The Science of History in Victorian Britain

Hesketh, Ian

doi:10.4324/9781315655734

Cited by 6 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Most rejected any notion of historical laws or regularities (Wahl 1925(Wahl -1926, which they associated with sociology. The history elite united in opposition to the social scientific approach of Leipzig historian Karl Lamprecht (Schleier 1975: 222-23), just as British historians rejected en masse the scientific approach of T. H. Buckle (Hesketh 2011) and French historians the similar arguments of Paul Lacombe (Schulze 1974: 66;Lacombe 1894). Max Weber, who routinely aligned himself with the views of the dominant figures in each academic discipline, described Lamprecht as a "charlatan" (Whimster 1987: 282 n30).…”

Section: History and Historiansmentioning

confidence: 99%

Field Theory and Interdisciplinarity: History and Sociology in Germany and France during the Twentieth Century

Steinmetz

2017

Comp Stud Soc Hist

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This article proposes an original theory of interdisciplinarity and a revisionist history of interactions between the sociology and history disciplines. It examines relations between historians and sociologists in Germany and France over the course of the twentieth century, focusing on several key moments of interdisciplinary activity.The present article differs from the existing literatures on historical sociology and interdisciplinarity in several ways. Most accounts of historical sociology since the 1980s have depicted an endeavor taking place entirely within sociology, occluding other axes of interdisciplinarity. Rather than focusing on sociologists working historically, or historians working sociologically, I begin by reconstructing both of the disciplinary fields within the metafield of academic disciplines. I then consider the full range of interactions and practices coming from both directions. According to most previous accounts, disciplines evolve as unified totalities, generations, or waves. I analyze disciplines as social fields-as dynamic, relational, and internally heterogeneous and divided assemblages. Rather than asking how entire disciplines interact with one another, I focus on the ways specific actors and groups within disciplines relate to specific parts of external disciplines. I try to map the entire array of interactions and repulsions between disciplines. Rather than simply describing interdisciplinary practices, I ask how these practices have been supported or hindered by causal forces located within disciplines and at varying distances Acknowledgements: I am grateful to Julia Hell, Phil Gorski, Howard Brick, participants in the symposium on "The Sociology of the Social Sciences 1945-2010" at the University of Copenhagen, 9-11 June 2011, and several anonymous CSSH reviewers for comments on earlier versions of this paper.

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Section: History and Historiansmentioning

confidence: 99%

Field Theory and Interdisciplinarity: History and Sociology in Germany and France during the Twentieth Century

Steinmetz

2017

Comp Stud Soc Hist

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“…E. A. Freeman, who saw it as his mission to police the writing of history in Britain, produced more than 700 articles and reviews for The Saturday Review in a single decade (1860-1869), severely admonishing authors who failed to live up to his standards of accuracy. 70 For Mommsen, too, accuracy was perhaps the supreme scholarly value, and to attain it through painstaking effort was one of the few satisfactions he allowed himself. He allowed himself to feel that he had surpassed Niebuhr, not because of his genius or even his superior writing style but because he was one of those who exhibited true "banausic patience for grunge [grob] work," a phrase which resonates interestingly with Max Weber's insistence that politics "is a strong and slow boring of hard boards."…”

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confidence: 99%

Weighing Context and Practices: Theodor Mommsen and the Many Dimensions of Nineteenth‐century Humanistic Knowledge

Marchand

2020

History and Theory

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This essay argues that the history of knowledge, especially when applied to humanistic knowledge making, ought not to study practices of knowing to the exclusion of the peculiarities of individuals and the specifics of the wider contexts in which they operate. It uses the life and work of the Roman historian Theodor Mommsen as a case study, sketching first his qualities as a writer and political actor formed by the particularities of the post-Romantic era. Showing that Mommsen belongs to the world of realist writers and liberal nationalist reformers, this essay then demonstrates how much these aspects of his thought-world resonated with and informed the ways in which he practiced as a scholar. This essay aims to remind historians of the humanities that a focus on practices of knowing might bring us into exciting conversations with historians of science, but we ought not to lose touch with our colleagues in general and intellectual history.

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Materials for History? Publishing Records as a Historical Practice in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century England

Riordan

2017

History of Humanities

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Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries a large number of historical records were published in a wide variety of forms, most of which can be described as being part of wider historical and antiquarian practices. Taking the publishing of record editions as itself an historical practice, this essay surveys the varying people, practices and purposes involved before discussing a number of continuities and changes in the practice across two centuries. It will show how records publications were not only access driven, but also concerned with the preservation of records, and that they influenced archival practices, changing the way that archival collections were ordered and arranged. The essay will also argue that the place of record publications in wider historical practice changed from being one amongst a wide variety of practices used to engage with the past to a much more restricted role as an auxiliary practice making sources available to narrative historians.

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The Science of History in Victorian Britain

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

Field Theory and Interdisciplinarity: History and Sociology in Germany and France during the Twentieth Century

Field Theory and Interdisciplinarity: History and Sociology in Germany and France during the Twentieth Century

Weighing Context and Practices: Theodor Mommsen and the Many Dimensions of Nineteenth‐century Humanistic Knowledge

Materials for History? Publishing Records as a Historical Practice in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century England

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