Microhistories

[jeregenest]

Salon in an article about Rebecca Solnit new memoir makes the following comment:

"At a time when the trend in nonfiction publishing favors microhistories -- the current file under "C" alone yields popular books on cod, cocaine and caffeine -- Solnit's interests remain expansive. "Wanderlust," her sprawling history of walking, covered everything from early hominids stepping out on the savanna to latter-day tourists promenading along the postmodern wonderland of the Vegas Strip."

Now I've read Wanderlust, and I've also read my share of so-called microhistories. And I'd just like to say that Solnit's book shares just about all the same aspects as the best of the so-called microhistories. Taking a topic and expanding upon all its beautiful complexities. I think its rather snobbish to decry one because they are emant as popularizes and put on a pedestal the other because its written by an academic darling.

Comments

[gentlyepigrams]

I have the academic training to read the hardcore stuff, and I love the microhistories (at least the well-written and well-sourced ones). Books that get people more involved with history--that make people more interested in history and not just as a source of background for political polemics--are a good thing!