The Social History of Colonial Spanish America: Evolution and Potential

Abstract

“Social History” should be readily definable as the study of historical phenomena which transcend the individual and manifest themselves in human groups. But such a definition includes almost all meaningful history; it seems to fit precisely those political and institutional studies to which social history is ordinarily contrasted. Since our main concern here is with practical historiography rather than with questions of genre, I will simply indicate through description and elimination the kind of history I mean.