Playing with Scales: The Global and the Micro, the Macro and the Nano*
Playing with Scales: The Global and the Micro, the Macro and the Nano*
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玩转尺度：全球与微观、宏观与纳米*
DOI：
10.1093/pastj/gtz043
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发表时间：
2019
期刊：
影响因子：
1.8
通讯作者：
J. D. Vries
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
J. D. Vries
I这本关于微观历史和全球历史的过去和现在的补编的焦点引起了对历史尺度的思考：从微观到全球，再回到过去。它这样做是希望调和这两种研究模式，并将两者之间的空间连接起来，以表明它们不是竞争对手，而是可以成为同一企业的一部分--实际上，共同的历史企业可以通过它们卓有成效的联盟来增强。为什么这很重要？也许这是因为历史学家从上世纪80年代开始在广义的微观历史上做出了巨大的投资。在继续之前，我必须稍作停顿，谈谈我对微观历史和“广泛的”微观历史的理解。作为这一历史流派的局外人，或许我可以原谅我的观察，它的实践者并没有让这个问题很容易回答。所有人都同意，它的方法是减少分析的重点，通常是针对个人或小团体、地点或地点，通常是短暂的时间段。这一举措允许对事件和关系进行细致的重建，并将关于同一事件的冲突来源并列在一起。事实上，在乔瓦尼·利维看来，“规模的缩小”类似于历史学家的显微镜，允许我们“观察在宏观历史的同质范畴下仍然看不见的大型历史过程的各个方面”。1微观历史学家寻求尽可能充分地将他们感兴趣的对象与背景联系起来，并经常在这方面展示出值得称赞的基于档案的技巧。但还有更多的原因。广义的定义将微观历史与更大的“文化转向”联系在一起。可以肯定的是，与微观历史相比，文化史是一个方法论上更多样化的范畴。也不是所有的微观历史都聚焦于文化主题。但是，约翰-保罗·戈布里亚尔所说的微观历史对宏大叙事的必胜主义的特有颠覆肯定是这两种叙事的核心。2.
I The focus of this Past and Present Supplement on microhistory and global history invites a contemplation of historical scale: from the micro to the global and back again. It does so in the hope of reconciling these two modes of research and connecting the space in between so as to demonstrate that they are not rivals but can be part of the same enterprise—indeed, that the common historical enterprise can be enhanced by their fruitful alliance. Why is this of importance? Perhaps it is because of the great investment historians have made from the 1980s onward in microhistory, broadly defined. Before proceeding, I must pause briefly to address what I understand by microhistory and by a ‘broad’microhistory. As an outsider to this historical genre, perhaps I can be forgiven for observing that its practitioners do not make this an easy question to answer. All can agree that its methodology is to reduce the focus of analysis, often to an individual or small group, a place or locality and, usually, a brief time period. This move allows for a meticulous reconstruction of events and relationships, and a juxtaposition of conflicting sources concerning the same event. Indeed, in Giovanni Levi’s view a ‘reduction of scale’is akin to a historian’s microscope, permitting us ‘to observe aspects of large historical processes that would remain invisible under the homogenous categories of macrohistory’. 1 Microhistorians seek to contextualize the object of their interest as fully as possible, and often demonstrate a praiseworthy archive-based virtuosity in this respect. But there is more. A broad definition links microhistory to the larger ‘cultural turn’. To be sure, cultural history is a methodologically more varied category than microhistory. Nor is all microhistory focused on cultural themes. But what John-Paul Ghobrial calls microhistory’s characteristic subversion of the triumphalism of grand narratives surely lies at the heart of both. 2