Overview

This book seeks to overcome the tension between ‘western’ and ‘non-western’ categories and tools in the study of global history, showing how most western approaches to the social sciences and history have developed through transnational and colonial interactions. Offering a transnational and global history of the main tools we have to understand the word and its transformations over the last three centuries, Tensions of Social History explores the construction of archives and historical memory, the making of statistics and their use in politics, the identification of social actors, and the emergence of key social theories. Providing key insights into how to write history and develop social sciences in the global era while avoiding eurocentrism and cultural exceptionalism, this ambitious book shows how global history is made of encounters rather than confrontations between civilizations.

Full Product Details

Author:   Alessandro Stanziani (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, France)
Publisher:   Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Imprint:   Bloomsbury Academic
ISBN:  

9781350276826

ISBN 10:   1350276820
Pages:   248
Publication Date:   12 January 2023
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

Introduction Part I - What is a Source ? Archives, Memory and Contested Contextualities 1. Revolutionary Archives 2. Archives in the Twentieth Century: From Communism to the Decolonization Conclusion to Part I Part II - The Social Life of Data 1. Archives, Data and Models 2. When One Person Eats Two Chickens and Another None, On Average They Eat One Chicken Each: The Invention of Social Statistics Under Capitalism 3. Environment and Social Inequalities: How Are Data Made and by Whom? Conclusion to Part II Part III - Fragments of Social Worlds 1. Introduction 2. What is a Worker, What is a Slave? 6. What is a Peasant? The Global History of Immobile People 7. What is a Consumer ? Identities and Alterities in the Stomach Conclusion to Part III Part IV - The Quest of Universality: Values, Theories and the European Model 1. Societies and their Evolution: From the Enlightenments to Marxisms 2. Weberian Worlds General Conclusion Selected Bibliography Index

Reviews

This is probably the best synthesis I have read of the debates in history and social sciences. In fact, it is much more than that: debates, which have been going on for centuries, are re-interpreted according to an original analysis framework centered around four axes, namely sources, data, actors and models. This social history of social history is powerful, stimulating, and eminently useful. * Jean-Pierre Beaud, Professor, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada *

This is probably the best synthesis I have read of the debates in history and social sciences. In fact, it is much more than that: debates, which have been going on for centuries, are re-interpreted according to an original analysis framework centered around four axes, namely sources, data, actors and models. This social history of social history is powerful, stimulating, and eminently useful. * Jean-Pierre Beaud, Professor, Universite du Quebec a Montreal, Canada *

Author Information

Alessandro Stanziani is Professor of Global History at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) at PSL Research University, France. He is the author of 11 books including Eurocentricism and the Politics of Global History (2018) and After Oriental Despotism (2014).

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