Peter Stearns | Part II: Issues of Power in Social History: Social History and the State | Journal of Social History, 39.3

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Peter Stearns | Part II: Issues of Power in Social History: Social History and the State | Journal of Social History, 39.3 | The History Cooperative

PART II: ISSUES OF POWER IN SOCIAL HISTORY: SOCIAL HISTORY AND THE STATE

By Peter Stearns George Mason University

Social historians have grappled with the issue of approaching the state and politics since the inception of the field. Some were, admittedly, attracted to social history because conventional political approaches repelled them, and the impulse continues in some quarters—including fields like subaltern studies. Pleas to put the state back in began to resound from the 1970s onward. At the other extreme, many social historians were drawn to their work by deep political commitments, and this too survives (perhaps more in certain regional fields than others); there is even some hope that recent developments suggest new roles for politically-engaged history. In between, there were some fascinating reversals and re-reversals, as in the decline of social explanations for the French revolution, in favor of the revenge of culture and ideas, and then their partial re-emergence.

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