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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 December 2008
My study of the Swiss Peasants' War of 1653 has received four reviews in the United States. I am grateful to Hermann Rebel for supplying another, most unusual review to Central European History. It is unusual not only in length but also in judgment. Where the other reviews wrote positively about the book, Rebel rejects it completely.
If I read Rebel correctly, his criticism covers four main points. First, he criticizes the book's theoretical point of view, alleging that the call for a “return to historical events in social history” means a return to “histoire événementielle” and would lead to “high antiquarianism.” Second, Rebel criticizes my methodological inferences from this theoretical point: systematic attention to the cultural dimension of human action; the expansion of social history's traditional methods of analysis and perspectives on time (longue durée, temps sociale) to include cultural and anthropological insights (from, i.e., Victor Turner, Mary Douglas, and Clifford Geertz); and the introduction of a “slow-motion” perspective.
I wish to extend my sincere thanks to Thomas A. Brady, Jr., Randolph C. Head, David M. Luebke, and Ursula Marcum for their joint effort in translating this article.
1. François, Étienne, Les “trésors” de la Stasi ou le mirage des archives, in Passés recomposés, Champs et chantiers de l'Histoire, ed. Boutier, Jean, et al. (Paris, 1995), 145–51Google Scholar, here at 151.
2. Kern, Edmund M., The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 24 (1998)Google Scholar; Forster, Mark R., American Journal of Sociology 104 (1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Head, Randolph C., Journal of Modern History 71 (1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brady, Thomas A. Jr, The American Historical Review 104 (1999)Google Scholar.
3. Rebel, “What Do the Peasants Want Now?”
4. Ibid., 355, 315 n. 8.
5. Ibid., 8.
6. Ibid., 347 n. 86.
7. Ibid., 314.
8. See the study by Weber, Max, “Die ‘Objektivität’ sozialwissenschaftlicher und sozialpolitischer Erkenntnis,” in Weber, Max, Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre, 7th ed. (Tübingen, 1988), 146–214Google Scholar.
9. Suter, Andreas, Der schweizerische Bauernkrieg von 1653: Politische Sozialgeschichte — Sozialgeschichte eines politischen Ereignisses (Tübingen, 1997), 253Google Scholar.
10. Rebel, “What Do the Peasants Want Now?,” 316 n. 10.
11. Suter, , Bauernkrieg, 49Google Scholar.
12. Ibid., 375.
13. Ibid., 400.
14. Rebel, “What Do the Peasants Want Now?,” 315, 355, 315 n. 8.
15. The study first appeared in French: Suter, Andreas, “Histoire sociale et événements historique: Pour une nouvelle appproche,” Annales HSS 52 (1997): 543–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The German version bears the title, “Theorien und Methoden für eine Sozialgeschichte historischer Ereignisse,” Zeitschrift für historische Forschung 25 (1998): 209–43Google Scholar.
16. Rebel, “What Do the Peasants Want Now?,” 549ff.
17. Instead of referring to contemporary sources I will cite Suter, Bauernkrieg.
18. I take definitions of happening, event, and historical event from Koselleck, Reinhart, “Ereignis und Struktur,” in Geschichte — Ereignis und Erzählung (Munich, 1973), 560–71Google Scholar, here 560f. Hans Robert Jauss, “Versuch einer Ehrenrettung des Ereignisbegriffs,” in Ibid., 554–60; Sahling, Marshal, “Die erneute Wiederkehr des Ereignisses: Zu den Anfängen des grossen Fidschikrieges zwischen den Königreichen Bau und Rewa (1843–1855),” in Das Schwein des Häuptlings: Beiträge zur historischen Anthropologie, ed. Habermas, Rebekka, et al. (Berlin, 1992), 83–128Google Scholar, here 83ff.
19. See Jauss, “Versuch,” 554.
20. This is generally so, and it can be observed with respect to other conflicts and events. See Arlette, Farge and Revel, Jacques, Logiques de la foule: L'affaire des enlèvements d'enfants Paris 1750, (Paris, 1988)Google Scholar.
21. On these common expressions in political and social language, see Koselleck, Reinhart, “Revolution, Rebellion, Aufruhr, Bürgerkrieg,” Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, vol. 5 (Stuttgart, 1984), 653–788Google Scholar.
22. For the use of such common expressions as “Revolution,” “Generalverschwörung,” and “Generalaufstand” in the Swiss Peasants' War, see Suter, Bauernkrieg, Introduction and Part I, chap. 3.1.
23. In German dictionaries and lexica on the early modern era, the concept of revolution is simply not used to characterize social conflicts before 1789. In colloquial German speech the concept of revolution has been documented, to my knowledge, only for the Bavarian peasants' war of 1705–1706. Cf. Koselleck, “Revolution, Rebellion, Aufruhr, Bürgerkrieg,” 715ff. and 723.
24. On the study of conflicts in early modern Europe, see Bercé, Yves-Marie, Révoltes et révolutions dans l'Europe moderne (XVIe–XVIIIe siècles) (Paris, 1980)Google Scholar; Bierbrauer, Peter, “Bäuerliche Revolten im Alten Reich: Ein Forschungsbericht,” in Aufruhr und Empörung? Studien zum bäuerlichen Widerstand im Alten Reich, ed. Blickle, Peter, et al. (Munich, 1980), 1–62Google Scholar; Schulze, Winfried, Bäuerlicher Widerstand und feudale Herrschaft in der frühen Neuzeit (Stuttgart, 1980)Google Scholar; Nicolas, Jean, ed., Mouvements populaires et conscience sociale XIIIe–XIXe siècles: Actes du Colloque de Paris 24–26 mai 1984 (Paris, 1985)Google Scholar; Blickle, Peter, Unruhen in der ständischen Gesellschaft 1300–1800 (Munich, 1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
25. For typical characterizations used to describe revolts, see Suter, Andreas, “Der schweizerische Bauernkrieg 1653. Ein Forschungsbericht,” in Die Bauern in der Geschichte der Schweiz, ed. Tanner, Albert et al. , Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte, vol. 10 (Zurich, 1992), 69–104Google Scholar, here at 69ff., where the results of recent research on rural revolts are summarized.
26. On the structural consequences, see Suter, Bauernkrieg, Part II, chap. 5.
27. The concept of paternalism comes not from the sources but from its theoretical use by Thompson, E. P., “Patrician Society, Plebeian Culture,” Journal of Social History 7 (1974): 382–405CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, “Eighteenth-Century English Society: Class Struggle Without Class?” Social History 3 (1978): 133–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Thompson framed this concept to characterize the political relations between the English governing groups and the lower classes as they developed after the Civil War. In England, as in Switzerland, these relations allowed the common people a relatively broad autonomy and freedom of action.
28. Various recent, “revisionist” studies of the English Revolution have turned from social-historical methods to deal with events in a narrative way. See von Greyerz, Kaspar, England im Jahrhundert der Revolutionen 1603–1714 (Stuttgart, 1994), 14ffGoogle Scholar.
29. I depend here on Paul Ricoeur, who speaks in this connection of a “structure prénarrative de l'expérience,” by which he means that the how we normally tell history is shaped by our experience before we ever begin to reflect upon it. See Ricoeur, Paul, Temps et récit, 3 vol. (Paris, 1983–1995)Google Scholar, here at 1:141.
30. Thus Hostettler, Urs Der Rebell von Eggiwil: Aufstand der Emmentaler 1653 (Bern, 1991), 752Google Scholar.
31. Koselleck, , ed., Geschichte — Ereignis und Erzählung, 561Google Scholar.
32. Habermas, Jürgen, Zur Logik der Sozialwissenschaften (Frankfurt am Main, 1971), 268Google Scholar.
33. See Pomian, Krzysztof, L'ordre du temps (Paris, 1984), 16ffGoogle Scholar.
34. This concept of narrative depends on Ricoeur, , Temps et récit, 1:127Google Scholar: “Une histoire, d'autre part, doit être plus qu'une énumération d'événements dans un ordre sériel, elle doit les organiser dans une totalité intelligible.” He emphasizes that the social historian, too, tells stories and has, therefore, nothing in common with the traditional narrative in the sense of presenting events in chronological order. Fearing misunderstanding, some social historians have rejected this position. See, for examples, Kocka, Jürgen, “Zurück zur Erzählung?” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 10 (1984): 395–408Google Scholar; Burke, Peter, Offene Geschichte: Die Schule der “Annales” (Frankfurt am Main, 1991 [Cambridge, 1990]), 93Google Scholar.
35. Koselleck, , ed., Geschichte — Ereignis und Erzählung, 562Google Scholar.
36. Thus Johann Gustav Droysen in his critique of Leopold von Ranke. See Droysen's, Historik: Vorlesungen über Enzyklopädie und Methodologie der Geschichte, ed. Hübner, Rudolf, (5th ed. Munich, 1967), 298Google Scholar.
37. These adjectives are used by Braudel, Fernand, La Méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen à l'époque de Philippe II (Paris, 1949)Google Scholar, here at xiii; idem, “Historie et sciences sociale: La longue durée,” in Annales E.S.C. 13 (1958): 725–53Google Scholar, here 728.
38. Braudel, , La Méditerranée, ix–xvGoogle Scholar; idem, “Histoire et sciences sociales.”
39. On this difference, see ibid., 728f. The entire third part of Braudel's work is devoted to “histoire politique.”
40. Braudel, , La Méditerranée, xivGoogle Scholar: “Les événements ne sont que des instants, que des manifestations de ces larges destines et ne s'expliquent que par eux.”
41. This is the core of Thompson's critique of structure. See his The Poverty of Theory and Other Essays (London, 1978)Google Scholar.
42. See the conference papers edited by Morin, Edgar, “L'événement” in Communications 18 (Paris, 1972)Google Scholar and Kosseleck, , Geschichte — EreignisGoogle Scholar.
43. Thus the title of the programmatical essay of Morin, , “Le return de l'événement” in Communications 18 (1972): 6–20Google Scholar.
44. Koselleck, , Geschichte — Ereignis, 566Google Scholar.
45. See Bourdieu, Pierre, Satz und Gegensatz: Über die Verantwortung der Intellektuellen (Berlin, 1989 [Paris, 1984]), 56Google Scholar.
46. See Jürgen Kocka's position at the German Historikertag of 1992, “Perspektiven für die Sozialgeschichte der neunziger Jahre,” in Sozialgeschichte, Alltagsgeschichte, Mikro-Historie, ed. Schulze, Winfried (Göttingen, 1994), 33–39Google Scholar, which, along with the question of Étienne François cited above, was most deeply influenced by the experience of the revolution of 1989.
47. See Burke, , Offene Geschichte, 92ffGoogle Scholar. Kocka, Jürgen, in his Sozialgeschichte: Begriff-Entwicklung-Probleme, rev. ed. (Göttingen, 1986), 164Google Scholar, arrived from the viewpoint of German social history already earlier at a similar conclusion: “To be sure, from the viewpoint of German social history, one will not deny that experiences and actions, events and persons (to be hermeneutically decoded) also belong within the research field of social history. But one must admit that the question of how to reconcile structures and processes that are central to historical research with equally important experiences and action is neither theoretically nor practically solved.”
48. The return to social history of a second classical theme, that of biography, is by contrast further advanced. See Röckelein, Hedwig, ed., Biographie als Geschichte, Forum Psychohistorie, vol. 1 (Munich, 1993)Google Scholar.
49. See for microhistory the introductory article by Levi, Giovanni, “On Microhistory,” in New Perspectives on Historical Writing, ed. Burke, Peter (Cambridge, 1991), 93–113Google Scholar. To Alltagsgeschichte, see the introductory volume by Lüdtke, Alf, ed. Alltagsgeschichte: Zur Rekonstruktion historischer Erfahrungen und Lebensweisen (Frankfurt am Main, 1989)Google Scholar.
50. See below regarding the research subjects preferred by microhistory and Alltagsgeschichte and the methodological reason for this preference, Schulze, Winfried, “Mikrohistorie versus Makrohistorie? Anmerkungen zu einem aktuellen Thema,” in Theorie der Geschichte: Historische Methode, ed. Meier, Christian et al. (Nördlingen, 1988), 319–41Google Scholar.
51. See also Lüdtke, Alf, Eigen-Sinn: Fabrikalltag, Arbeitererfahrungen und Politik vom Kaiserreich bis zum Faschismus (Hamburg, 1993)Google Scholar.
52. Notable exceptions are Sahlins, Marshal, Der Tod des Kapitän Cook: Geschichte als Metapher und Mythos als Wirklichkeit in der Frühgeschichte des Königreiches Hawaii (Berlin, 1981)Google Scholar; Farge, and Revel, , Logiques de la fouleGoogle Scholar.
53. The man who vouched for the origin of this slogan, the linguist and Paris professor Algirdas Julien Greimas, did not merely follow its origins in the circle of rebelling students of the Sorbonne. While on a subsequent extended speaking tour in the U.S., he was surprised to find that this slogan had spread throughout the universities of America. See Greimas, Algirdas Julien, “Sur l'histoire événementielle et histoire fondamentale,” in Kosseleck, et al. , Geschichte — Ereignis, 139–53Google Scholar, here 140f.
54. See the commentary of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 30/31 December 1995, p. 21: “In France the attempt of the Juppé regime seriously to take up the long overdue reform of the welfare system, leads to upheavals not seen on their scale to ‘French conditions,’ as the rapidly coined slogan called it.”
55. The term and concept of repertoires of action or conflict were theoretically developed by Tilly, Charles in his From Mobilization to Revolution: Reading Massachusetts (Reading, Mass. 1978)Google Scholar. The repertoire of rural subjects and peasants in the late Middle Ages and the early modern period, for example, included at one end the means of supplication by subjects, accepted at least within limits. It led through the so-called soft and notably often female forms of protest and resistance, i.e., the Schadenzauber and the spreading of rumors inimical toward the rulers, and finally the various forms of covert resistance, i.e., smuggling, tax avoidance, poaching and stealing wood, and, at the other end of the spectrum either to suits and litigation in the courts or the open forms of resistance, as hunger strikes and revolts.
56. This refers to the theory of action by collective actors outlined by Giddens, Antony, Die Konstitution der Gesellschaft: Grundzüge einer Theorie der Strukturierung (Frankfurt am Main, 1988 [Cambridge, 1984]), 67ffGoogle Scholar. Thompson, The Poverty of Theory, here at 219ff.
57. The reproduction of structures, of course, never occurs wholly through social action. Rather, it begins with small variations and adaptations, which in the sense of unintended results of actions bring about process-like changes.
58. See regarding the rare occurrence of conspiracies within rural resistance Suter, Andreas, “Verschwörungen in der schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft der Frühen Neuzeit,” Schweizer Zeitschrift für Geschichte 45 (1995): 330–70Google Scholar.
59. Pierre Bourdieu also uses the concept of structuring action, but understands it to mean something else. He holds that the structuring of action does not happen within the framework of collective action and “limited rational” decision-making processes, but within the framework of habitus acquired through socialization. In contrast to Giddens's conceptualization, that of Bourdieu does not take into account the possibility of learning processes that break open the existing structure of action and may lead to new structure.
60. See Aya, Rod, Rethinking Revolution and Collective Violence: Studies on Concept, Theory and Method (Amsterdam, 1990), 99f.Google Scholar, who uses the discussion of economics of the “bounded rationality” of economic subjects (inspired by Simon) for the analysis of social conflict. Independently, and methodologically even less reflective of the above, various case studies characterized peasants' and rural subjects' action in conflicts as “rational.” See Suter, Andreas, “Troublen” im Fürstbistum Basel: Eine Fallstudie zum bäuerlichen Widerstand im 18. Jahrhundert (Göttingen, 1985), 398fGoogle Scholar.; Trossbach, Werner, Bauernbewegungen im Wetterau-Vogelsberg-Gebiet, 1648–1806: Fallstudien zum bäuerlichen Widerstand im Alten Reich (Darmstadt, 1985), 449fGoogle Scholar. Similar as to the subject but totally different in its historical context, to wit the political actions of slaves and plantation workers, see Scott, James C., Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven, 1990)Google Scholar.
61. Giovanni Levi's basic assumption in his examination of the market pricing of rural acreage in the village of Santena holds that behind the alleged “traditional” economic outlook and economic action of peasants during the early modern period also hides a “limited rationality.” See his Le pouvoir au village (Paris, 1989)Google Scholar. Similar assumptions are in Pfister, Ulrich, Die Züricher Fabriques: Protoindustrielles Wachstum vom 16. bis zum 18. Jahrhundert (Zurich, 1992)Google Scholar. To the fundamental ideas and new perspectives for research into rural society arising out of the above, see Suter, Andreas, “Neue Forschungen und Perspektiven zur Geschichte der ländlichen Gesellschaft in der Schweiz,” in Positionen und Perspektiven zur Agrargeschichte, ed. Trossbach, Werner and Zimmermann, Clemens (Stuttgart, 1998), 73–98Google Scholar.
62. In order to avoid misunderstandings, it should be stressed that such categories as expectations of cost, utility, and success are used in a strictly formal sense. “Limited rationality” in human action is an anthropological constant and not a phenomenon limited to the modern. Moreover, rationality, or the horizon of criteria, value, and experience, as well as the reserves of knowledge used by actors to assess cost/benefit as well as expectations regarding the success of their actions are to be seen as sociocultural constructions or translations of reality through the participants and must be empirically determined according to the context of time and action. See Aya, Rod, “Making Sense of Revolutions and Collective Violence ever since Thucydides,” in Essays in Honor of J. F. Boissevain, ed. Verrips, Jojada (Amsterdam, 1994), 251–65Google Scholar.
63. The concepts of actual experience and sociocultural knowledge are used according to Thompson, , The Poverty of Theory, 356Google Scholar. “What we have found (in my view) lies within a missing term: ‘human experience.’ Men and women also return as subjects, within this term — not as autonomous subjects, ‘free individuals’ but as persons experiencing their determinate productive situations and relationships, as needs and interests and as antagonisms, and then ‘handling’ this experience within their ‘consciousness’ and their ‘culture’ (emphasis Thompsons', AS) in the most complex ways, and then acting upon their determinate situation in their turn.” Consciousness, therefore, is understood as lived experience of a situative or biographical nature. Culture, by contrast, is understood as stable and generalized forms of lived experience. It includes an ensemble of internalized forms, attitudes, knowledge, basic understanding of right and wrong, rules of perception and thinking, which makes it possible for all of us to function as social beings, and to make ourselves understood to others as well as to understand others, and finally to be able to act within our own social setting. Historical experiences, by contrast to lived experience of the actors refers to past times and situations and are based on special means of handing down traditions that form these experiences in a particular way.
64. See the concept and meaning of collective learning in crisis- and conflict situations in Siegenthaler, H., Regelvertrauen, Prosperität and Krisen: Die Ungleichmässigkeit wirtschaftlicher Entwicklung als Ergebnis individuellen Handelns und sozialen Lernens (Tübingen, 1993)Google Scholar.
65. See Jauss, Hans Robert, “Zur Analogie von historischem Werk and historischem Ereignis,” in Koselleck, et al. , Geschichte — Ereignis, 535Google Scholar.
66. The comparison of collective actors to jazz musicians and stage actors comes from Tilly, Charles, The Contentious French (Cambridge, Mass., 1986), 390CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
67. The central role of symbolic and ritual communication in political contexts generally and specifically in connection with social conflict lies in the fact that they represent an “ideal vehicle for a compelling and convincing representation of messages,” as Sally F. Moore and Barbara Myerhoff emphasize; see their introduction to Secular Ritual (Assen, 1977), 8Google Scholar. Indeed, the impact and to some extent also the broadcast breadth of symbolic and ritual communication is superior to that of merely verbal or written communication; see Kertzer, David I., Ritual, Politics, and Power (New Haven, 1988)Google Scholar.
68. On thick description see Geertz, Clifford, “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture,” in his The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York, 1973), 3–30Google Scholar.
69. Revel, Jacques, “L'Histoire au ras du sol,” Levi (1989): i–xxxiiiGoogle Scholar.
70. The idea of “border crossing” derives from Turner's concept of liminal periods that sub-divide social dramas into individual act. See Turner, Victor, Schism and Continuity in an African Society: A Study of Ndembu Village Life (Manchester, 1957)Google Scholar; and his “Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Period in Rites of Passage,” in his The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual (Ithaca, 1967), 93–111Google Scholar.
71. The concept of “rites de passage” developed by Arnold van Gennep shows that border crossings were occasions of intensified ritual and symbolic communication not only during periods of social conflict but in daily life as well. See his Manuel de folklore français contemporain (Paris, 1943)Google Scholar. That said, border crossings in situations of social conflict always demand the creative appropriation of existing symbols and rituals that are often enmeshed with the exercise of power and domination; see Suter, Bauernkrieg, Part I, chap. 2.1 and Part II, chap. 3.1.
72. Ibid., Part 2, chap. 3.1.
73. This was most evident in the first poorly coordinated joint military action that the authorities of the thirteen cantons undertook, which failed utterly and thus inordinately strengthened the self-consciousness of the rebels. See the citation below.
74. This evidence comes from a revolt in 1570. Similar, in fact practically identical statements may be found in several conflicts before the Peasants' War of 1653 as well as in the Peasants' War itself. See Suter, Bauernkrieg, Part II, chap. 3.3.
75. On the concepts “range of experience” (Erfahrungsraum) and “horizon of expectations” (Erwartungshorizont) see Koselleck, Reinhart, Vergangene Zukunf: Zur Semantik geschichtlicher Zeiten, (Frankfurt am Main, 1989), 349–74Google Scholar.
76. On the concept of “intellectual bricolage” see Levi-Strauss, Claude, La pensée sauvage (Paris, 1962), 26–33Google Scholar; and Guy Marchal, “Das ‘Schweizeralpenland’: Eine imagologische Bastelei,” in Erfundene Schweiz, Konstruktionen nationaler Identität, ed. idem (Zurich, 1992), 37–49.
77. Neveux, Hugues, “Die ideologische Dimension der französischen Bauernaufstände im 17. Jahrhundert,” Historische Zeitschrift 238 (1984): 265–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 265ff.
78. Cf. Dosse, François, Geschichte des Strukturalismus, 2 vols. (Frankfurt am Main, 1996, originally Paris, 1991)Google Scholar, esp. 425ff. For a critique of Althusser, see e.g., Thompson, , The Poverty of Theory, 193ffGoogle Scholar.
79. Althusser, Louis and Balibar, Étienne, Reading Capital (London, 1970 [Paris, 1968]), 111Google Scholar.
80. Ibid.
81. Ibid., 112.
82. Cited from Dosse, , Geschichte des Strukturalismus, 1:152Google Scholar.
83. For a full discussion of this theoretical debate, see Suter, Andreas and Hettling, Manfred, eds., Struktur und Ereignis, Special Issue of Geschichte und Gesellschaft (Göttingen, 2001)Google Scholar.
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