So I\u2019ve been catching up on the material on microhistory, from a seminar I missed, whilst writing my short essay. I decided I really ought to go over the microhistory material since I feel like my project may end up as a microhistory and it is just an approach I am generally drawn towards.
\nI\u2019ve been thinking a lot about how R\u00fcger\u2019s article \u201cOXO: Or, the Challenges of Transnational History\u201d was the article a lot of the group first connected with in the early weeks and how a carefully presented microhistory such as this is perhaps the best introduction to transnational history rather than a predominately theoretical work focused on trying to ascertain a definition.
\nMicro history is in many respects history\u2019s grounding point, its home if you will. The discipline begins from the individual stories and case studies that make up micro history and it must return there once in a while. If it were not for the stories there would be no history and no historians. According to Braudel imagination is the historian\u2019s most important tool\u00b9; let us not forget that and that the imagination feeds on stories. And so as the outlook changes to the transnational so history must return to micro history but now looking with fresh eyes for details that may signpost networks previously overlooked, connections previously ignored.
\nNetworks can be difficult to pin down and perhaps by focusing in on individual nodes or connections through micro history historians are given a starting point from which to pursue further research into a given network or convergence of networks or at least a snapshot of connections is created which can later be joined up with others.
\nIt feels as if the Eurocentrism and the centrality of the nation state in previous scholarship is like a camera stuck on a particular setting; if you can\u2019t zoom in or pan out then you will never see a complete picture nor all the details. The combination of micro history and transnationalism can begin to change this as historians must \u201cfind more imaginative ways of connecting micro and macro levels\u201d.\u00b2<\/p>\n
[1] Tonio Andrade. \u201cA Chinese Farmer, Two African Boys; and a Warlord: Toward a Global Microhistory.\u201d Journal of World History<\/em> 21, no. 4 (December 2010): p. 591<\/p>\n [2] \u00a0Jan R\u00fcger, \u2018OXO: Or, the Challenges of Transnational History\u2019, European History Quarterly<\/em> 40, no. 4 (October 1, 2010): p. 660<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So I\u2019ve been catching up on the material on microhistory, from a seminar I missed, whilst writing my short essay. I decided I really ought to go over the microhistory material since I feel like my project may end up<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5wNtZ-aA","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":660,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656\/revisions\/660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}