Links to the other posts in the ‘On periodisation’ series:
- What’s the best way to chop history into bits?
- Religion, early modernity, and ‘The Reformation’
- Two ‘early modern’ Englands?
- Unaswerable questions, questionable answers
- Histories of London, 1640s to 1660s: Continuities and Turning Points
- Against the Long Eighteenth Century
Mark Hailwood
As Laura outlined in the previous post of this ‘monster series on periodisation, the term ‘early modern’ has – since the 1970s, at least in the history departments of UK universities – come to be seen as one of the ‘holy trinity’ of historical periods: the medieval, the early modern, the modern. But why?
There a number of reasons why its widespread acceptance and use could be considered somewhat surprising. Its current prevalence in publication and job titles – and on this blog, which self-identifies as an ‘early modern history’ blog – is remarkable given that it is a relative newcomer to the periodisation party. And as Laura has already highlighted, there is little agreement on when exactly it was (1500-1700 is, of course, the right answer…)[1]
But to me the main reason why its rise to near canonical status seems a little odd is because of what it implies: that the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are best understood as being on their way to somewhere else, or as a sub-period of modernity, rather than being a distinct historical period in their own right. But these kinds of ‘modernisation narratives’ – viewing the past as if the only story is the triumphant and inevitable march of all things towards the shiny here and now (more pessimistic forms of historical determinism are, of course, available) – were heavily criticised and fell into decline among historians at more-or-less the same time that the term ‘early modern’, with all its ‘modernisation narrative’ implications, was enjoying its assent.[2] Very odd.
Indeed, since the 1970s one of the most significant developments in historical approaches to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries has been a desire to excavate the beliefs, culture and actions of contemporaries and to understand them ‘on their own terms’ – in the process often emphasising just how different and distinct, rather than similar and vaguely modern, the period was. Is ‘early modern’ really the best term for capturing this singularity? Perhaps not, but the term was and is widely deployed by cultural historians nonetheless. In fact, Keith Thomas, Natalie Zemon Davis and Peter Burke can all be counted among the pioneers of both cultural history and the term ‘early modern’. Continue reading