"But It Is an Illumination"

"At times, Rothschild's method seems almost impressionistic. As she writes: 'The perspective of this micro- medium- macro history has been to start with the most obvious and accessible evidence about individual lives, and to follow these lives wherever they lead.' Although she has historical arguments to advance—about France's overseas expansion, the French Revolution, and the French economy—they have a secondary place in the book. What matters most is the voyage itself, as one piece of evidence leads serendipitously to another. In this lyrical Michelin Guide to a now-vanished Angoulême and its people, everything 'is worth a detour.' Some critics might see this preference for the idiosyncrasies of her subject matter at the expense of an overall thesis as a shortcoming of An Infinite History, and perhaps of the microhistorical approach in general. It is better, perhaps, to see it as a welcome challenge to a profession that has long been infatuated with different varieties of social and cultural theory. It can sometimes be a good idea to let past individuals, as much as possible, speak for themselves, rather than force their messy, irregularly shaped lives into grids borrowed from the theoretical literature."

At The Nation, David A. Bell reviews Emma Rothschild's An Infinite History: The Story of a Family in France Over Three Centuries.