But I agree, and thought something very similar when following a mailing-list debate not too long ago on just this question (and a couple of related questions), that is, that there was a certain categorical rejection of the idea that we might be able to describe historical periods and processes in terms other than those used by the people who lived it. And I wanted to say, do you really reject any attempt at all to generalize about history? But I admit I kept my mouth shut. Which in general I should do more often.
On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 10:34 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>wrote:
> Largely a result I think of a generation of medievalists being brought up
> to avoid any taint of Marxist historiography. The baleful effects of
> postmodernism included the avoidance of the slightest attention to modes of
> production.
> That was not the road to success in US history graduate schools of the last
> quarter of the 20th century. --CGE
>
>
> Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
>
>> On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 1:11 PM, Matthias Wasser
>> <matthias.wasser at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>> "Feudalisms" were diverse.
>>>
>>>
>> For what it's worth, "feudalism" is mostly a dirty word among
>> medievalists,
>> these days. This is not my specialty, but there are multiple problems,
>> probably the most serious being that the term implies, as you suggest, a
>> non-existent uniformity (and rigidity/stability) of practice across Europe
>> "during the 'feudal' period" (whenever that was). I certainly can't speak
>> for Medievalists, but in general I think you will find that medievalists
>> will say the word doesn't mean very much, and they tend to avoid it. If
>> you
>> want to troll a medievalist list, ask them about feudalism.
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