is the history of broad social change and those popular movements organized to effect changes in work, politics or culture. Rather than focusing merely on leaders, laws, elections, wars, discrete events or elite individuals' lives, it tends to focus on changes in labor patterns and work, the changing nature of urban spaces and population migrations, changes in daily life and domestic relationships, broad political patterns, social crises and upheavals. Because of their focus on ordinary people's lives and efforts and their interest in social conflict and resolution, social historians often focus their attention on groups who are at the center of significant social conflict and political struggle and those who are either economically, politically or culturally marginalized, such as African-Americans, laborers, immigrants, colonized populations, and women. To answer such large questions, social historians, most often rely on empirical data drawn from official documents like the census and records of institutions like hospitals, courts, municipal authorities or schools. Social historians also utilize qualitative data drawn from private writings like letters and diaries or public texts like sermons, guidebooks, and newspaper accounts to better understand society as a whole.
is a relatively new field of historical scholarship. It combines the methods and perspectives of literary historians (who closely interrogate the form as well as the content of published or private writings to find out about people's ideas and beliefs), film, tv and video theorists (who assess the impact and meaning of visual texts on audiences), and historians of material culture (who consider the meaning and significance of objects and technology). Cultural historians seek not only to explain changes in the way people think, feel, and relate to one another but also to explain persistent patterns of social conflict. Cultural historians are closely related to social historians in that they want to understand broad social patterns, conflict and change, but they differ in the kinds of questions they ask and in their treatment of sources. Cultural historians often focus a lot of attention on very specific texts, rather than large amounts of data. Or, in fact, they treat all data as texts whose meanings are not self-evident, but need to be "read." They tend to bring all of their energy to bear on exploring the complexities, contradictions and potential meanings embedded in the relationship between texts and audiences.
can focus on a variety of issues and use a multitude of different kinds of texts, but it primarily concerns itself with the relations between the nation-state and foreign nations or peoples. These relationships are not only political (involving leaders of state and negotiations over things like borders) but also military (thus an emphasis on armed conflict), economic (involving both mutual trade and coerced exploitation of resources and people), and cultural (attitudes and social relationships which shape diplomatic relations). While social, economic, political and cultural institutions and relations in part determine diplomatic relations and foreign policies, diplomatic relationships also affect domestic culture and policies. The work of diplomatic historians help us to understand the degree to which national life and culture is intertwined with global processes and relationships.
An example of a survey course I teach is:
US history since 1877, 3400:251
Course description and objectives: This course is an introduction to modern United States history, from the late nineteenth century to the present. Students will read the work of prominent historians whose research has made significant contributions to the fields of American social, political, diplomatic and cultural history, supplemented by primary sources and documents, video footage, and textbook selections. The predominant themes explored in the course are: imperialism, industrialization, consumerism, capitalism and class formation, communism and anti-communism, national identity, the role of the federal government, class, gender, race, racism and anti-racism, democracy and collective dissent. Topics are arranged chronologically. The primary goal of this course is to provide students with a systematic view of the past 125 years of U.S. history and to promote insights into the way the past acts to shape American experiences in the present.