microhistory

English

Etymology

micro- +‎ history

Noun

microhistory (countable and uncountable, plural microhistories)

1. The study of the past on a small scale, such as an individual neighborhood or town, as a case study for general trends.

   Antonym: macrohistory

   • 2003, The New Zealand Journal of History, University of Auckland, page 45:

     The most celebrated works of microhistory are Carlo Ginzberg's The Cheese and the Worms, a difficult but very rewarding, if contentious, exploration of popular belief and the impact of literacy in sixteenth-century Italy […]

   • 2009 September 13, Daphne Merkin, “Dame of the British Interior”, in New York Times‎^[1]:

     What is certain is that in “The Pattern in the Carpet,” Drabble eschews both chronology and raw autobiographical revelation for a more meandering approach that touches briefly on family pathology and private pain as it crisscrosses the centuries and unfolds the microhistory of jigsaw puzzles, an English invention, circa 1767.

Derived terms

• microhistorian
• microhistorical
• microhistorically

Translations

study of the past on a small scale

• Catalan: microhistòria f
• French: microhistoire (fr) f
• German: Mikrogeschichte f
• Italian: microstoria f
• Portuguese: micro-história f
• Spanish: microhistoria f