Brief Discourse On Anthropology And Modern Western Historical Studies

Since the sixties in the 20th century, anthropology theories and methods were widely usedin historical studies, an"anthropology turn"appeal in western historical research.The paper will be divided into three parts to discuss the theories and methods which hadbeen used in modern western historical studies.In the first part, the history of the relation between history and anthropology will bediscussed. Since the enlightenment movement till the end of 19th century, the history andanthropology were close connected. But from the beginning of 20th century, in the historicismperiod, they were separated away. Till the new history on, anthropology and history wereseparated again. Until the seventh, under the flag of new cultural history, they didn't reunion.In the second part, we will discuss the implication of anthropological methods inhistorical research. The first, fieldwork in anthropology can help the researcher to get thefeeling of history; it can also broaden the resources, to have a deeper understanding onmaterials which present in papers. The second, the theory of"thick description"and thetheory of"local knowledge"in interpretive anthropology have the great impacts on historyresearch.In the third part, we will have a rethink on Geertz's interpretive anthropological methodsused in history research. The objectivity is always the pursuit of history research, when weuse anthropological methods in history research we need to maintain the objectivity also. Andthe differences between anthropological history and historical anthropology will be alsodiscussed in this part.