Microhistory Today: A Roundtable Discussion Available to Purchase

In November 2015, a group of practicing microhistorians was brought to the Duke University campus to engage in a public roundtable discussion on their craft of historical writing. The participants—Peter Arnade, Thomas V. Cohen, Paul Edward Dutton, Jonathan Gebhardt, Sara Petrosillo, Thomas Robisheaux, and István M. Szijártó—addressed a lively audience who interacted with the participants. The edited transcript of this roundtable introduces microhistory to researchers in the humanities and social sciences as an increasingly popular way to write history. It features a robust, self-reflexive discussion of what microhistory is, how it is done, and its challenges and pitfalls for researchers. The participating microhistorians, whose work is published in this special issue of JMEMS, comment on the special challenges they faced in researching and writing, and the audience questions, engages, and critiques the microhistorians, their practices, and their work.