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so new at all. But in the past two or three decades, as Stone points
out, a dazzling variety of studies of social institutions and practices
have been produced by Anglo-Saxon authors. "Anyone who has had
the good fortune," he says, "to have lived and worked throughout
that time can have nothing but pride in what has been achieved in
furthering the understanding of men in past society."
About two-thirds of Stone's book is given over to review articles
(mostly originally written for the
New York Review of Books)
which
document, as it were, the new history in action. They are clustered
about a single overall theme - the nature and origins of modernity in
the West. These pieces are of a uniformly high standard: sober, for
the most part generous towards the works discussed, but rarely lack–
ing in critical bite. They could well be made obligatory reading for
the vast majority of sociologists, who still lack an historical sense.
For many sociological writers are inclined to dispense airy generali–
zations about the pre-industrial world in ignorance of the findings of
recent historical work - which often runs quite contrary to those gen–
eralizations. Here the "new history" has more than repaid whatever
debts it may owe to sociology . Let me mention just two examples
from the material Stone discusses. It is still a commonplace of the
sociological literature that the advent of industrial capitalism has
radically disrupted the secure ways of daily life that existed before.
But research into towns and villages of medieval and post-medieval
Europe shows quite a different picture to the traditional view of
gemeinschaftlich
stability. The generalized anxiety prevalent among
the population may have taken a different form from modern neu–
roses, but was probably as acute as anything experienced today. For
many individuals, and whole communities, day to day life was
fraught with insecurities and terrors, deriving from the ubiquity of
war and violence, the threat of famines, epidemics, and other disas–
ters. A second example of such anxiety is old age. There are far more
elderly people now, as a proportion of the total population, than
there used to be. Sociologists often take it for granted that, associ–
ated with this, the status of the old has suffered a sharp decline; in
previous ages, the elderly typically enjoyed prestige and power
which they have now lost. The evidence - although still controversial
- indicates differently. The old were probably respected only as long
as they controlled property; and those without property often found
themselves in circumstances that make the fate of the old in modern
society sound positively benign.
Not all the trends in the "new history," Stone points out, have
