ABSTRACT
This chapter describes one specific individual- Magnus Hj. Magnusson, who himself created a remarkable oeuvre of egodocuments and explores the understanding of both how his story has been told, and how it can give insight into such matters as gender relations, sexuality, emotional outlets and experience, and social punishments in the 19th century. Many microhistorians take the methodological route of working with “narrative analysis” in their studies. The idea is inter alia to demonstrate how this methodology can prove useful when the life story of one individual is told. Experience as a historical concept has played an important role in the scholarship of important historians for the last 60 years. Earlier work on the history of emotion was deeply influenced by modernization theory, and frequently attempted to define and characterize the emotional cultures of entire countries and even continents.
