''Alltagsgeschichte'' (
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
; and sometimes translated as 'history of everyday life') is a form of
social history that was emerged among
West German
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
historians in the 1980s. It was founded by
Alf Lüdtke
Alf Lüdtke (18 October 1943, Dresden – 29 January 2019) (also Alf Luedtke) was a historian and a leading German representative of the history of everyday life (''Alltagsgeschichte'' in German). He said his main fields of interest and research ...
(1943–2019) and
Hans Medick
Hans Medick (born 7 October 1939) is a German historian.
Life
Born in Wuppertal, Medick studied history, philosophy, English and political science at the universities of Cologne, Heidelberg and Erlangen from 1959 to 1966. After graduating with ...
(born 1939). ''Alltagsgeschichte'' can be considered part of the wider
Marxian historical school of '
history from below'. It challenged the well-known framework of ' ('structured history'), within the German historical field and advocated for a new model of social history.
It is related to
microhistory Microhistory is a genre of history that focuses on small units of research, such as an event, community, individual or a settlement. In its ambition, however, microhistory can be distinguished from a simple case study insofar as microhistory aspires ...
.
''Alltagsgeschichte''
''Alltagsgeschichte'' developed from the social and political upheavals of the 1960s when new social movements began to mobilize with political and academic voices.
Its intention was to show the links between the ordinary "everyday" experiences of ordinary people in a
society
A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Soci ...
, and the broad social and political changes which occur in that society. ''Alltagsgeschichte'' becomes a form of
microhistory Microhistory is a genre of history that focuses on small units of research, such as an event, community, individual or a settlement. In its ambition, however, microhistory can be distinguished from a simple case study insofar as microhistory aspires ...
because this massively broad endeavor to undertake can only feasibly be practiced on the most minute of scales. With the political shift in Germany during the 1990s, many historians deemed ''Alltagsgeschichte'' a casualty of the move from social history towards cultural history.
It can also be linked to the Italian historical doctrine of
microhistory Microhistory is a genre of history that focuses on small units of research, such as an event, community, individual or a settlement. In its ambition, however, microhistory can be distinguished from a simple case study insofar as microhistory aspires ...
(''microstoria'').
''Alltagsgeschichte''
's leading proponents include
Paul Veyne
Paul Veyne (; 13 June 1930 – 29 September 2022) was a French archaeologist and historian, and a specialist of Ancient Rome. A student of the École Normale Supérieure and member of the École française de Rome, he was honorary professor at th ...
(born 1930) and
Michel Rouche
Michel Rouche (30 May 1934 – 5 December 2021) was a French historian and academic. He specialized in the history of Gaul during the Roman Empire and in the Middle Ages.
Biography
Rouche earned an agrégation in history in 1959 and subsequently ...
in France, and
Peter Carr in the United Kingdom.
Martin Broszat
Martin Broszat (14 August 1926 – 14 October 1989) was a German historian specializing in modern German social history. As director of the Institut für Zeitgeschichte (Institute for Contemporary History) in Munich from 1972 until his deat ...
(1926–1989) was also strongly influenced by the method in his six-volume co-edited work on
Bavaria
Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...
under National Socialism entitled ''Bayern in der NS-Zeit'' (1977–1983).
Popular culture
An example of ''Alltagsgeschichte'' becoming part of popular culture in Europe can be seen in the Austrian documentary series of the same name, produced between 1985 and 2006 by Elisabeth T. Spira.
The series chronicled the everyday lives and stories of Austrian people in over 60 episodes.
Selected publications
*''The History of Everyday Life'' by German historian Alf Lüdtke
*''Alltagsgeschichte - ein Bericht von unterwegs'', by Alf Lüdtke, in ''Historische Anthropologie No. 11'' (2003),
*''A History of Private Life: from Pagan Rome to Byzantium'',
Paul Veyne
Paul Veyne (; 13 June 1930 – 29 September 2022) was a French archaeologist and historian, and a specialist of Ancient Rome. A student of the École Normale Supérieure and member of the École française de Rome, he was honorary professor at th ...
, ed. (Editions du Seuil, 1985)
*''Portavo: an Irish Townland and its Peoples'', Parts One and Two, by Peter Carr (White Row, 2003 and 2005)
*''The History of Everyday Life: A second chapter," by Paul Steege, Andrew Bergerson, Maureen Healy and Pamela E. Swett, in ''The Journal of Modern History'', No. 80 (June 2008),
See also
*
Social reproduction
Social reproduction describes the reproduction of social structures and systems, mainly on the basis of particular preconditions in demographics, education and inheritance of material property or legal titles (as earlier with aristocracy). Reprod ...
, a Marxian concept
*
History of mentalities The history of mentalities or ''histoire des mentalités'' (French; ) is the body of historical works aimed at describing and analyzing the ways in which people of a given time period thought about, interacted with, and classified the world around t ...
, a French tradition
*
Historical anthropology
Historical anthropology is a historiographical movement which applies methodologies and objectives from social and cultural anthropology to the study of historical societies. Like most such movements, it is understood in different ways by differe ...
References
{{Authority control
Fields of history
Historiography
World history
Social history