Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge discussion
Task Ideas/Resources/Discussions
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Task 10: A Microhistory
@Elizabeth -yes! The only thing that I disagree with about the definition Book Riot's moderator gave is what went into the parentheses as an example. While this might seem small, it is everything if you think historically. There is a huge difference between studying a year in a small village an studying a "general trend" or "concept" over a vast period of time. If you go on Wikipedia, you'll see this definition:"Microhistory is the intensive historical investigation of a well defined smaller unit of research (most often a single event, the community of a village, a family or a person). .... to use the definition given by Charles Joyner.[1]" (Wikipedia's definition of Microhistory)
Book Riot's definition substitutes the words
" (most often a single event, concept or general trend)." for "village, family or person."
To me this difference in definitions is interesting because it gets at the nature of how and why historians understand the divisions in historical research in general. As a general rule, historians are attentive to specificities of time and place in a way that other fields may not be. The unit of "scale" is time, not the object involved (salt, people, comic books, etc). Studying *anything* over very long periods of time would be considered "grand and sweeping" - the opposite of "micro", and would involve a very different kind of writing and research than the meticulous work or depth of focus on a short time period/local place that would go into writing microhistory.
The good news for a historian is that everybody doing this challenge is at least reading some kind of history.
I do not think it matters what Book Riot's definition of a micro history is AS LONG AS PEOPLE ARE READING. One of the reasons I hesitated to join a group of readers is because there always seems to be at least a couple people who discourage others from challenging themselves in the fear they may be wrong, and someone will take every opportunity to tell them. What is more important here? Being right about a minute, in parentheses definition on one single topic, or using this thread to discuss books about history that we have read and our thoughts about it? I encourage others to read whatever, and to define how they may choose. I think 50 Shades of Gray is smut but others find it romance. To each their own. Being a book snob gets no one anywhere. All that being said, I used Google to find my micro history and plan on reading it because it is outside what I normally would, not because of the definition someone chose for the particular genre it falls into.
Because of the March 9 comments, I researched the term microhistory. In one place I read that microhistorians place their emphasis on small units and how people conduct their lives within them, so a true microhistory would be about a small group of people within a larger group. Another says that a microhistory is a specific and in-depth case study that can (ideally) illuminate historical concepts at the macro level.
However,according to this article, a comprehensive and conclusive definition has yet to be determined. http://web.uvic.ca/vv/student/vicbrew...
With all of that in mind, I think I'll read "Hiroshima" by John Hersey.
Suzi wrote: "Because of the March 9 comments, I researched the term microhistory. In one place I read that microhistorians place their emphasis on small units and how people conduct their lives within them, so..."
Suzi, I'm glad to see that you care! I care too.
: )
Audrey wrote: "Would this be considered a micro history?Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
Thanks."
Hi Audrey - I'll be anxious to hear how that book is. If it's good, I think I'll check it out, too!
Hi again, I thought I'd share a list I found on the website at microhistory.org
.
The original classics are:
Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms: Cosmos of a Sixteenth Century Miller
Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre: And Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Davis, The Return of Martin Guerre
You really couldn't go wrong with those. They are fantastic books.
the website also includes these (among others)
Davis, Women on the Margins: Three Seventeenth Century Lives
Berenson, the Trial of Madame Caillaux
Rhys, Landon Carter's Uneasy Kingdom
Klertzner, The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara
I've got a lot of books to read, along with the other work that I do as a professor, including getting back to work on my own writing projects (none of which are microhistory!), so this is my last post on this subject here. This has been quite fascinating for me because it seems to me that what has happened here is an interesting case study in internet knowledge production.First, there's some disagreement among scholars about how we define a term for a particular genre: microhistory.
Then, at some point, someone decided to call a new popular genre of book including Mark Kurlansky's history of salt, "microhistory". I speculate that this may have been marketing by publishers, or perhaps it was book reviewers who were looking for a word to define this type of popular book. On the "talk" Wiki, there's a record of someone asking about this in 2005 with reference to Kurlansky's book, and the responses from wiki-editors was that those books weren't microhistories, but should be called something else like "topical histories" or "mundane histories." Those two wikieditors argued that microhistories were defined as detailed studies about short periods of time /or very confined locations and that Salt, etc aren't that.
A few years later (around 2008?) someone created a list on Goodreads to place books like Kurlansky's together and called it Microhistories. In order to make the definition of microhistory fit the new type of popular book, that person changed the definition of microhistory to mean "sweeping histories of just one thing".
If you look back to the comments on that original list in the Goodreads Listopia, you'll notice that a few people commented "none of these are microhistories" and "what a strange list" "where are the classics?" However, these voices were ignored. This happened again when Book Riot circulated the list; note posts from The Pendulum Throws and others in response to Rachel's Book Riot post about "microhistories of the mundane".
I tried the same thing in more detail here with some explanation and have apologized for being pedantic and have tried to be nice and encouraging while also standing up for my field's basic definitions. The responses I gotten have been mostly dismissive and some have been hostile, while a few people have expressed confusion, anxiety or doubt.
I'm assuming that many members of Book Riot take pride in the fact that they are grammar /or punctuation nerds. Imagine being in a discussion forum where people just insisted that apostrophes were appropriate for plurals (as in "there are lots of cat's in the corner") and that while English teachers (those petty fuddy-duddies!) might want to correct that usage and call it a mistake, that is just one way of thinking and we really shouldn't worry about it.
History has genres just as fiction does. Microhistories are different from vast, sweeping cultural histories just as mysteries are different from romances. Why not just say "read a book of history" and be done with it? Why not take this as an opportunity to learn something about history and how historians actually do it? Isn't that what reading and *talking about your reading with others* are about?
Would Book Rioters be this dismissive of what fiction writers had to say about fiction, or is just historians whose definitions of terms in their own field are silly and irrelevant?
Mod
And for those who are confused, we're going to continue on with the definition given by a moderator upthread (you're still free to debate it, of course!) for the entirety of the challenge.
Thanks so much, and happy reading everyone!
-Amanda
Rebecca, I have appreciated the education in what does and doesn't constitute a microhistory from the perspective of historians. I've also enjoyed the links you've provided and have liked seeing the debate among the historians themselves. To me, one of the good things about this entire discussion is that we have all learned things we didn't know about the practice and writing of history. Thanks!Rebecca wrote: "I've got a lot of books to read, along with the other work that I do as a professor, including getting back to work on my own writing projects (none of which are microhistory!), so this is my last ..."
I didn't know what the term "microhistory" meant before this prompt came along, so I'm glad I learned something new. I'm also going to be doing a bit a squeezing and massaging to make sure I get the books I want to read to fit some of the categories, and I don't feel bad about it at all. For this prompt I read The Imprisoned Guest: Samuel Howe and Laura Bridgman, The Original Deaf-Blind Girl which is a fascinating history of some of the most significant people and places involved in the development of education for the deaf and blind in the early nineteenth century. I once worked at the Perkins School for the Blind, which features prominently in this book, and I loved learning more about it. The author isn't the most thrilling stylist ever to put pen to paper, but the book is very readable, interesting and enjoyable.
Dana Rose Falcone, in the new issue of Entertainment Weekly (#1355/1356, page 105), includes a list of what she calls microhistories. The list includes six titles including Jonathan Waldman's Rust. It also includes one of my favorite books: Salt by Mark Kurlansky. She says that the books are "what we like to call 'microhistories,' books that explore one offbeat topic in great detail." This is the definition with which I was familiar before the discussion here, though I understand it may not be the correct term for these books. I'm still enjoying Eels: An Exploration, from New Zealand to the Sargasso, of the World's Most Mysterious Fish by James Prosek. I also received my copy of Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson, a favorite author.
So many wonderful books to read!
Rebecca wrote: "I've got a lot of books to read, along with the other work that I do as a professor, including getting back to work on my own writing projects (none of which are microhistory!), so this is my last ..."I wish I had seen this debate earlier; I would have been happy to offer my thanks for your perspective, Rebecca. I am not a great nonfiction reader - in fact, I think the last time I read a nonfiction work was when I was in school. And while I do believe in the spirit of "use your own interpretation to get yourself reading outside of your comfort zone," I think that's only a beginning step. I had been considering reading Nom de Plume: A (Secret) History of Pseudonyms or Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle for this task, knowing that I really wasn't certain whether they actually technically qualified. I did know, however, that I do need to start reading more nonfiction, and I am willing to read any history at all just to motivate myself.
I am an avid book lover, a grammar geek, and an overall nerd. So I can't help but agree when Rebecca asks us to consider how we'd feel if someone who isn't even in the book community suddenly swapped definitions of mystery and romance, re-defined the use of an apostrophe, etc. To put it mildly, I'd be horrified. To tell the truth, I am a bit sad to see suggestions of titles that aren't actually romance titles being bandied about on that task's thread. But I'm willing to overlook it because I'm hoping that just reading a book with a love story in it will be the stepping stone to reading actual romances, just as I was using my own considerations here as stepping stones to seeking out true microhistories and educating myself more on various nonfiction genres.
In addition to "getting personal," as Amanda Nelson pointed out, some of the responses here were supremely unhelpful and, I think, deliberately obtuse. If you ever come back and see this, Rebecca, I'd like you to know that I am thankful for your small education here, and that some of us do care about what we're reading, how we're thinking about our reading, and how we're discussing our reading, even if that's what makes us "book snobs."
@Ana-Maria, thanks so much for this gracious comment. It's been nice to see that I'm not alone in valuing precise definitions.
Rebecca wrote: "@Ana-Maria, thanks so much for this gracious comment. It's been nice to see that I'm not alone in valuing precise definitions."Not a problem at all! I'm so happy you know you're not alone!
It might be good for Book Riot to give more precise definitions of categories in the future. There has been confusion on some of the other tasks as well. One person thought she had to get her hands on a physical book that was published before 1850, which would be a real challenge! And there was some confusion about if an author had to be under 25 today, or when the book was written, etc. Maybe it's not surprising a lot of readers are literally "literal".
Mod
After talking with Rebecca, we're going to open up the challenge to include both the academic definition and the "pop-culture" one (for lack of a better term). The challenge isn't supposed to be constraining, and the categories are supposed to be open to interpretation, so we're leaving it up to you guys to stick with whichever one you want. Keep an eye on our YouTube channel for a video coming up in the next few weeks offering recs for microhistories- however you define it :)
Thanks everyone,
Amanda
Suzi wrote: "Audrey wrote: "Would this be considered a micro history?Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
..."
Overall, I thought it was fascinating and informative. The first couple of chapters could have been edited better. These chapters were about L. Rob Hubbard's background which should have been interesting. The problem is that the author through too many names and dates into it making it slightly confusing and boring. Lastly, if you want a taste of the book, the author wrote an article in the New Yorker a few years back. The article was the basis of the book.
This is absurd. I'm sorry. It's an academic term. Book Riot cannot wily-nily just say, "Here's the term and what we want it to mean" because that's not how it works. I don't get to decide that what I feel in my joints is arthritis unless it fits a definition of what PROFESSIONALS say is arthritis.I think it's great to get people reading history. I do. I love history. Have a couple of degrees in it. Love English, too. Couple of degrees in that as well. And here's the thing-- there is always difficulty in trying to classify books-- especially nonfiction ones. What classifies as creative nonfiction? Is Wild (a memoir) creative nonfiction? What about Blink? These are pertinent discussions. Important discussions. And books like _Salt_, _1968_, etc are really good books. I've read them, liked them, recommend them.
Here's the thing though, "microhistory" is a professional term used by historians. You cannot unload that term from its professional baggage. I mean, it doesn't make sense. To study salt is not "micro" it is "macro" because you are looking at a subject over continents and time. Same with most of the books listed as "micro history"-- it being one subject (mono) does not mean it is a look at something small (micro).
So, yes, by all means, as a historian, I want people reading books on history. The more, the better! But as a historian, I'm not really keen on the idea that defending terminology of my profession is wrong, or elitist as some want to imply.
The solution to this is simple-- Book Riot should be willing to change either the books as examples to reflect what microhistory is, or to change the category to "Historical Nonfiction."
Honestly-- there is no "pop culture" definition of microhistory. Rebecca is 100% correct on this.
Book Riot's stubbornness in persisting in wrong terminology just makes me sad. Just change the name of the category or amend it. Don't argue something is right when it just isn't.
I wasn't going to weigh in on this, but... I can't really get it out of my mind. I can understand why the historians on the thread are disappointed in this, and I hope that had it been caught earlier the moderators would have been more precise in their terminology. But I can totally understand why they wouldn't want to change it this far into the year - those people not closely following the discussions would be confused, and the fact is that whether or not it's accurate, there is a marketing side of things that seems to have appropriated an academic term and warped it in an unfortunate way, since I expect there would be better terms to use for books like Salt.
However, the assertion that Book Riot is being disrespectful or that there isn't a "pop culture" definition strikes me as an incomplete reading of the situation. Plenty of these categories could be interpreted in multiple ways. For example, as was mentioned earlier in the discussion, the "technical definition" of romance novel has been stretched to include many things that are really not romances, but in the spirit of the challenge those of us who are romance enthusiasts haven't been pushing back. Despite the fact that I have an undergraduate degree in history, I didn't know there was an academic term 'micro history', but I'm actually far more offended by the stretching of the romance definition since people are more likely to try to "get out of" reading a genre they see as beneath them.
In addition, to act as though this kind of situation doesn't happen regularly to other professions strikes me as wrong - this literally happens all the time, all over the place. How many of us has called another person "passive-agressive", despite not being psychologists? I'm an architect, and the way that term itself alone (to say nothing of terms for style, etc.) is misused is frustrating. But that's what happens - not everyone is an expert or views things through the lens of the profession from which a word might be derived.
I'm not trying to minimize the issue. In fact, it was interesting to learn all of this, and I know that if I ever go back to school to get a graduate degree in history I still have a lot to learn. But taking it personally is an unfortunate reaction to people who are just trying to have a little fun and learn something new.
Mod
I'm OK with the compromise, and I understand that we're mid-challenge. I do think that people have said disrespectful things (calling me a snob, etc) earlier in this thread, just for trying to clarify the definition of a term. I do think BR has a tendency to a kind of reader populism that has a bad side as a well as a good one.But enough said about that. The thing I think might be useful at this point is if people knew about historical "genres" and where the books listed here would fit (yeah, I'm procrastinating instead of doing research right now):
General Cultural History: History of the Movies; Flapper; Versailles; Circus Age; Invention of Murder; Spring Forward; The F word; Mother Tongue; Sister Bernadette’s Barking Dog; Dungeons and Desktops, books about the history of marriage, religion, language, or any other general cultural practice
History of science/medical history/biohistory: Emporer of All Maladies, Stiff; Tale of Dueling Neuro-Surgeons; Aspirin; E=MC2; Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks; Plagues in World History; History of the Pill
Commodity History: The Pencil, Salt, Cod, Aspirin, Oysters, etc
Art History: Faberge’s Eggs; The Nude
Economic History: Debt
General World History: Guns, Germs and Steel
Not actually history, but some other form of non-fiction: Slots: The Feminine Mystique (journalism- written at the time about current events); Assassination Vacation (commentary), At Home; pretty much anything about current events.
There were a number of books on the list that probably would be considered microhistory by historians: How to Create the Perfect Wife; A Poisoned Past; The Professor and the Madman; possibly The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks depending on the emphasis (is it more about science or more about what the story says about the culture of that time period?) ; The Girls of Atomic City; The 1st book mentioned about the War of the Roses because it’s about one obscure family; probably Lepore’s Secret History of Wonder Woman; the Cheese and the Worms & the Return of Martin Guerre – those two are the early and definitive classics in the field.
Ad hominem attacks? NO! Spirited debate among genuinely interested parties: HURRAY! The more, the merrier, I say. Thank you to all, especially Rebecca, for perspectives both expert, and passionately rendered. I was intending to go with "The Devil in the White City", which does appear to fit the suggested framing of a detailed history of a short period of time. Rebecca - if I'm off the mark here, please feel free to chime in. I will take your perspective as a gift, not a threat - promise!
@Risa, thanks. The Devil in the White City is tricky if you want to get technical. I don't know how much it is more like a true-crime story and how much its purpose is to use the story as a microcosm for understanding larger cultural forces. But, for the purposes of the challenge, it seems close enough to me.
Rebecca wrote: "@Risa, thanks. The Devil in the White City is tricky if you want to get technical. I don't know how much it is more like a true-crime story and how much its purpose is to use the story as a microco..."Thank you! Your recommendation of "The Professor and the Madman" also intrigues me. So, perhaps to be safe, I will read both!
Yes, we use the term "passive aggressive" and I hope if I used it wrongly and a person with knowledge in the field corrected me for using it in a fashion that was wrong or minimized it, I'd be wise enough to correct myself and stick with the accepted terminology.But hey, that's just me.
Suzi wrote: "Audrey wrote: "Would this be considered a micro history?Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
Using the definition given by the moderator, yes. I read it a few years ago and it was fascinating.
..."
I will probably be reading Michael Ross, The Great New Orleans Kidnapping Case: Race, Law, and Justice in the Reconstruction Era or Tonio Andrade, Lost Colony: The Untold Story of China's First Great Victory Over the West. I'm quite interested in Andrade's effort to bring global history together with microhistorical approaches.
I'm reading Ian Mortimer's "The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England" for this one.
My microhistory was Marilyn Yalom's How The French Invented Love. Very interesting, albeit at times, a very Parisian view on how the French philosophically have influenced our ideas of what love is and should be.
I just finished The Secret History of Wonder Woman. An interesting tale of the superheroine's origins and development. It was also a little confusing at times, so I think I'll need to re-listen to the Audible book to fully grasp all the details.
Jenn wrote: "I'm looking for a good Micro-history on something to do with France or something Parisian if anyone has any recommendations. If I can't find anything, I'm going to move my audiobook pick [bookco..."
Hi Jenn: I'm kind of jumping in late on this post -- (I just joined the group.)
I think that this book [book:The Age of Comfort: When Paris Discovered Casual—and the Modern Home Began|8937121] might work for microhistory. (Sorry, can't get the link to the book to work correctly!)
The Age of Comfort: When Paris Discovered Casual—and the Modern Home Began
Not 100% sure if this works, but I'm tentatively penciling it in for this task.
Can anyone confirm is this book fits the task?
Thanks! -Krista
Getting a few great ideas from this post! Do Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith or Proust and the Squid count as microhistories?
For this task I have The Emperor of All Maladies and The Secret History of Wonder Woman. I'll probably read both this year though.
Mod
As promised, thanks to the discussion in this very group, we have made a video talking about the definition of microhistory. We've talked both about the pop cultural/Goodreads definition, as well as the historical definition brought up here. We hope this is helpful, as well as accurate, and offers some thought on this category of books.
https://youtu.be/TNXVpkdx-WE
Hi guys, help me out here. Can this qualify as a microhistory?The Jewish Community of South Philadelphia
Hi again, I just watched the video and posted a comment there. Here's the deal. This dispute is about the politics of historical writing, not academic hair-splitting. The people who founded the genre of microhistory were part of a larger movement within history at the time (inspired by global resistance movements of the 1960s-1970s) to tell "history from below." The original purpose of microhistory was to tell the stories of obscure, poor people who have been forgotten by history and seen as irrelevant. These works question who and what is considered historically important, and challenge what history is. That is, history isn't just about names, dates, and wars. These books are mostly about how class, gender and sexuality were defined in society and they use the stories of otherwise insignfiicant individuals who might show up in the records of the past because they were put on trial for some crime, to illuminate how regular people lived those stratifications in daily life. These books are also often written in a narrative style designed to appeal to a wide readership. The best and most famous examples of the genre are Carlo Ginzberg's The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-century Miller, which is about a 16th century Italian heretic and his radical interpretation of Christianity (for which he was ultimately executed), and The Return of Martin Guerre, by Natalie Zeamon Davis, who was also a consultant on the film of the same title starring Gerard Depardieu. A more recent example, which addresses race and class in New Orleans immediately following the Civil War, is Michael Ross, The Great New Orleans Kidnapping Case: Race, Law, and Justice in the Reconstruction Era. Another is The Murder of Helen Jewett, which winds up being a microportrait of prostitution, gender and class in New York City in the 19th century. These books are about culture, but they differ from big sweeping studies of commodities because they delve into the complexities of individual lives and even as they tell us about larger historical contexts. By contrast, among historians, military history is pretty much considered the most politically and methodologically conservative historical genre. Although there are some exceptions which focus on the experiences of the "common soldiers" - they are still usually about men, and they reinforce existing traditional notions of what defines history itself.
So I'm now wondering if Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup might work for this microhistory task. What do you think Rebecca? I'd like to read something that in your opinion fits this task.
I'm afraid that this might not fit because it is a memoir. But it clearly talks about one person's experience of going from a free black person in New York to being held as a slave for twelve years in Louisiana. I think it's a 'microportrait' of slavery in one parish in Louisiana in the 1850's. It delves into the complexities of individual lives.
Whattya think?
Thanks!
@Krista, I think it's a great book, but it's not a microhistory in the sense that the term is meant because it's a memoir by someone who went through all the experiences himself, as you say and not a research study. If you're interested in microhistories of slavery, McLaurin's Celia, A Slavemight be a good choice. I also found Scandal at Bizarre: Rumor and Reputation in Jefferson's America by searching a bit on Google books. There are some other quite good ones about slavery that I put on a new list of microhistories in listopia to give some suggestions for this challenge. If you are interested you could look there, and add some of your own choices!
Rebecca wrote: "@Krista, I think it's a great book, but it's not a microhistory in the sense that the term is meant because it's a memoir by someone who went through all the experiences himself, as you say and not..."Hi Rebecca:
Great! Thanks for the further explanation, and the suggestions, I'll check them out.
Elizabeth wrote: "I'm reading When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II
for the micr..."
I want to read this! I think it sounds fascinating.
Mod
Thanks, Rebecca. We're still working to understand what it means ourselves, so we appreciate your further clarifications. We're going to keep the challenge as it is, but your help here in defining the term exactly and offering guidance to everyone is appreciated!
I appreciate your sharing your expertise, Rebecca. If I had seen your post earlier I would have tried to choose something more appropriate, but I already read Stiff for the microhistory task. I had originally planned on A Thousand Lives by Scheeres, but then when I saw everybody was reading Salt, Stiff, etc., I thought I had misunderstood the task! Ah well, now I know.
Karin wrote: "Would this be a microhistory?High Rise Stories: Voices from Chicago Public Housing"
@ Karin I would call that oral history /or journalism because it's a collection of narratives by the people who experienced the events and is about current events (gentrification) - it's not a research project by someone living in a later time period trying to put together a story of a moment that's been lost. If you want to to do it the academic way, Microhistory as an academic subfield is fairly narrowly defined by rigorous archival research and transparent discussion of the research process itself. However, the challenge boundaries are looser than that. The book itself looks really interesting and worth reading.
I'm not sure I'll find a book that sounds interesting to me that fits the academic description! It seems there aren't many readily available. Maybe I'll save this challenge for the end to have more time to research.
Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge
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Rebecca wrote: "@Melanie, I agree. It's about a single event, moment in time and place, and a small group of not-famous people! It is also kind of current-events because it happened so recently...but it's definite..."