Collective biography

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Collective biography or collective biography is the name given to a method of historical social research .

In an early German-language publication, Wilhelm Heinz Schröder defined the collective biography as “the theoretically and methodologically reflective, empirical, especially also quantitatively based research of a historical collective of people in their respective social context based on a comparative analysis of the individual lives of the collective members.” Belonging to the collective is determined by a characteristic feature, for example a position reached .

If the method is used in the context of research, it can be said that the project is based on a collective biographical approach.

As early as the 1960s, Lawrence Stone tried to revive collective biographical research under the term prosopography, which is misleading in German . The term prosopography is used in German historical studies, especially in the areas of antiquity and medieval studies , but usually for "a list of all known persons within a period of time compiled from the sources" - for example the Prosopographia Imperii Romani or The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire - used.

literature

  • Wilhelm Heinz Schröder: Collective Biographies in Historical Social Research. An introduction. In the S. (Ed.): Curriculum Vitae and Society. For the use of collective biographies in historical social research (=  historical-social-scientific research. Volume 18). Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-608-91137-5 , pp. 7-17 ( online ).
  • Wilhelm Heinz Schröder: Collective biography as an interdisciplinary method in historical social research. A personal retrospective (=  Historical Social Research . Supplement 23). ZHSF, Cologne 2011, DNB 1013361474 ( online ).
  • Lawrence Stone: Prosopography. In: Dædalus . 100, No. 1, 1971, pp. 46-79.
  • Lawrence Stone: Prosopography. English experience. In: Konrad Jarausch (Ed.): Quantification in historical science. Problems and opportunities. Droste, Düsseldorf 1976, ISBN 3-7700-0357-8 , pp. 64-97.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Schröder: Collective Biographies. P. 8.
  2. ↑ Article Prosopography. In: Konrad Fuchs , Heribert Raab : Dictionary of History. 10th edition. DTV, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-423-03364-9 , p. 643.