The Agents of Historical Change

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses how historical change comes about. It specifically looks at who or what are the agents of historical change and how we apportion responsibility for such change. The paper examines the different approaches and schools of thought on this issue. It concludes that all of the schools of thought contain valid and worthwhile assertions.

From the Paper:

"In 'The Mediterranean' Braudel divided historical time into three layers, each moving at a different rate of speed. The first layer, which Braudel termed 'histoire evenementielle' was the fastest of all the layers and concentrated on traditional history such as events, politics and people. At the middle layer or 'middle duree' were the conjunctures, such as economies, social structures and population, which developed at a gradual rate of change taking decades. Finally, the 'longue duree' or structures moved at an almost stationary pace and thus in order to observe the effects of climate etc, study of change over many centuries would be necessary."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt and Margaret Jacob, Telling The Total About History (London: Norton and Company, 1994)
• Stefan Berger, Heiko Feldner, Kevin Passmore, Writing History: Theory and Practice (London: Oxford University Press, 2003)
• Mary Fulbrook, Historical Theory (London: Routledge, 2002)
• Anna Green and Kathleen Troup, The Houses of History: A critical reader in twentieth-century history and theory (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999)
• John Tosh, Historians on history, (London: Pearson Education Limited, 2000)

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