History Notes Approaches to History Notes
These notes provide comprehensive cover of the Approaches to History topics of Gender and Sociology. They were the sole resource that I used for my preliminary examination revision, in which I achieved a mark of 67%. They include a wealth of examples spanning across a wide range of time periods (from medieval to modern), as well as discussion of a broad range of historiography, making them a complete resource for studying for the Approaches prelim, if you are taking the Gender or Sociology option...
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Approaches Revision Notes:
SOCIOLOGY:
Class:
1. Historiography:
Marxism:
Marx:
Theory = ‘historical materialism’.
Based on idea that economic development = a natural process.
Economy = absolutely central. Those on each side of ‘ownership of means of production-labourer’ divide = the 2 classes. Talked of “Two great classes directly facing each other: bourgeoisie and proletariat”.
Marxists determined by common vocab, concepts, emphases.
‘Productive forces’ = instruments of prod, human labour power, sci/tech knowledge.
‘Relations of prod’ = relationships between these forces.
Relations of prod determine people’s access to prod forces (i.e. work) and the products of the labour process (i.e. wages/products).
‘Mode of prod’ = specific set of relations of prod (e.g. capitalism, feudalism). Consist of ancient, Asiatic, feudal, capitalist.
Since relations of prod = exploitative, conflict is inevitable.
New productive forces relations of prod lagging behind prod forces, limiting them. For prod forces to continue to develop, new relats of prod established. Social rev accompanies.
Said that “Modern bourgeois society… is like the sorcerer, who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world”.
Society consists of ‘economic base’ and legal, political & ideological ‘superstructure’.
1947: est Communist Party Historians Group (Thompson, Hobsbawm, Hill all members, 1956 – Thompson and Hill left).
Ideas flourished after 1918 due to change in political climate:
E.g. Germany (rise of sociology), France (founding of Annales d’histoire économique et sociale [1929]), England (Economic History Review [1926-7]).
E P Thompson:
Described conflict of industrial rev.
V sensitive to importance of culture in determining class.
Central theme of TMOTEWC (1963) = emergence of working class 1780-1832, aware of political oppression.
Hobsbawm:
Linked ind rev to birth of labour aristocracy.
LA = highest section of WC. Emerged 1840-90. Used to explain why Marx’s socialist prediction did not come true in Vict LDN – WC went “from a restless and insurgent beast into a placid and predictable cart-horse” (H F Moorhouse).
V distinct from WC. E.g. craft unions est to maintain.
6 conditions for being LA:
Social security.
Conditions of work
Relations w/ social strata above and below.
Living conditions
Prospects of advancement.
Level and reg of earnings (most imp).
Has been widely criticised, e.g. by Henry Pelling – uses Booth and Rowntree’s turn-of-century surveys to show that there was a wide span of WC living in relative comfort.
Christopher Hill:
ECW of 1640s = main focus.
Classes developed when groups identified common aims and enemies.
Argued ECW = turning pt in formation of capitalism: “The Civil War was a class war”.
1641-1660: censorship lifted, printing ^ ideas in circulation.
Said, “we must widen our view so as to embrace the total activity of society”.
John Foster:
Develops Hobsbawm’s ideas about the LA.
Stresses authority rather than wages – aligns basically with development of bourgeoisie.
Came from developments e.g. in engineering.
Frank Walbank:
Failure of productive forces to develop = to blame for decline of Roman Empire (key Marxist e.g.).
Robert Brenner:
Productive forces had no inherent tendency to develop under feudalism.
Landlords boosted own profits not by raising productivity but rents etc.: failure inevitable.
Eugene Genovese:
‘Immanent contradictions’ of Southern American slave economy: low level of labour productivity, lack of capital formation, home market, limits on bourgeoisie.
H F Moorhouse points out how Marxism itself ^ class-consciousness.
Poststructuralism:
Says that the true past = unknowable. Focuses only on language and representations.
Came from late C19th conflict between historians and lit critics – lit critics saw historical works as objects of study.
Means that ideas like the naturalness of class identities can be questioned as purely constructs.
Linked to postmodernism – intellectual enquiry = purely representation.
Load of rubbish.
Weber:
More appreciation of culture.
Classes develop “on the basis of communalisation”.
Describes class as “the way in which social honour is distributed” – more subtle appreciation.
Acknowledges interplay between class and economics.
Also link class-power: higher class = higher power.
On the most basic level, property ownership has an impact. Then, there is ownership of property that can be used for returns.
Thinks of ‘class situation’ of ‘market situation’.
Differentiates between class groups (more economic) and status groups (more community-like, centred on honour, helps to better explain alliances that result in Revolution e.g. political leaders of French Rev w/ proles v. aristocracy).
Taken one step further = castes (have rituals, v religiously linked, e.g. Jews).
T H Marshall:
Appreciates culture even more: “the essence of social class is the way a man is treated by his fellows”.
Joyce:
“The consciousness of a class is not the same thing as consciousness of class”.
Talks of “sustained, socially specific discourse”.
2. How useful are concepts of class and status for explaining social change?
Class conflict certainly had an impact on causing many changes.
E.g. Eng Civil War, Brian Manning – ‘middling sort’ expressed grievances through Puritanism – ‘the main force behind events’.
E.g. ECW, French Rev seen as ‘bourgeois revolutions’.
Good for understanding individuals’ identities:
J Thompson compares class to nationality in this sense.
Look at birth of consumer society:
E.g. by Linda Colley.
C18th.
Colonialism:
Marx argued ^ bourgeoisie.
Highlight prev unexplored areas of culture, e.g. language.
“The brilliance of Joyce’s study lies in its sensitive and painstaking account of WC culture” (J Thompson).
Help to explore impact of growth of capitalism and industrialisation:
E.g. Weber’s idea...
Buy the full version of these notes or essay plans and more in our Approaches to History Notes.
These notes provide comprehensive cover of the Approaches to History topics of Gender and Sociology. They were the sole resource that I used for my preliminary examination revision, in which I achieved a mark of 67%. They include a wealth of examples spanning across a wide range of time periods (from medieval to modern), as well as discussion of a broad range of historiography, making them a complete resource for studying for the Approaches prelim, if you are taking the Gender or Sociology option...
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