Originally published on September 30, 2015 (Episode 32)
Introduction
“Culture” is one of the slipperiest words in the English language—defined in multiple, sometimes contradictory ways. What, then, is cultural history?
Marco Cabrera Geserick joins Al Zambone to explore the meaning and methods of cultural history. Together they probe how historians define and study culture, and what cultural history can tell us that political or social history might not.
About the Guest
Marco Cabrera-Geserick is (as of 2025) a historian and Assistant Professor in the Department of Comparative Cultural Studies at Northern Arizona University. At the time of the recording he was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Augustana College. His work focuses on the intersections of politics, ideas, and culture.
For Further Investigation
Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (Penguin, 1990)
Peter Burke, What is Cultural History?, 3rd edition (Polity, 2018)
Natalie Zemon Davis, The Return of Martin Guerre (Harvard, 1984)
Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (Basic Books, 1973)
Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth Century Miller (Hopkins, 2013)
E. H. Gombrich, In Search of Cultural History (1969)
Johan Huizinga, The Autumn of the Middle Ages (Chicago, 1996)
Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error (Vintage, 1979)
E. P. Thompson, Customs in Common: Studies in Traditional Popular Culture (The New Press, 1993)
Listen & Discuss
What does “culture” mean to you? How should historians study it, and how does cultural history differ from other forms of historical inquiry? Share your views in the comments, and send this episode to someone interested in history, sociology, or anthropology.
