Louise Tilly that authority 'is wielded', production 'grows', new opportunities 'open' for women.... [71] All underthe aegis of a neutral'society'. Culturaland workon Marseilles, valuesform the basis of Sewell'sover-rated wherehe ascriptive appears bemused by the workers' sons' apparent lack of interest in 'upward mobility'. Had any of these authors, Sewell especially,chosen to ask themselves whether class consciousnessand the capitalist system of production helped to wouldhave beenboth more accountfor the thingsthey describe,theirexplanations plausibleand more properlyhistorical.As it is they sit somewherein the stratosphere,uprootedin reality. [72] muchconfusion.Whenthe term 'social class' is The fear of marxismengenders employed, it is divorced from any relationshipto a mode of production, and with any other. Economic becomes a mere ascriptivecategory, interchangeable historyis quiteignored,and, with it, the veryword 'capitalist',so that it is not just economichistorianswith Marxwho is jettisoned,but whole schoolsof conservative him. What remainsis a painfullyvapid accountof the humancondition, in which in the centralexperience people's lives is consignedto a secondarystatus. Evensocialhistoriesof workitself conveya a somewhathydraulic sensationas if floating free of the thing described. This is because however accurate their description the techniquesof production the proletarian of and experience same, of such histories avoid any account of the social formations contingent upon a particular modeof production.Thussuchworkmightas well be aboutthe nativesof North Borneo for all that it relatesto a genuinehistoricalexperience.Indeed, the suggestionis apt, since the emphasisis preciselyupon a static description,which is inferFed from the formal content of the work processand relatedevents. This is more anthropologythan history; with all the anthropologist'srelative lack of concernfor the dynamicof temporalchange.The anthropologist,however,has at least been there and could question the protagonists.The resolutelyanti-marxist historianmerelysecond-guesses participants,his subjects:they cannot answer the back, whentheirintentionsand experiences being confidentlyre-interpreted are or ignored.Such writinghas a distinctly'alienated'air to it. Thingskeep 'happening' to people in the past for no very good reason, while the victims of history so described becomemereciphers,their actions either'irrational'becauseout of step with the times, or else 'rational' but devoid of thought-content.The target is marxism,but the reallosersare men and womenin the past, who are as determined by this view as everthey wereby the schemasof dialectical materialists. least the At latterallowedthe revolutionary class a passingclaim to ideologicalintervention. In Francethis denialof historyhas in some respects gone a step further.Fernand Braudel'sown work has a certain panache to it, but the broaderimpact of his has teachings beennegative.Scholarshaveadoptedthe long sweep (longueduree)on the one hand, and rejected 'events' (histoire evenementielle) the other, and on have steadilydismantledthe historicalevent altogether.One resultof this is a glut of articlesabout minute and marginalmatters:the 'history of footwear' or the 'imageof the cookedin pre-modern mentalities', Therehas evenbeen an attempt ...

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to demolish the fact of the French Revolution, integrating it into the long sweep of the popular (and therefore unpolitical) experience.[73] There is not space here to consider in depth the intellectual environment in which social historians have by-passed economic history and thereby dodged the contest with marxism. It should be noted, however, that all this reflects rather well the denial of class and ideology which characterised much of American social thought from the mid-1960s. It would be very misleading to suppose that these were the views of the political Right. On the contrary: not merely did the 'old' Left lose faith; the new Left of the 1960s openly denied objective social and economic categories, and claimed the right to identify itself just as it chose and with whomsoever it wished. The individual rather than the class became the revolutionary 'unit', and occupational or subjective 'strata', such as students or intellectuals, became the collective nouns for such units. The old marxist conception of revolution was retained, but a very different and quite unrelated set of subjects was attached to it. Small wonder, then, that the next generation of social historians lost their way. Some retained their interest in the sexual revolution - Shorter unabashedly replaced the capitalist economy with sexual liberation as the generator of proletarian revolt -[74] but most proceeded to a new academic detachment, retaining the distaste for the classical accounts of social relations, but unable to find any satisfactory replacements for them. Out of all this has come a marked failure to separate the past from the present. A disturbing number of modern social historians patently construct their historical explanations from the material provided for them by their own lives and those of their neighbours. To the extent that they avoid the private sphere, they nevertheless depend very heavily upon the political world they have themselves experienced. [75] Here, as so often, it is the newer fields of interest that suffer most. Scott and Tilly assure us that 'traditional families employed a variety of strategies to promote the well-being of the family unit'. [76] All that this can possibly mean is that for most of human history men and women did everything they could to keep from starving and to prevent the break-up of their families. But the phrasing chosen speaks reams about the authors' conception of choice and economic action. Prof. Branca, arguing that the late 19th century saw the 'modernisation' of the age-old 'mobility through marriage theme' (!), suggests that one reason why women entered secretarial work was the hope of marrying an 'up-and-coming young executive'. [77] No doubt they would happily have returned to the textile factories to which they felt such traditional affinity, had there but been some executives prowling the shop floor in search of proletarian wives! It is hard to tell whether it is the pulp novel, or biography which accounts for this sort of twaddle. Both make bad history. The emphasis, it will be observed, is again and again on the individual, 'an isolated actor in the economy hell-bent on maximising his own profit'. [78] This may be a fair and proper description of the professor in search of promotion and obliged to publish just about anything in order to obtain it, but it has little to say to the experience of most Europeans in the 19th century. It is absurd to write of people exercising 'strategies of family fertility' in search of a place in the sun. Like theories of rising expectation, relative deprivation and so forth, such accounts assume intention, frustrated or otherwise, on the part of individuals. Never is there any sense of people acting together, or for motives which transcend the maximisation of private or family wealth. This would be poor stuff if it had been written

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about the history of the industrialbourgeoisie.As an interpretation popular of behaviourit is risible. The sad conclusionis that the modern social historianis obsessedwith materialmotivesand impersonal causality.How ironicthat it should be the marxists aloneamongsocialhistorians who remainopenlyinterested ideals in and non-materialconcerns!
V

The present-minded characterof the interpretations,the search for 'scientific' of status,the refusalto recognisethe significance ideasor politics,the ignorance of the economic(exceptin so far as it can be tabulated) all this represents complee a loss of faith in history.Traditional are modes of historicalunderstanding scorned, alternativeapproachespraisedunstintingly.Thus Theodore Zeldin's two-volume offered as the acme of modern OxfordHistory of ModernFrance is everywhere social history;yet it is a fundamentally wrong-headed work, albeit entertainingly written. Socialhistory,as I suggested [79] into earlier,has beentransformed a sort of retrospective culturalanthropology. It is a verysignificantdevelopment. Traditional politicalhistorycontinueson its untroubledway, describing in detail the behaviour of ruling classes and the transformations which took place withinthem. Divorcedfrom social history, this remains,as ever, a form of historicalwritingadapted to the preservation the of statusquo; it concernsitself with activitiespeculiarto the rulinggroup, activitiesof an apparently rationaland self-justifying nature.In earlierdays first labourhistory, then social historyappeared threatto all this, if only by providingalternative a and less complacentaccountsof politicaleventsthemselves.The impactof the work of Georges Lefebvre or Albert Soboul upon our understandingof the political revolutionin Franceprovidesan excellentinstanceof this. But social historyis now beingdisarmed.Deprivedof its claimsupon the major eventsandchangesin history,it is increasingly confinedby its leadingpractitioners to descriptionsof the non-political,the avowedly insignificant.This is thoroughly Thereis no analogyherewith the processwherebylabourhistoryceased disturbing. to be obsessedwith unions and began looking at workersthemselves.The interest remainedpolitical, and the political history of a labouring class was enriched thereby.Modernsocial historians,in contrast,are encouragedto scrabblearound amongthe oddments.Fromthese they fashionaccountsof subjects,such as women at work or the changingnature of the family economy, which deservedbetter. Meanwhile politicalhistoryof the rulingclass has survivedunscathed threat the the in to its hegemonyof interpretation those thingsthat matter,ratherin the way that an internationalcorporation will grant a degree of workers' control on the shop-floor,smilingthe while, in the knowledgethat this is not wherethe truepower lies. In both instancesattentionis deflectedaway from those areas, concernwith which had posed the initial threat. It cannot be said that the social historiansof the last two decadeshave fought veryhardto avoid this situation.On the contrary,Stearnsand othershave been in the vanguardof the battle to deny to men and women in the past any political existencewhatsoever.The resulthas been to take away from people in the past the centraldistinguishing characteristic a properlyhuman and civil society. Small of wonder,then, thatbiologicalanalogiesareso frequently be glimpsedin the pages to

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historyis partof this same of journalsof social history.The urgeto anthropologise denial,and I cannotmakethe point betterthan by quotingfrom a recentreviewof some books on the Paris Commune: From an anthropologicalperspective, the Commune was a 'revitalisation movement'with a strongmessianiccomponent.It soughtto maintainthe integby rity of the local community expellingthose forces, symbolisedby the priests, ideals.[80] who opposed its fraternaland egalitarian Whatis to be done?The solution,if thereis one, lies with that minorityof social historianswho remaincommittedto the properpursuitof history.We cannot hope to 'convince'the restof the professionof whatwe believe;to beginwith, it wouldbe ratherodd to proclaima 'truth' status for our own ideas, to step in to do battle againstthe 'scientific'claimsof the opposition.The studyof the past is an entirely activity- it has been well said that it takesplace 'in the presentand in the cerebral The distinction head'.[81]But this need not lead to a positionof infiniterelativism. betweengood and bad historycan be established.Radicalsocial historiansshould book, abroad,in articlesand reviews,that a particular havethe courageto proclaim illiterate. stupid,or historically the premiseon whichit is founded,is unscholarly, or the striding grovesthesedaysthat princelings[82] Thereareso manynakedacademic is some public commentas to their appearance long overdue. on The next task is undoubtedlythat of re-emphasising, every occasion, the primacy of politics. It will no longer do to accept a study of workers or which deniesthem their ideas and their ideals, on the groundsthat revolutionaries the author'does a carefuland competentjob within the limits he has set himself', and of the etc., etc. Thisacknowledges plausibility the enterprise adds a few pounds more to the burdensupportedby those who rejectsuch history. the writersshy clearof proclaiming need for a Manyotherwisewell-intentioned of returnto politicalhsitoryon the principle solidarity.Social history,they suggest, is still such an infant disciplinethat we shall all suffer if we are seen to be divided. it This sort of view has a long pedigree; is of a kind with the responseof Jean-Paul Sartreto the news of Stalin'scrimes.Keep it under wraps, he counselled 'il ne [83] The same line has been offered to silence faut pas desespererBillancourt'. criticismof some of the shoddywork producedin the name of women'shistoryyet the implicationis surelythat second-bestfields get second-bestwork, and we should be grateful and shut up. In every case it is a bad mistake: the result is Gresham'sLaw, appliedto the writingof history-the bad writing survivesand edges out the good. will understood, bringin its traina of A returnto the centrality politics,properly recognitionof the full identityof people in the past. Real people, with opinionsof wool underwhichthey fromthe heapsof taxonomological theirown, will re-emerge of have been buried.One side-benefit this mightbe a reductionin the level of loose history.One hopes thinkingand bad writingassociatedwith that sort of impersonal thatthe timewill come whenno-one will publishsentenceslike the following,which containsmost of the follies I have attacked: A case can be made that exposureto the modernsector at least sensitizesthe a and populationto the valuesof individualself-development precipitates readiwith new life styles and personalityconfigurations,which ness to experiment then leads to action, should all other thingsbe equal.[84]

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No historycan live throughimmersionin prose like that, mattedwith abstractions and heavywith the perfumeof benevolentanachronism. Historianswho write like this cannotdiscussrealpeople, yet they have neitherthe clarity,nor the conceptual range,to theorise. A Oneshouldnot be over-sanguine. returnto the studyof politicsand ideology, a willingnessto criticiseand condemnwhereappropriate,an improvement the in level of scholarshipand literacyare none of them very likely in the near future. Newcomers (the historyof women,the historyof the family)mightyet force some rethinkingon the profession, in order to avoid being stillborn. But that, too, is unlikely.The pessimistic prognosisis muchthe morerealistic.We are witnessing the slow strangulation social history, watchingwhile a high fever is diagnosedas of blooming good health. If the deity who watchesover the profession did indeed desirethe deathof the past, what betterway than to driveits high priestsmad?It is quitedisconcerting be associatedwith this sceneof progressive to dementia.Now is trulya bad time to be a social historian.
This articlehas benefitedgreatlyfrom the help and adviceof other historians.Geoff Eley originally suggested themeto me, and I havediscussed in the intervalwith DavidCrew, the it Bill Hagen,PatriceHigonnet,Ray Jonasand GarethStedmanJones in particular. They and othershavemadeacuteandoccasionally criticalsuggestions provided and valuablereferences. I also learned lot aboutsocialhistoryfrom the graduate undergraduate a and in participants a seminaron the subject,held in Cambridge 1978. I owe a particular in debt of acknowledgement to PatriciaHilden, who first openedmy eyes to the need for women'shistoryand the defectsin muchof current writing thisandothertopics.The articleowes a lot to hercritical on advice,althoughneither noranyoneelseshouldbe held responsible the viewsexpressed she for in it. 1 As will no doubt become clear, this article reflects a numberof strongly held and somewhatpersonalviews, and it thus lacks much of the 'detachment' commonlyassociated with academichistorywriting.Not everyonewould agreethat theseare bad times for social historians, it wouldbe ungracious me to fail to mentionthe extentto whichsome very and of good social historyis currently beingproduced.In Englandthe pages of Social Historyand History WorkshopJournal have contained some seminal contributionson the family economy,Germanwomenand so forth. Geschichte und Gesellschaft Mouvement and Social (in particular) have publishedrepresentative examplesof the very best of continentalsocial history.Thetextof this piecemakesclearjust how highlyI ratethe workof Maurice Agulhon, for instance,andone couldaddthe namesof RolandeTrempe,E.P. Thompson,YvesLequin, TemmaKaplan NathalieZemonDavisto a random and (and long) list of historians who elicit respect.Thereis, too, a whole new generation historians Britain,men and womenwith of of whose work I am insufficientlyacquaintedto offer either deservedpraise or well-merited condemnation. theme, then, is not that thingsare all bad, but ratherthat the dross has My risenratherdisturbingly the surface(to mix a metaphor). is time to condemnthe shoddy to It workof the peoplediscussed this article,and this must resultin a piece of polemic,rather in thana carefullyweigheddiscussion the stateof the art. In adoptingthis approach runthe of I riskof appearing condemnwholesalewherein fact I wish to offer encouragement others to to who sharemy views. Thereis also the dangerthat I may appeararrogantand aggressive in tone. For this I apologisein advanceto the reader.If a mutedtone had the effect of reducing the forceof the critique,and I fear this mightbe the case, then it is betterto run the risk of beingthoughtsomewhatoverwrought. Amid the chatterand hum of academicdiscourse,it sometimeshelps to shout if you reallywish to be heard. 2 It mayevenbe doubtedwhether theorycan be directlyassociated any with the worksof CharlesTillyand his disciples,althoughtheirsis the dominantinfluencein manyareas. With Tilly we are in the presenceof an intellectual maverick (perhapsmagpiewould be a sharper characterisation), extraordinarily adeptat gatheringand applyingdata and methodsfrom a wide rangeof ideologicalpositions. A carefulreadingof the collectedworks fails to reveal anything a approaching coherent'Tillyism',unlessit be the repeated indiscriminate of and use parsonian categoriesand theirapplicationto the past.

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3 I have in mind in particular following:Annales Economies-Societes-Civilisations the (cited here as AnnalesESC); Comparative Studiesin Societyand History (cited as CSSH); Journalof Interdisciplinary History(JIH); Journalof Social History(JSH); and, occasionally, Past and Present. 4 Peter Stearns,TheImpactof the Industrial Revolution,New Jersey1972,p.6. 5 DavidApter,SomeConceptual to Approaches theStudyof Modernisation, New Jersey 1968, p.243. See also the articleby D.C. Tipps, 'Modernisation theory and the study of nationalsocieties: criticalperspective', a CSSH,vol. 15no. 0, 1973,pp.199-226. 6 The usual assumptionseems to be that 'traditional'covers the years 1500-1750, 'modern'everything since! 7 See L.E. Shiner,'Tradition/Modernity: ideal type gone astray',CSSH, vol. 17 no. an 2, 1975,p.249. Note the implication a modernsocietyis one whererevolutions that ('internal do challenges') not succeed. 8 CharlesTilly, The Vendee,Harvard1964, pp.13, 17, 37. Note too the commentson pp.24-5. 9 KarenOffen, 'Commentary papersby Boxer et al.', Proceedingsof the Second on Meetingof the Western Societyfor FrenchHistory 1974, Austin, Texas 1975, pp.204-7. 10 PeterStearns,Livesof Labor,New York 1975,p.335. 11 WilliamH. Sewell, 'Social Mobilityin a nineteenth-century Some findingsand city. implications', JIH, vol. VII no. 2, 1976, pp.217-33(see p.228). 12 This view informsall ProfessorBranca'swork. See Silent Sisterhood,London 1975, ch. especially 8; also 'A newperspective women'swork:a comparative on typology',JSH, vol. IX 1975,pp.129-53;and Womenin Europesince 1750, London 1978, the subjectof a very criticalreviewin SocialHistory, 13 Offen, 'Commentary papersby Boxer', p.204. on 14 Edward Shorter, 'Illegitimacy,Sexual Revolution and Social Change in Modern Europe',JIH, vol. II no. 2, 1971,pp.237-73(especially p.250). In the samearticle(p.246)we learnthat'Hit andrunillegitimacy typifieda periodwhenyoungpeopleswoonedromantically a through sociallandscape disorder flux'. Why- you wouldthinkhe meantthe 1960s! of and 15 David E. Apter, 'Radicalisationand Embourgeoisement: some hypotheses for a comparative studyof history',JIH, vol. 1, no. 2, 1971,pp.265-305 p.269). (see 16 See the commentsby R. Laurentin 'Droiteet Gauchede 1789A nos jours', Actes du Colloquedu Montpellier juin 1973,Montpellier 1975, p.19. 17 On the application 'forces'and 'pressures', Ted Margadant, of see 'Peasantprotestin theSecondRepublic', JIH, vol. V, no. 1, 1974,pp.119-131(reviewarticle).Note Tilly'suse of the abstract-for-concrete 'TheChanging in Placeof CollectiveViolence',in M. Richter(ed.), Essays in Theory and History, Harvard 1970, pp.139-65, where he speaks of France 'transforming'herself etc. (p.139). The comment on modernisationcomes from Tipps, 'Modernisation theory', p.199. 18 Shorter,'Illegitimacy', p.247. 19 See Branca,'A new perspective', pp.135, 138-40.Also Joan Scott and Louise Tilly, 'Women'swork and the family in nineteenth-century Europe', CSSH, vol. 17 no. 1, 1975, pp.36-64(seep.54 especially). 20 I use the term'boxes' advisedly!One of the most overblownbut influentialcontributions to social historyin recentyearswas the book by Neil Smelser,Social Changein the IndustrialRevolution,London 1969. In this work, Smelserspeaks often of his analytical or categories, 'boxes', into whichthe data is to be inserted.In the introduction are warned we that some of these boxes may, and should, remainempty! But how can we take seriouslya 'historian'who can write, with referenceto nineteenth-century England,of 'symptomsof in disturbance the form of "unjustified"negativeemotional reactionsand "unrealistic" aspirations the partof various on elements thesocialsystem'?(p.15). in 21 PeterStearns,'Comingof Age', JSH, vol. X no. 2, 1976,pp.246-55 p.250). Stearns (see reallyis somethingof a phenomenon.His work is shoddy(see the many errorsin Lives of Labor, not all of them attributable a carelesspublisher),his approachfalling somewhat to shortof the standards subtletyhis renownmightleadone to expect.In this same articlehe of attacks EdwardThompson, though not by name, for ending his Making of the English WorkingClass in the year 1832. Stearns attributesthis to an unreasoningconcern for traditional chronology.Had he but understood workin question,he wouldsee clearlythe the relationship betweenthe social history of the English workingclass and their developing and and consciousness, the effect of the achievements failingsof the ReformAct. In Lives of

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to that Labor,Stearns so concerned showhow good thingsweregettingfor the proletariat he is was that actuallysuggests(pp.338-9) the piece-rate favouredby workers,as a meansof raising des had theirpay. He includessourcessuch as the Statistique Grevesin his bibliography; he with the subjector period,that actuallyusedthemhe wouldknow, as does anyoneacquainted all and wereabhorred werea verycommontargetof strikes.Notwithstanding this, piece-rates
Peter Stearns has pretensions: in The Impact of the Industrial Revolution he recommends to the readertwo 'generalstudiesof industrialisation'- The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, by Barrington Moore, and European Society in Upheaval, by... Peter N.

Stearns! 22 See the pertinentcommentson this themeby E.F. and E.D. Genovese,'The political also SanfordElwitt, 'Politicsand crisisof socialhistory',JSH vol. X no. 2, 1976,pp.205-21; Ideologyin the FrenchLabourMovement',Journalof ModernHistory, vol. 49 no. 3, 1977, pp.468-80(reviewarticle).
23 Charles Tilly (ed.), The Formation of National States in Western Europe, Princeton

1975, p.635. 24 Elizabeth Pleck 'Two Worldsin One', JSH, vol. X no. 2, 1976, pp.178-96(see p.187). 25 SeeE.F. and E.D. Genovese,'The politicalcrisisof social history',p.212. Also Gareth StedmanJones, 'From historicalsociology to theoreticalhistory', BritishJournalof Sociocontributions logy, vol. XXVIIno. 3, 1976,pp.295-306.This briefpieceis one of the sharpest the of to thedebatesurrounding character the newsocialhistory,andmy ownthinkingowes to it a considerable debt. 26 See E.J. Hobsbawm, 'Labor History and Ideology', JSH, vol. VII no. 4, 1973, of pp.371-82.The historiography revolutionsis immense.The readerwishingto find a way throughthe maze could usefullybegin with John Dunn's ModernRevolutions,Cambridge 1972.Thereseemsto me to be nothingworthlearningin the worksof Gurr,Tilly, Chalmers of Johnson,or any otherpractitioners the studyof 'violence','internalwar' etc. This can be betweenthe worksof the FrenchhistorianMaurice confirmed,for example,by a comparison Agulhonon the one hand,andTillyandthe reston the other,on the Frenchrevolutionof 1848 and the ensuingrepublic. 27 See R.P. and P.K. Baker,'ActionsSpeakLouderthan Wordsbut Whatdo they Say? France',ProceedAn essayon workingclass languageand politicsin earlytwentieth-century
ings of the WesternSocietyfor French History, no. 3, 1975, pp.402-11. On p.406 we learn this:

'The tracts from the Halluinstrikethus allow us to read within their words two different messagelevels at once; on the one hand, a narrativerelationallevel with close ties to the level of desire, refusal and gesturesof the workersthemselves,a combinedanalog-digital messagelevel designedto teleologicalgoal; on the otherhand a purelydigital propositional coexistin the outsideworld, a level of demand,negation,and limitedgoal.' 28 Peter N. Stearns,'Comingof Age', p.249. 29 M. Matossian W.D. Schafer,'Family,fertility politicalviolence',JSH, vol. XI and and no. 2, 1977, pp.137-78(see p.170). and weaknesses Frenchsocial history',JSH, vol. X of 30 MichelePerrot, 'The strengths no. 2, 1976,pp.166-77(see p.166). economist at 31 Professionalstatisticianshave known this all along-a mathematical Stanfordrecently to in explained me that the 'calculations' a book by one of the better-known 'new' social historiansdemonstrated preciselynothing.The problemis partlythat historians are not mathematicians, partly that their data is very often insufficientand ill-adaptedto becausethe Wherethesecaveatsdo not apply,it is frequently manipulation. genuinestatistical basisfor good werechosenin orderfor thisto be so - hardlya plausible subjectandapproach history. of 32 Perrot, 'The strengths and weaknesses Frenchsocial history',p.172. 33 Margadant, 'Peasantprotest',p.123. 34 For an exampleof the mindless of accumulation dataon domesticservants,see Theresa in McBride,'SocialMobilityfor the LowerClass:DomesticServants France',JSH, vol. VIII France,see P.A. of 1974,pp.63-78;on the enumeration eye colourin earlynineteenth-century Gloor and J. Hondaille,'La couleurdes yeux a l'epoque du le Empire',AnnalesESC, vol. XXXI no. 4, 1976. I am indebtedto Ray Jonas for callingmy attentionto this path-breaking
piece.

35 R.M. Bell, 'The transformation a ruralvillage:Istria1870-1972', JSH, vol. VII no. of 3, 1973,pp.243-71(seepp.262-3).Bellseemsveryconfused;on p.251 'work'appearsto be the modernisingfactor and determinant,yet four pages later we learn that a yardstickfor

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of measuring 'presence the framework modernlife' is the absenceof seasonalcyclesof the of and birth, marriage death. 36 Apter, Some Conceptual Approaches,p.6. 37 Matossianand Schafer,'Family,fertilityand politicalviolence',p.138. 38 See for exampleCharlesTillyand EdwardShorter,Strikesin France,Cambridge 1974. and 39 Apter, 'Radicalisation Embourgeoisement', p.265. 40 CharlesTilly, 'The ChangingPlace of CollectiveViolence',pp.l57-8; Charles,Louise and RichardTilly, TheRebelliousCentury,Harvard1975,pp.68ff. 41 Shiner,'Tradition/Modernity', p.245. 42 Matossian Schafer,'Family,fertility politicalviolence',pp.154-60.Thechartis and and on p.167. It is astoudingto thinkthat any historians, howeveraesthetically their impoverished souls, would ransackworksof literature evidenceas to quantifiable for familialattitudes. 43 Some good points are made in a reviewarticleby J.C. Scott, 'PeasantRevolution,a DismalScience',Comparative Politics, vol. IX no. 2, 1977,pp.231-48. 44 See variousarticlesby HarveySmithon the subjectof ruralprotestin Languedoc,in JIH, vol. V no. 3, 1975, and Past and Present, no. 79, 1978. See also J. Sagnes, 'Le mouvement 1907en Languedoc-Roussillon', de Mouvement Social, no. 104, 1978. 45 Scott and Tilly, 'Women'swork and the family'. 46 The work currently beingundertaken PatriciaHilden on the relationship between by working conditions, political organisationand the growth of class consciousnessamong womentextileworkersin the Nord shouldmakea substantial dent in our ignorance. 47 See StedmanJones, 'Fromhistoricalsociologyto theoretical history',p.299. 48 Apter, Some Conceptual Approaches,p.2. 49 One could hardlymakethis particular criticismof Lawrence Stone, who nevertheless managesto say some verybizarre thingsin his recentbook, TheFamily,Sex and Marriage in England1500-1800,London 1977. Here the problemis one of sources Stone infers from materialrelatingto one social class whole attitudesand beliefs with respectto other, lower classes.Like Brancawith her manipulation 'advicemanuals',the criticalapproachto the of materialis all too often suspended favourof its use as 'neutral'information. in 50 Shorter,'Illegitimacy', p.240. 51 LouiseTilly, 'TheFood Riotas a form of PoliticalConflictin France',JIH, vol. II no. 1, 1971, pp.23-59(see p.25). 52 See J.D. Post, TheLast GreatSubsistence Crisis,Baltimore1977. 53 Scott and Tilly, 'Women'swork and the family', p.63. 54 Branca,'A new perspective', p.131. Naturally,the figuresvaryaccordingto time and place. In those parts of Franceand Belgiumwherefactoriesexisted by, say, 1870, women a represented large minority(often over 40%) of the work-force;in certain industries tobacco, textiles-they werein the majority.Elsewhere, apparently the agricultural occupations of womenis misleading; seasonalworkin cottageor factorywas veryfrequent.Only by the absurdly deviceof investigating misleading Versailles,or partsof London,wouldanyone thinkthat womenwerepredominantly domesticsor not gainfullyemployed.I am indebtedto PatriciaHilden for confirmingthese points from her own research. 55 Theuse of slippery termsis veryfrequent.Branca particularly is guiltyof this, but there are many others. A recentarticleby GeorgeD. Sussmanon 'The Glut of Doctors in MidNineteenth-century France',CSSH,vol. XIX no. 3, 1977,pp.287-305,proclaimsits intention of avoidinga discussion whether of thereweretoo manydoctors-'in some sensestherewere andin some sensestherewerenot'; insteadwe are to be offereda 'statistical' (ah!) accountof whythe proposition felt to be true.Aftertwentypagesof figuresthe authorconcludes was with the startlingobservationthat, faced with the choice between 'socialised medicine' and professionalprotectionism, doctors 'on the whole' chose the latter. Who, as they say, the wouldhave thoughtit? 56 See Marilyn Boxer,'Socialism facesFeminism: failureof Synthesis France,1871the in 1914', in M. Boxer& J. Quataert(eds.), Socialist WomenNew York 1978, pp.75-112.This collectionis a monument the impossibility writingwomen'ssocialhistoryby reference to of to 'famous women'. It is also informed by a hopeless misunderstanding the history of of socialismitself, as in ProfessorBoxer'sreproduction the cliche which says that marxism of 'failed' in Francebecauseit was a foreignand alien ideology, ill-adaptedto the essentially 'reformist'Frenchsocialism,etc, etc. (see p.106). 57 Not infrequently, problematic a does exist at the outset, but is ignoredand eventually displacedby the applicationof a quite inappropriate methodof answering Thus Marilyn it.

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Boxermakesa nonsenseof her study of Frenchsocialism'sfailureto deal with the woman intellectual to question,sinceshe offersan essentially response a socialquestion.See M. Boxer, 'Socialism faces Feminism in France 1879-1913',PhD thesis, University of California, Riverside1975. 58 R.T. Vann, 'The Rhetoricof Social History',JSH, vol. X no. 2, 1976, pp.221-37(see p.224). 59 Tilly, 'The Formationof NationalStates', p.604. 60 Tilly, 'The Changing Place of Collective Violence', p.143; Margadant,'Peasant Protest', p.126 (where 'social mobilisation' is in its turn accounted for by expanding communications networks). 61 Forexamples the obsessionwithpredictability, Tilly, 'TheFormation National of see of and and States',p.40, andMatossian Schafer,'Familyfertility politicalviolence',pp.138, 183. It was in thesecircumstances certainsociologiststurnedhistorians that vast sums of acquired publicand privatemoney for the purchaseof researchmaterials,and it was out of such an that run atmosphere wasbornthe programme Carnegie-Mellon at University, by PeterStearns and concernedwith 'AppliedHistoryand Social Sciences'. Its credo runs thus: 'Historical in with statistics,economics,psychology,sociologyand politicalscience training combination offers a unique vantage point for identifyingsocial problemsand formulatingrelevant with theirinterdisciplinary policies... Ourgraduates, offer the essentialtools for knowledge, dealingwith mutli-dimensional social problems.' 62 See Apter, Some Conceptual Approaches,p.243. 63 William Reddy argues that linen-weaving women supportedstrikes involving their husbands familialgrounds.Thisis simplyuntrue,as any surveyof the detailsof strikesin on the textileindustry confirm.See W. Reddy,'Familyand Factory:Frenchlinenweaversin will the BelleEpoque',JSH, vol. VIII no. 4, 1974,pp.102-12.I am gratefulto PatriciaHildenfor confirmation this point withrespectto strikesin Lille, Roubaixand Tourcoing the years of in 1890-1910. 64 Shorter,'Illegitimacy', p.252. It is hardto imagineanyonetaking the authorof such twaddleseriously,but they do. An articleby J. MichaelPhayer,'LowerClassMorality,the case of Bavaria',JSH, vol. VIII, 1974,pp.79-95,dependsheavilyon Shorter'swork, as does Branca.From Phayer we learn that 'The new moral attitudesand behaviorconstitutethe earliesthistoricalsigns of class diversification class consciousness'! and (p.86). 65 Matossianand Schafer,'Family,fertilityand politicalviolence',p.169. 66 See MichelePerrot,Les Ouvriers Greve1871-90,Paris 1974,2 vols. en 67 Stearns,Lives of Labor, p.3. 68 Offen, 'Commentary papersby Boxer', p.205. on 69 See Joan Scott, The Glassworkers Carmaux,Harvard1974, and Scott and Tilly, of 'Women'sworkand the family', p.64. 70 Branca,'A new perspective', p.142. 71 LouiseTilly, 'The Social Sciencesand the Study of Women', CSSH, vol. XX no. 1, 1978, pp.163-73(reviewarticle). 72 Sewell, 'Social Mobility',p.230. See also W.H. Sewell, 'Socialchangeand the rise of working-classpolitics in nineteenth-century Marseille',Past and Present, no. 65, 1974, pp.75-110. 73 See F. Furet and D. Richet, La RevolutionFrancaise,Paris 1965-6,2 vols. As the Genoveses note, the modernAnnalists well havequiteforgottenBloch'semphasis narrative on as well as analysis,and they haveallowedtheirtheoriesand methodsto upstagethe historical processitself; see 'The politicalcrisisof social history',p.207. 74 Shorter,'Illegitimacy', p.248. 75 See for example Margadanton 1851, which he sees as the 'culminationof a crisisin the polity ('Peasantprotest',p.128). This is a particularly participatory transparent of transposition the experiences and explanationsderivedfrom our own lifetime into'the behaviourof people in otherlands at other times. 76 Scott and Tilly, 'Women'swork and the family', p.50. 77 Branca,'A new perspective', 145. p. 78 Shorter(who else!), 'Illegitimacy', p.249. 79 Theodore Zeldin,France1848-1945, Oxford1973and 1978,2 vols. At the riskof being accusedof reactionary and myopic responses,I affirm the view occasionallyhinted at in
reviews of Dr Zeldin's book that it is, put simply, bad history. Well-informed, imaginatively

conceived,but bad. We learnnothingabout how or why Francechangedover time, and the

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odd consequence that all Dr Zeldin'seffortscome to nil. In a ratherdifferentconstellation is we are beingoffered the most traditionalof all historywriting a lengthycompendium of 'one damnthing after another.' 'The ParisCommune,a revolutionthat failed', JIH, vol. VII no. 1, 80 Ted Margadant, 1976,pp.91-7(reviewarticle).It is perfectlyproperto employanthropological approaches in theirplace-Annie Kriegeldoes a brilliant with them in her study of Les Communistes job selected viewof the author's in Frangais, Paris1968.Butherethe methodhas beendeliberately theoretical graspof the subjectmatter.ProfessorKriegelbelievesthat the PCF operatesas a structure in certainstaticand functionalist and ways- henceherchoice of a certainmode of analysis.But I have yet to reada plausiblesuggestionas to why we should 'read' the Paris Communein this manner. 81 StedmanJones, 'Fromhistoricalsociologyto theoretical history',p.296. 82 I wouldnot wish to be thoughtsexistin my use of metaphors -there are some guilty women,too. But what is the feminineform of the diminutive 'princeling'? is 83 'We must not disillusionBillancourt'.Boulogne-Billancourt the suburbof Paris whichhousesthe massiveRenault works,a stronghold the French car of communist partyand its tradeunion affiliate, the Confd&ration generaldu travail. 84 Shorter,'Illegitimacy', p.249.

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