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11 - HISTORICAL ANALYSIS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Paul S. Gray ,
John B. Williamson ,
David A. Karp  and
John R. Dalphin
Paul S. Gray
Affiliation:
Boston College, Massachusetts
John B. Williamson
Affiliation:
Boston College, Massachusetts
David A. Karp
Affiliation:
Boston College, Massachusetts
John R. Dalphin
Affiliation:
Merrimack College, Massachusetts
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Summary

INTRODUCTION

If we become ill, or our parents are going through a divorce, or someone in our family loses a job, we have troubles at a personal level. However, over time, as sociologist C. Wright Mills (1960/2000) pointed out, history and biography intersect. That is, the private troubles that we experience at a microlevel are connected to public issues. In the United States today, there is a growing crisis in health care, both in terms of affordability of and having access to health insurance. The divorce rate has grown so high that in many places half of all marriages do not survive. In addition, as the economy shifted from mostly industrial to mostly postindustrial, pockets of permanent, structural unemployment dot the national map. These are examples of public issues that require historical analysis if we are truly to understand their origins and scope, as well as future trends. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that without skillful historical analysis we would be deprived of a powerful tool to understand the context that helps us to cope successfully with our private troubles.

Historical analysis is a process calling for multiple methods, both quantitative and qualitative, microlevel as well as macrolevel, and the attention of all the social sciences. In this sense, it cuts against the grain of academic specialization that characterized the twentieth century.

Type
Chapter
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The Research Imagination
An Introduction to Qualitative and Quantitative Methods
 , pp. 241 - 262
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

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