This is an archived course. A more recent version may be available at ocw.mit.edu.

Readings

SES # TOPICS READINGS
1 Introduction Tilly, Charles. "How (and What) are Historians Doing?" American Behavioral Scientist (July-August 1990): 685-711.
2 Classic Problems in Periodization Core Readings

Amazon logo Huizinga, Johan. The Autumn of the Middle Ages. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1997. Chapters 1, 2, 13, and 14. ISBN: 9780226359946.

Glance around at some of the chapters in between as well - 10 is particularly interesting.

Amazon logo Goldstone, Jack. Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993. pp. 349-390. ISBN: 9780520082670.

Starn, Randolph. "The Early Modern Muddle." Journal of Early Modern History 6, no. 3 (2002): 296-301.

Supplementary Readings

Goldstone, Jack. "The Problem of the Early Modern World." Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 41, no. 3 (1998).

Amazon logo Ladurie, Emmanuel Le Roi. "History That Stands Still." In The Territory of the Historian. Vol. 2. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1979. pp. 1-27. ISBN: 9780226473277.

Amazon logo Besserman, Lawrence, ed. The Challenge of Periodization: Old Paradigms and New Perspectives. New York, NY: Routledge, 1996. ISBN: 9780815321033.

Kaminsky, Howard. "From Lateness to Waning to Crisis: the Burden of the Later Middle Ages." Journal of Early Modern History 4, no. 1 (2000): 85-125.

Darling, Linda. "Rethinking Europe and the Islamic World in the Age of Exploration." Journal of Early Modern History 2, no. 3 (1998): 221-246.
3 The Annales School Core Readings

Bloch, Marc. "The Advent and Triumph of the Water Mill." In Land and Work in Medieval Europe. London: Routledge, 1967. pp. 136-68.

Braudel, Fernand. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996. pp. 25-138, 246-67, 418-60, 543-70, 734-57, and 1088-1106. Amazon logo ISBN: 9780520203082 (vol. 1) and Amazon logo ISBN: 9780520203303 (vol. 2).

Supplementary Readings

Bloch, Marc. French Rural History. London: Routledge & K. Paul, 1978.

Burke, Peter. The French Historical Revolution: The Annales School, 1929 1989. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991.

Stoianovitch, Traian. French Historical Method: The Annales Paradigm. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1976.

Fink, Carol. Marc Bloch: A Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

Febvre, Lucien. A New Kind of History. New York: Harper and Row, 1973. (Collected writings.)

Bloch, Marc. Feudal Society; The Historian's Craft. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968.

Ladurie, Emmanuel Le Roy. Montaillou. New York: George Braziller, 1978.

Journal of Modern History (1972/12). Special issue on Braudel [PCP3].
4 Labor History: Class as a Historical Category Core Readings

Amazon logo Thompson, E. P. The Making of the English Working Class. New York, NY: Peter Smith Publisher, 1999. ISBN: 9780844669939.

Or

Amazon logo Gordon, Andrew. The Evolution of Labor Relations in Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988. ISBN: 9780674271319.

Supplementary Readings

Perry, Elizabeth J. Shanghai on Strike: The Politics of Chinese Labor. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993.

Keyssar, Alex. Out of Work: The First Century of Unemployment in Massachusetts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.

Montgomery, David. The Decline of the House of Labor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.

Gutman, Herbert. Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America. New York: Vintage Books, 1977.

Hershatter, Gail. Flying Hammers, Walking Chisels: The Workers of Tianjin (China). Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1986.
5 Women's History: Gender as a Historical Category Core Readings

Amazon logo Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher. The Age of Homespun. New York, NY: Vintage, 2002. ISBN: 9780679766445.

And

Amazon logo Bray, Francesca. Technology and Gender: Fabrics of Power in Late Imperial China. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997. pp. 173-273. ISBN: 9780520206854.

Supplementary Readings

Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher. A Midwife's Tale. New York: Knopf, 1991.

Davidoff, Leonore, and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780-1850. New York: Routledge, 2003.

Davis, Natalie. Women on the Margins: Three Seventeenth Century Lives. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995.

Pedersen, Susan. Family, Dependence and the origins of the Welfare State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Amazon logo Scott, Joan. Gender and the Politics of History. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1999. pp. 15-50. ISBN: 9780231118576.
6 Global and Comparative History: Economic and Environmental Core Readings

Amazon logo Pomeranz, Ken. The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780691090108.

Supplementary Readings

McNeill, William. The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society since A.D. 1000. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983.

———. Plagues and Peoples. New York: Anchor Books, 1989.

Kennedy, Paul. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. New York: Vintage Books, 1989.

Amazon logo Braudel, Fernand. Capitalism and Material Life, 1400-1800. 3 vols. New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1974. ISBN: 9780061318368. (Especially look at volume 1.)

Tilly, Charles. Huge Structures, Large Processes, Big Comparisons. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1984. (Reviews and critiques some of the above works.)

Journal of World History. (Scan a few articles and reviews.)

Wolf, Eric. Europe and the People Without History. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997.

Chaudhuri, K. N. Asia Before Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Reid, Anthony. Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450 1680. 2 vols. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993.

Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1999.  
7 Historical Demography Core Readings

Amazon logo Wrigley, and Schofield. The Population History of England, 1541-1871. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989. ISBN: 9780521356886. (Skim the methodology work in Chapters 1-5 quickly; skim slightly more carefully Chapters 6-9; and read Chapters 10-11.)

And

Hatcher, John. "Understanding the Population History of England, 1450-1750." In Past and Present, 180 (2003): 83-130.

Supplementary Readings

Wrigley, Davies, Oeppen and Schofield, eds. English Population History from Family Reconstitution, 1580-1837. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. (Includes chapters by various authors.)

Lee, James Z., and Wang Feng. One Quarter of Humanity: Malthusian Myths and Chinsese Realities. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.

Caldwell, John. "The Global Fertility Transition: the Need for a Unifying Theory." Population and Development Review 23, no. 4 (1997): 803-12.

Saito, Osamu. "Historical Demography: Achievements and Prospects." Population Studies 50, no. 3 (1996): 537-53.

McCants, Anne. Civic Charity in A Golden Age: Orphan Care in Early Modern Amsterdam. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997.
8 Environmental History Core Readings

Amazon logo McNeill, John. Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the 20th Century World. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001. ISBN: 9780393321838.

Supplementary Readings

Cronon, William. Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West. New York: W. W. Norton, 1992.

———. Changes in the Land. New York: Hill and Wang, 1983.

Amazon logo Crosby, Alfred. Ecological Imperialism. 2nd ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780521837323. 

Worster, Donald. Rivers of Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.

White, Richard. The Middle Ground. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

"A Round Table: Environmental History." Journal of American History (1990/3).
9 The 'New' Cultural History Core Readings

Amazon logo Kuhn, Philip. Soulstealers. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990. ISBN: 9780674821514.

Or

Amazon logo Hunt, Lynn. The Family Romance of the French Revolution. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993. ISBN: 9780520082700.

Supplementary Readings

Davis, Natalie. The Return of Martin Guerre. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983.

Ladurie, Emmanuel Le Roy. Montaillou. New York: George Braziller, 1978.

Hunt, Lynn, ed. The New Cultural History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989. (Especially the chapter by Alberta Bierstadt.)

Ginzburg, Carlo. The Cheese and the Worms. London: Penguin, 1992.

Spence, Jonathan. The Death of Woman Wang. New York: Penguin Books, 1979.

Amazon logo Darnton, Robert. The Great Cat Massacre. New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1985. pp. 3-107. ISBN: 9780394729275.

Or

Kuhn, Philip. Soulstealers. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990.

Geertz, Clifford. "Notes on the Balinese Cockfight." In The Interpretation of Cultures. London: FontanaPress, 1993. 
10 History and Fiction Core Readings

Amazon logo Ghosh, Amitav. In an Antique Land. New York, NY: Vintage, 1994. ISBN: 9780679727835.

Or

Amazon logo Demos, John. The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America. New York, NY: Vintage, 1995. ISBN: 9780679759614.
11 Race and Culture Core Readings

Amazon logo Genovese, Eugene. Roll Jordan Roll: The World the Slaves Made. New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1976. pp. 1-112, 162-93, 255-79, and 588-612. ISBN: 9780394716527.

And

Amazon logo Dower, John. "Race, Language and War in Two Cultures." In Japan in War and Peace: Selected Essays. New York, NY: The New Press, 1995. ISBN: 9781565842793.

Supplementary Readings

Amazon logo Field, Barbara. "Racial Ideology in American History." In Region, Race, Ideology: Festschrift for C.Vann Woodward. Edited by J. Morgan Kousser and James M. McPherson. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1982. pp. 143-177. ISBN: 9780195030754.

White, Landeg. Magomero: Portrait of an African Village. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
12 Nationalism(s) Core Readings

Amazon logo Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. New York, NY: Verso, 1991. ISBN: 9780860915461.

And

Amazon logo Greenblatt, Stephen. Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1992. ISBN: 9780226306520.

Supplementary Readings

Perdue, Peter. "Empire and Nation in Comparative Perspective: Frontier Administration in 18th c China." Journal of Early Modern History 5, no. 4 (2001): 271-281.

Hegel, Georg. The Philosophy of History. Kitchener, Ont.: Batoche, 2001. This book makes for interesting background reading for this topic, although this book clearly marks a break from our rule of reading 20th century historians.

Hobsbawm, Eric. The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914-91.New York: Vintage Books, 1996.
13 Where are Historians Going? The Future of the History Profession Look back at Charles Tilly's article, "How and What are Historians Doing", and compare it to the following:

Amazon logo Appleby, Jacob, and Hunt. Telling the Truth About History. New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 1995. ISBN: 9780393312867.

Supplementary Readings

Articles by Theodore Hamerow, Gertrude Himmelfarb, Lawrence Levine, Joan Scott, John Toews. "AHR Forum: The Old History and the New." In American Historical Review. June 1989.

Amazon logo Novick, Peter. That Noble Dream. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988. ISBN: 9780521343282. (Last chapter) Symposium on Peter Novick's book in American Historical Review: articles by Hexter, Megill, Hollinger, et. al.