Carlo Ginzburg (1939-2026). Pioneer of micro-history & history from below
The Italian historian Carlo Ginzburg has died on 17th June 2026 at age 87.
He was a pioneer of micro history and something with which it is often associated history from below.
Arguably his most influential work was Cheese and the Worms (1976). It was not an historical investigation into cheese! Rather Ginzburg explored Court records of someone who was regarded as a religious heretic, Menocchio, he was eventually burnt at the stake.
Menocchio, Domenica Scandello, was a miller.
As Ginzburg’s Wiki notes, from the introduction to the Cheese and the Worms, he sought to focus on “the persecuted and the vanquished”, traditionally ignored by historians, the subject of his research was a choice that he had made long before he wrote the book, but , the choice was strengthened by “the radical political climate of the 1970s”.
Ginzburg was rightly concerned that while the lives of the rich and famous were often well recorded, the lives of the subaltern classes, in this case peasants, had little history. The Cheese and the Worms is based on Court records of Menocchio’s trial. Ginzburg however was clear that these records represented the words and views of his subject as mediated through the perspectives of authority.
Even so he had shown that it was possible to know a lot more about the lives of those who previously had gone unrecorded and unnoticed.
Ginzburg’s micro-history is not the same as history from below or E P Thompson’s focus on detailed history, looking for full historical accounts of those who decidedly were not the powerful in society.
Ginzburg’s legacy lies of course in his own historical works but also in the way he approached doing history which helped to inspire and inform generations of researchers. As a result we know more about the history of the have nots in society to balance the much heralded histories of the haves.
Guardian Editorial
