The Anthropology of History

[rousseau]

I bought a book a few months back on a whim which was made up of essays on the middle ages. One of them dealt with the anthropology of history, which I thought was an interesting topic

In about ten to fifteen pages it covered history from an anthropological perspective. It was difficult to glean all the points from the essay, and it was a while ago that I read it, but from what I remember the major points went something like this:

1) Historians have had a major focus on the history of 'fast-moving' things
2) There is an increasing tendency to look at aspects of society that are static across time and culture (could be off on this one)

Anyway, interesting to do some meta-analysis on how people have viewed the past.

 

[Valjean]

Our anatomy and psychology are products of millions of years living in small, tight-knit, nomadic bands of hunter-gatherers. We're hard wired for this.
Our tribalism and restricted moral universe are poorly suited to settled populations and co-operation with out-groups. This causes no end of problems in a cosmopolitan civilization.

 

[rousseau]

Our anatomy and psychology are products of millions of years living in small, tight-knit, nomadic bands of hunter-gatherers. We're hard wired for this.
Our tribalism and restricted moral universe are poorly suited to settled populations and co-operation with out-groups. This causes no end of problems in a cosmopolitan civilization.

No argument there, although I feel like you may have missed the mark of what I intended with this thread, which is:

- the study of how people study, write, and talk about the field of history

So historical events and processes are not related to the anthropology of history, but ideas surrounding how people have approached the field of history are.