ABSTRACT
Social historians have paid increasing attention to popular culture as a way of bringing the realm of culture into their investigations of the everyday life of ordinary people. Aware of the limitations of depicting people’s historical experience primarily in terms derived from sociologists-emphasizing such matters as economic and social structure and demography-historians have turned to anthropology for suggestions as to how cultural activity may matter historically, and particularly how it may be a primary determinant, not simply a reflection of a social and economic reality. The kinds of topics that social historians have investigated as they have “gone cultural” vary widely, depending on scholars’ particular interests as well as the era and locale they have chosen to study. So, for example, historians of early modern Europe have investigated popular religion and superstitions; historians of the 18th and 19th centuries, popular reading and public celebrations; and historians of the 20th century, leisure activities and mass culture.
