If everything is in a name, how can history help us reconstruct names and ideas when the history does not exist. One of the most profound texts I read as a graduate student was Carlo Ginzburg’s The Cheese and the Worms. Through his creative mind, his landmark microhistory of northern Italian and Baltic communities the world was introduced to peasant constructs about the Catholic religion, the power of ideas, and the role of the Inquisition in stifling important ideas.
Maybe Carlo’s approach is that of challenging everything, especially when reading between existing sources or using, in his case, the oppressor’s notes to reconstruct the life of a man persecuted for his unique interpretation of Roman Catholic values.
Sue Kozel
skozelabolition 