Julie Robert

Chapter ten of “The New American History” specifically looks at answering several questions about social history, what is social history? does it explain historical change? can it help us understand our past? By looking at how the field of Social history has emerged and evolved, Alice Kessler-Harris attempts to answer these questions. Social history went through a significant change in the 1960’s. Before this change social history was simply “history without politics” however, this began to change and now we see social history as “a history of society”, one that includes but is most definitely not limited to thee history of social relationships, social structure and both everyday and private life. Today, Social history primarily circles around the power of diversity and different cultures. Social History encourages you to to focus on social relationships and how they change and the actions that they take. Sources used in this essay include largely Journal articles that seem to add background knowledge and legitimacy to the author’s argument but arent really seen when she makes a new point or claim. This makes it seem as if the ideas presented here truly are hers and she is only using other resources to further back up what she has concluded. This essay gave a very concise view of social history and explained well the evolution it has gone through.