Library History

ISSN: 0024-2306 (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ylbh19

New Methodologies in Library History: a Manifesto

for the ‘New’ Library History

Alistair Black

To cite this article: Alistair Black (1995) New Methodologies in Library History: a Manifesto for
the ‘New’ Library History, Library History, 11:1, 76-85, DOI: 10.1179/lib.1995.11.1.76

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/lib.1995.11.1.76

Published online: 18 Jul 2013.

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 New Methodologies in Library History:
a Manifesto for the
'New' Library History

Alistair Black

Leeds Metropolitan University

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LIBRARYHISTORYIS NOT A DEADor dying subject; and it is time for those who
are committed to the subject to stand up and say so with vigour and conviction
to those who doubt its value. Not only must we defend library history, we must
also promote it. In order to defend we must attack; and to do that we now have,
I believe, new weapons drawn from the innovative armoury of social history
with which to go on to the offensive. We should attempt to convey the positive
message that library history has considerable potential, both as a helpmate to
current and future professional practise in librarianship, and as an academic
subject in its own right, contributing to. wider history. Those who question its
relevance should be made aware that a new library history is in the making.
This paper presents a manifesto for the new library history - one which, at once,
offers to library historians fresh options and perspectives for research and
teaching, and confronts non-library historians, especially library history sceptics
in the worlds of practising librarianship and education for librarianship, with a
justification for the subject that will demand from them considered and
concentrated attention should they seck to discredit and dismiss it.l
Yet why the need for a new library history, and the publicising of it? In
view of the recent heated activity in the publication of library history the subject
would appear to be in good health. Publishers arc once again showing interest
in the subject, this driven by a steady flow of imaginative studies produced by
a committed core of researchers. A major departure has been the planned
History of libraries in Britain and Ireland, underwritten by Cambridge
University Press; a project which will hopefully offer a focus for innovative
ideas of the kind that will constitute a true renaissance in the subject, at the
levels of both research and teaching.2 As we approach the 150th anniversary of
the first Public Libraries Act in Britain interest in public library history is

1 My thanks to Brendan Loughridge of the Department of Infonnation Studies, University of

Sheffield, for suggesting the word 'manifesto'.
2 For full details of this project, see the following article by Peter Hoare in this journal.
 NEW METIIODOLOGIES IN LIBRARY HISTORY 77

booming.3 University library history is similarly deemed worthy of attention by

top-drawer publishers.4 Further, as the most recent issue of British library
history: bibliography shows, there exists a strong body of enthusiasts at all
levels capable of generating informative and exciting material for dissemination
through a variety of periodicals and books.5
To diagnose a state of uncomplicated health in library history merely from
the recent record of research and its resultant publications output would be both
misleading and complacent. Unfortunately, library history as a taught subject -
in the past the nursery of so much research - has fared much less well than the
field of higher academic investigation. Rarely, nowadays, does one see library
history taught as a discrete subject on library and information studies degrees.
Its extraction from the library and information studies curriculum in the 1980s
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was clinical and swift. This was partly due to the perceived crisis in education,
especially in terms of its economic, materialist function. A key feature of
education strategy and pedagogy in the 1980s was the emergence and the
implementation of the so-called new vocationalism. Its major protagonists have
been the New Right in British politics. In the context of national economic
malfunction stress was laid on the need to teach marketable skills, directly
pertinent to the needs of organisations, and to produce, in keeping with
dominant ideological themes, enterprising students, trained not in terms of the
liberal-classical education model, but moulded in the mythical images of the
gritty, practical, down-to-earth heroic entrepreneurs and workers of the early
industrial revolution. Elements of the Left have also backed the idea of bringing
education into closer alignment with the practical needs of British business,
drawing their inspiration from that view of the apprenticeship tradition which
defines education (as opposed to training) as 'knowing about things that don't
really matter.' Thus, contrary to the perception held by many that traditional
education for librarianship was at some stage in the recent past hijacked by
irrational socialist utopians, the true transgressors have, arguably, been those
influenced by neo-conservative reaction, the new managerialism and the training
aspirations of the 'soft' Left.
Gaining support from across the political divide bestows upon the new
vocationalism a considerable potency. In library and information studies this
political support has been supplemented by the notion of emerging markets for
qualifiers - the idea that aimed with a professional qualification moulded by the

3 As evidenced by, e.g., Robert Snape, Leisure and the rise of the public library (London: Library

Association, 1995); Margaret Kinnell Evans and Paul Sturges (eds.), Continuity and innovation in the
public library: the evolution of a social institution (London: Library Association, forthcoming); Alistair
Black, A new history of the English public library (London: Leicester University Press, forthcoming).
4 E.g. David McKitterick, Cambridge University Library: a history (Cambridge University Press,
1986); David McKitterick (ed.), The making of the Wren library: Trinity College, Cambridge
(Cambridge University Press, 1995).
5 Denis F. Keeling (ed.), British library history: bibliography 1985-1988 (Winchester: St. Paul's
Bibliographies, 1991).
 78 ALISTAIR BLACK

new vocationalism and its generic slant librarians can invade the new
information industries, especially IT-related management. This has not occurred
to any great extent. The emerging markets heralded in the 1980s have patentI y
not emerged. This means that the survival of the new vocationalism in the
library and information services curriculum is driven, essentially, by powerful
external political and cultural forces.
This is bad news for library history, which stands as the very antithesis of
the new' vocationalism. This will becom~ evident in itemising the core
characteristics of the new vocationalism in respect of education for
librarianship.6 First, the emergence to positions of prominence of generic
subjects offering transferable skills - management, interpersonal and IT skills
being prime examples of this regard. Second, the decline in the number of
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special subjects - like academic, comparative or local studies librarianship, or

library history; yet accompanied by the emergence of certain 'sexy' specialisms,
like health care, business and commerce information. Third, an increase~
emphasis on competency which can be measured objectively. Here the ability to
perform a particular task is at a premium: doing things, taking on a greater
importance than learning or understanding things. Fourth, the belief that
practical experience is of greater value than theoretical knowledge. and an
awareness of principles. Fifth, a marginalisation of the idea that librarians
should display critical thinking and discretionary skill or judgment. Sixth, an
erosion in the social awareness component of librarianship; with the effect that
professionals do not possess the societal knowledge - a sensitivity to context if
you like - required to practice in a discretionary way.
Clearly, library history does not fit easily into this new vocationalist project.
It is believed to be - though I refute this, of course - narrow not generic, and
thus not transportable; and, above all, not pertinent in a 'macho' culture of
enterprise, efficiency, aggressiveness and practicality. The new vocationalism is
all about perjormativity. Good library history, on the other hand, is about
creativity. The new vocationalism is about doing things in society. Good library
history is about understanding society and about fostering societal awareness
amongst professionals. The only way that in the present climate educators and
practitioners, under constant pressure to focus on tangibles, can be convinced of
the value of library history is to persuade them of the practical value of the
subject. It has become a cliche that current techniques can be improved by
reference to· past errors in technological choices. This is true but much more
important is the idea that reference back to past purpose, not just practise, can
help define the aims of present day provision. Indeed, at a time when librarians
are expressing deep anxiety concerning their identity and roles, defining purpose

6 For an infonned discussion of the new vocationalism see Dave Muddiman, 'Innovation or
instrumental drift?: the "new vocationalism" and information and library education in the U.K.',
Education/or Information 12 (1994) 259-70, and his: 'Information and library education: a manifesto
for the millennium', New Library World 96 (1995) 26-31.
 NEW METIIODOLOGIES IN LIBRARY HISTORY 79

is surely at a premium; historical consciousness is indispensable to the process

of defining the rationale and philosophy of any organisation, a library included.
Moreover, a sense of historical awareness should not be chronologically
challenged. In assessing current public library purpose it is naIve to concentrate,
as so many do, only on very recent changes and trends, often the historical time
being drawn at the 'evil' year of 1979.
Stressing the inherent capability of library history to help crystallise purpose
needs to be accompanied by an inventive pedagogic strategy. Pushing library
history as a discrete subject within the library and information studies
curriculum is unlikely to bear fruit and is likely, if anything, to be counter-
productive. Rather, library history needs to mount a guerilla campaign. Its
insurgency must be cam.ouflaged, canny and pragmatic. Library history cannot
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afford, and probably will not have the chanGe, to go over the top, mounting a
frontal attack on enemy guns. It would most certainly be shot down. Instead, it
must slyly infiltrate, where appropriate, those areas of the curriculum where it
can help students make sense of the services and techniques they are studying.
Given that everything has a history, there is no. reason why most library-oriented
subjects in the library and information studies curriculum cannot be given a
historical dimension. Library history can be woven into the curriculum in any
number of imaginative ways. For example, in teaching library services to young
people, proposing that early children's libraries were in part designed to keep
children off the streets not only for their moral, but also their physical well-
being - essentially to improve the industrial and military condition of the
imp~rial race - places the perceived neutrality of such institutions firmly under
the microscope, and suggests the principle that hidden motives, even today, must
be rooted out and identified. The same goes for early public commercial
libraries begun during and shortly after the First World War. In part these were
established to counter what the authorities called the dangerous, 'false'
economics of Bolshevism. The question can therefore be asked: "To what extent
is modem business information provision influenced by modern political
economy?"?
Thus, the leading item in my manifesto is the re-admission of library history
to the Library and Information Studies curriculum requiring its delivery in a

7 On the moral and physical education for imperial prowess see Anna Davin, 'Imperialism and
motherhood', History Workshop 5 (1978) 9-65. The idea of 'false", revolutionary economics purveyed
by post-First World War agitators was discussed by the British Cabinet on several occasions in 1919:
see the reports of the Home Office"s Directorate of Intelligence, Public Record Office, CAB 24/84
GT 7790 and CAB 24n6 GT 6976. Such fears formed an important backdrop to the Ministry of
Reconstruction's planning for the post-war public library: see Ministry of Reconstruction, Adult
Education Committee, First report on industrial and social conditions in relation to adult education
Cmd. 9107 (1918), and Third interim report on libraries and museums Cmd. 9237 (1919). At the
opening of Manchester"s Public Commercial Library Admiral Sturdee was reported to have explained
that: "The British people did not know enough about economics .~. [but] if the people were told in a
simple form the principles of finance they would back the country up in every way", Manchester
Evening Chronicle, 12 Oct. 1919.
 80 ALISTAIR BLACK

flexibl~ and unobtrusive yet theoretical fashion. I have taken some time setting
out the case for a new methodology in teaching because I believe that no
academic subject can survive with credibility unless it is taught, and taught
effectively. Research in library history will wither unless nourished at its
educational roots. Equally, however, education and teaching cannot hope to
survive if the research that flowers from it is itself restricted. Hence, the
remaining items in my manifesto, concentrate on the foundation elements and
fresh approaches which characterise research in the new library history.
For library history to become more attractive there needs to be an explosion
of theory - though not 'grand theory' - in the subject. Traditionally, although
marked by high standards of scholarship, library history has suffered from a
tendency to describe and chronicle, rather than theorise and interpret. An
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attachment to empiricism was one of the main reasons why the new
vocationalism of the 1980s found it so easy to attack library history - library
history lacked the intellectual armour needed to repel the onslaught of the 'skills
for the market' school. This is not to say that fact-grubbing has no place. It
remains the bedrock of library history (more about this later). The superstructure
of library history, however, should and must be theoretical. Library historians
need to adopt deductive positions. As the American librarian Pierce Butler once
wrote, chemists do not take random mixtures to see what happens, they embark
on experimentation with some sort of theoretical hypothesis, insight or departure
point.s Moreover, an explosion of theory in research will feed back into
teaching, helping to make library history a more credible taught subject and
bestowing upon students the power of critical thinking - this being the most
transportable of all skills.
Adopting theoretical stances will bring library history into closer alignment
with mainstream history, to which close attention must be paid. Library history
is best explored with reference to explanations of broader historical
development. This should go beyond mere shallow references to context. Simply
painting a broad picture of the historical background against which library
activity occurred is, methodologically, not enough. Library historians need to dig
deeply into the rich treasures of other history sub-sets, in search of theories and
insights which can illuminate the otherwise stale record of past library activity.
Too much library history has been written as if the sensational developments in
other history fields dating generally from the 1960s, certainty in social and
cultural history, never occurred. Library history should therefore admit an
interdisciplinary approach, the first· port of call being other areas of history
relevant to any investigation of past library development.
Not only should we in the library history community reach out to wider
history, but wider history should be encouraged to embrace us. Part of the
reason for the semi-demise of library history is the reluctance of historians

8 J.V. Richardson, Jr. (ed.), T~e gospel of scholarship: Pierce Butler and the critique of American
librarianship (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1992) p.235.
 NEW METIIODOLOGIES IN LIBRARY HISTORY 81

whose main job it is to teach, research and write history to consider library
history as a subject worthy of substantial research. But convincing professional
historians of the importance of library history - of the importance of libraries in
history - will depend to a large degree upon library historians themselves
declaring that the main purpose of library history is not merely the disclosure
of the history of library activity, but the light which past library activity can
throw on wider society. First and foremost, library history tells us about historic
societies not historic libraries.
This is not to say that library history is only for historians or library
historians. Its future will be to a large degree determined by attitudes in the
world of librarianship. Thus, one of the key dimensions should be a pro-active
perspective. Where appropriate, library history should lend itself to commentary
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on current problems and issues in library provision and professionalism. In this

respect history's prime objective - the discrediting of myth - comes into its own.
Constructing policy of the shifting sounds of myth can have detrimental
consequences. For example, much of the impetus behind the new vocationalism
in librarianship in the 1980s came from the received image that, historically,
librarians have been detached, irrelevant and socially-disengaged, thereby
requiring major cosmetic surgery in terms of managerial and communicative
gloss. In fact, contrary to this myth, librarians have historically displayed a great
deal of social engagement, commitment and relevance - derived to a large
degree from their rounded educational, 'Renaissance man' outlook, a
configuration not in alignment, however with the new vocationalist outlook
which thrives on the myth of the cloistered image.9
A word also about scope. Any new library history should display a wider
conception than has been evident in the past of topics deemed worthy of
research - whether this might be book collections or libraries in lunatic asylums;
or book collections on pre-1914 omnibuses; or early twentieth century German
tramcar libraries1o; or the religious or political beliefs of librarians; or the
sexuality of librarians - this being an excellent subject considering their
historical asexual image (again, I fear, a myth, given the many scandals that
library historians have uncovered). Moreover, the notion of a broadening of
scope should also be extended to sources. Much library history, especially that
highlighting users, is suited to the 'history from below' approach, which sets out
to view history from the perspective of those not in positions of power. Here,
'democratic' SO~.lfces,such as ephemera, workers' autobiograp}lies and oral
history recordings (whatever their limitations) come into their own. Arguably,
'history from below' sits neatly alongside the investigation of the history of
libraries by virtue of the fact that they are usually institutions where a strong
regulatory control (of users) dynamic operates. Moreover, it is certainly an

9 For a discussion of the 'engaging' pre-1914 librarian, see Black, A new history ...• chap. 9.
10K.A. Manley, 'The Munich tramcar library', Library History 10 (1994) 71-75, offers a prime
example of the wide scope available to researchers.
 82 ALISTAIR BLACK

approach to history which library historians have in the past recognised as

valuable. In fact, as early as 1840 Edward Edwards wrote that history, as it had
commonly been written, dealt "too much with the battle-plain and the council-
chamber, and too little with the field and the loom. ,,11
Finally, even though it is doubtful whether library history has yet caught up
fully with the social history revolution of the 1960s and 1970s it needs to pay
close attention to one of the latest departure in social history - namely, the move
to a post-structuralist position, with the emphasis this places on semiotics or, as
Raphael Samuel has termed it, 'reading the signs' .12Post-structuralism in social
history draws its sustenance from the widely held belief that western culture has
entered a post-modem, post-Enlightenment age where grand ideals (or
narratives) of progress, equality, certainty, rational planning and trust in expert
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knowledge are played down. In the post-modem condition identities and social
practices become fragmented, fragile and insecure - post-modem culture
"emphasises particularity and difference over uniformity and totality.,,13
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the questioning 'of historical materialism,
or Marxist economic determinism. Whereas in the new wave social histories of
the 1960s and 1970s analysis wasoften carved out of the stable, foundationalist,
essentialist category of class, historians now look suspiciously on structuralist
base-superstructure models.I4 Whilst class has not been abandoned as an
informer of identity - which is good for library historians who, it might be
argued, never really got to grips with social class in the first place - the concept
now has to battle for space alongside other categories, or lenses, such as race,
nationality, religion, populism, democracy and, finally, gender (it was, after all,
feminist historians who first dented the supremacy of social class as the main
determinant of history).
But perhaps the most intriguing lens through which social historians can now
view history is that of modernity. The Enlightenment, modem condition displays
a split personality. On the one hand it stands for progress, the emergence of the
idea of 'the self' and of individual self-expression, increasing opportunity and
emancipation. On a more negative note, it stands for control, regulation,
surveillance and the oppressive power of experts and their bodies of knowledge.
This dual perspective, it can be strongly suggested, is highly applicable to the
history of modem libraries. Through the optic of modernity the Jekyll and Hyde
image of libraries becomes readily understandable. They have been, at once,

11 Edward Edwards, The administrative economy of the fine arts in England (London: Saunders
& Otley, 1840). p.238. See Frederick Krantz, History from below: studies in popular protest and
popular ideology (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988) for an exploration of the concept.
12 R. Samuel, 'Reading the signs', History Workshop 32 (1991) 88-109 and 33 (1992) 220-51.
13 Chris Rojek, Ways of escape: modern transformations of leisure and travel (Macmillan, 1993)
p.133.
14 E.g. Patrick Joyce, Visions of the people: industrial England and the question of class 1848-

1914 (Cambridge University Press, 1991), and his 'The end of social history', Social History 20 (1995)
73-91.
 NEW MElHODOLOGIES IN LIBRARY HISTORY 83

institutions for emancipation and mechanisms of discipline and regulation.

People undergo self-realisation in libraries, but they also get reprimanded for not
keeping quiet, for bothering the librarian and for bringing their books back late!
But to attempt such a modernist analysis one must be highly sensitive to the
hidden messages in historical evidence. Thus, through the lens of modernity a
text like Edward Edwards' Memoirs of Libraries (which in 1859 essentially
commenced the discourse of professional librarianship) can be semiologically
decoded to reveal a purposeful utilitarian commitment to equality of opportunity;
yet, set alongside this, a mania for library administration, regulation and
discipline (which he termed library economy). In the language of the post-
structuralist Michel Foucault, library economy (and its derivative, library
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science) might be viewed as an exercise in the micro-physics of power - with

analysis moving away from universal, macro explanations towards the micro-
history of detailed, local social practices. Foucault would also have termed
library economy a 'regime of truth' - a discourse, or body of knowledge, that
becomes so because those who construct it are in positions of power: that is to
say, power producing knowledge, not vice versa. In reworking the concept of
power Foucault emphasised the limitations of reductive assessments and that
benefits of exploring its micro-mechanisms.15 Foucault's investigations of
experts and their knowledge systems revealed that their power was not based,
in a reductive way, simply on class concerns or any other essentialist category,
but on the knowledge they constructed. Interestingly, Foucault never investigated
libraries and their expert professionals. Had he done so he would, to be sure,
have been struck by the audacity of librarians in presenting their regimes of
administrative practice as authentic knowledge. The same goes for the modem
socially constructed and false (as some see it) discourse of information studies,
the definition of which remains vague and elusive despite its common usage.
Foucauldian discourse analysis can go beyond tracing the genealogy of
knowledge disciplines to assessing the social construction, the meaning, of
common social practices and beliefs - in library history terms this might mean
the semiotic decoding of the discourses and practices of users, benefactors or
civic elites. Here, providing immensely satisfying pathways for researchers,
attempts can be made to obtain the symbolic meaning of opening ceremonies;
or of architectural styles; or of the 'haven' and 'rural' metaphors attached to
reading rooms; or of the change in emphasis in library hygiene in the late
nineteenth century away from ventilation and towards clean books, thus
reflecting the medico-moral discourse concerning the source of disease - said to
be foul air in the mid-nineteenth century, but Pasteur's germs by' the late
nineteenth century.16

15 Jeffrey Weekes, 'Foucault for historians', History Workshop Journal 14 (1982) 106-19.
16 See: Adrian Forty, 'The modem hospital in England and France: the social and medical uses
of architecture', in: Anthony D. King (ed.), Buildings and society: essays on the social development
of the built environment (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980) for an imaginative study of the micro-
 84 ALISTAIR BLACK

The key point about the employment of semiotics - or a 'reading of the

signs' - is the multiplicity of meanings and endless perspectives that it can
generate. The semiotic decoding of discourses, revealing as they do so-called
'local knowledge', or the minutiae of social practices, is something which library
historians - who. by definition deal with the idiosyncratic micro-worlds of
libraries - should find highly attractive. This is not to say that library history, or
indeed wider social history, should become infatuated by the semiological
approach. After all, historians - not least the political and diplomatic kind - have
long been adept at extracting the 'hidden' and the 'unsaid'. Semiology is
perhaps little more than a pseudo-theoretical expression of what historians,
including library historians, have always to a degree attempted: namely, a close,
careful 'reading between the lines.,1? Furthermore, it would appear wholly
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inconsistent if semiology - rooted as it is in French structuralism, where signifier

(the outwardly visible physical sign) and signified (meaning) are closely linked,
and where considerable importance is given to hidden, determining structures -
is incorporated into post-structuralist history. The inconsistency is explained, of
course, by the fact that in many ways structuralist semiotics paved the way for
post-structuralist, post-modem thinking in the human and social sciences. By its
emphasis on hidden structures, it was structuralism that inspired the post-modem
notions of the 'death of the author' , or the demise of the human agent as 'maker
of the social'.
More importantly, by creating a link between signifier and signified
structuralism also proposed that links could vary in their strength, to the extent
that the two could even break free from each other, in which case an endless
variety of interpretations of a text becomes possible. Indeed, it is this precise
characteristic of semiotics that forms the core of post-modem social history.
Post.;.modernists promote history as a form of storytelling; as an unprivileged
local narrative, of which there is an immense array. They look to an anti-
theoretical (in terms of totalistic explanations) focus on the history of everyday
life, stressing the importance of detail, personal testimony and the experience of
individuals and communities. They stand for an 'anecdotal empiricism'; an
empiricism which is patently not positivist and scientific, claiming support from
universal theory, but personal and unassuming. The post-modem historian looks
to local narrative rather than grand narratives. As such: "What goes on in the
bedroom and bathroom takes on as much historical importance as what takes
place on the battlefield and in government boardrooms." Conceptualising history
in this way provides researchers with a great deal of leeway. It allows for a
variety of interpretations - the ".idea that it is possible to produce as many
different histories as there are consumers of history. It also releases researchers
from the chore of attaching their discourses to foundationalist theory, whether

world of power relations in nineteenth century hospitals in the context of architecture, medical
discovery and professional concerns.
17 My thanks to Dr. Anne Summers of the British Library for her comments in this regard.
 NEW METI-IODOLOGIES IN LIBRARY HISTORY 85

Marxist or otherwise. Theory, if it is engaged in at all, merely becomes critical

thinking. Finally, post-modem history, although it rejects the proposition that the
past can be truthfully represented 'as it was', nonetheless admits the importance
of description and of narrative history, where the micro-histories of everyday life
are exposed, but not necessarily explored.I8
In permitting, and even celebrating, a chronicling approach, post-modern
history is thus very much in tune with traditional library history. The post-
modem 'turn' in history stresses the need for the kind of detailed description
that has characterised traditional library history and its desire to reveal the often
hidden and quirky world of libraries - though library historians might perhaps
need to adopt a more sophisticated approach to micro-history. On the other
hand, post-modern history revels in a range of complex and new ideas and
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themes - from the history of the bodyI9 to the history of smelfo - which
demand theoretical (though not grand-theoretical) thinking, especially in terms
of the construction of models. Either way, this is good news for library history.
As noted above, fact-grubbing and description remain the bedrock of library
history; but inevitably data must surely be synthesized and moulded into models
which comment not only on library history but on what libraries can tell us
about past societies. Only in this way can we learn from history.
Learning from history is considered by authentic post-modernists to be an
intrinsically modern construction of knowledge, and hence of little value. Yet
to most historians - including library historians often seeking to make sense of
current library practice by referring back to previous approaches to library
provision and service - extracting lessons from the past is a central facet of both
their motivation and of the academic discipline in which they work. It should
certainly be hoped that future library historians will find the time, inclination
and theoretical justification to decode semiologically the practices and discourses
of the Library History Group and library historians of the late twentieth century.
But for that to happen we must ensure that there remains in existence a
discourse known as library history for them to investigate in the first place.
Liorary history can indeed survive, but to do so it must become more self-
critical and adapt accordingly.

18 Pauline Marie Roseneau, Postmodernism and the social sciences: insights, inroads and
intrusions (Princeton University Press, 1992) p.84. Chap. 4 contains a lucid explanation of postmodcm
history. A fine exposition of everyday, micro-history is the multi-volume A history of private life, cd.
Philippe Aries and Georges Duby (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap, 1985).
19 A theme explored by Michel Foucault in Discipline and punish: the birth of the prison
(Peregrine, 1979).
20 Constance Classen, David Howes, and Anthony Synnott, Aroma: the cultural history of smell

(Routledge, 1994).