21H.991J / STS.210J Theories and Methods in the Study of History, Fall 2003

The purpose of this course is to acquaint you with a variety of approaches to the past used by historians writing in the twentieth century. Most of the books on the list constitute, in my view (and others), modern classics, or potential classics, in social and economic history. We will examine how t...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Perdue, Peter C.
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. History Section
Format: Learning Object
Language:en-US
Published: 2003
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/71717
Description
Summary:The purpose of this course is to acquaint you with a variety of approaches to the past used by historians writing in the twentieth century. Most of the books on the list constitute, in my view (and others), modern classics, or potential classics, in social and economic history. We will examine how these historians conceive of their object of study, how they use primary sources as a basis for their accounts, how they structure the narrative and analytic discussion of their topic, and what are the advantages and drawbacks of their approaches.