Suchergebnisse

This essay explores the links among intellectual history, social history and cultural history. It suggests that the recent turn in American historiography to cultural history is vitally important for communication studies because communication has now been thrust to center stage in virtually every subfield of history. But it warns that communication historians should not rashly and heedlessly jump into cultural history before an adequate foundation has been laid in the economic and institutional social history of mass media.

Books reviewed in this article:Shawn Johansen, Family Men: Middle–Class Fatherhood in Industrializing AmericaMartin A. Berger, Man Made: Thomas Eakins and the Construction of Gilded Age ManhoodMatthew Basso, Laura McCall and Dee Garceau (eds), Across the Great Divide: Cultures of Manhood in the American West

A historical retrospective of the interrelationships of social & conceptual history is presented, particularly their basis in linguistic expressions, ie, speech & writing. Both histories presuppose a connection between synchronic events & diachronic structures. The example of marriage is detailed using two models, one oriented toward events, actions in speech, writing, & deed, & another toward diachronic presuppositions & long-term transformation. It is concluded that the two histories need & refer to one another without being able to coincide with each other; they have different rates of change, & are based in different repetitive structures, but both must be considered in any study of history. M. Malas