Behavioral History: A Brief Introduction to a New Frontier.

SOCIAL history; HISTORIOGRAPHY; SOCIAL sciences; SOCIAL science methodology; HUMAN behavior; SOCIAL historians; EMOTIONS

This article argues for the importance of applying social history findings directly to the exploration of current forms of social behavior. Behavioral history takes its subject matter directly from the present, and uses social history, rendered analytically rather than descriptively, to probe the initial origins, the causes, and the evolution of contemporary patterns and problems. The goal is a more explicit use of social history in contemporary social diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]