What Difference Does It Make?

Abstract

Almost 30 years have passed since the “new” social history and its related fields fired the imagination of historians and other social scientists, particularly sociologists, anthropologists, and psychologists. Perhaps the time has come to ask: What difference does it make? What has been the impact of these new historical efforts on our understanding of more general patterns in history?The new social history and its subdisciplines have become so established that they are not viewed as new anymore. Younger generations of scholars take them for granted. On the other hand, those of us who witnessed their emergence and helped develop them still remember the sense of promise and discovery and the frantic search for methodologies with which to answer new questions. The excitement led to collaborations and to an enduring sense of kinship among practitioners.

The Life Course as Developmental Theory

“…As one might expect, the principle of historical time is most fully expressed today in the work of historians within the new social history who have played an important role in the development of life course studies. Especially prominent in this group is Tamara Hareven (1978Hareven ( , 1982Hareven ( , 1996' who has pioneered in the historical study of families and lives. In collaboration with her study of Manchester, NH, men, we show that both historical time and place (i.e., region) make a difference in life opportunities and adult careers (Elder & Hareven, 1993).…”

From Print Texts to Online Gaming: The Cross-Cultural History of Wuxia Fictions in Vietnam

“…Most of the previous models that deal with the human behavior tried to touch upon life cycle stages and the life span, which is more about the duration of life and scattered characteristics that are closely related to age, such as skills and knowledge acquisition, challenges, or transitional phases in human life. The revolutionary feature of the life course approach is that it puts emphasis on the importance of time, context, process, and meaning on human development and family life (Bengtson & Allen, 1993), reflecting the intersection of social and historical factors with the development of individuals and the decisionmaking process in later stages of life (Elder, 1985;Hareven, 1996;Moschis, 2007Moschis, , 2019Moschis et al, 2011).…”

The Shock of the “‘New’ (Histories)”

“…Neither the historical profession (and its mainstream practices) nor its departments and other institutions, writ large, were transformed or remade. Nor were the social sciences (see Bogue 1986Bogue , 1987Kousser 1989;Reynolds 1998; see also Baker 1999, Burke 1992Kammen 1980;Novick 1988;Ross 1998;Stearns 1980;Stone 1977Stone , 1979Stone , 1987; and presidential addresses, especially by Clausen [1988], Hareven [1996], ). Social science history changed Maynes 1992;McDonald 1996a;Hunt 1989;Bonnell and Hunt 1999;Steinmetz 1999).…”