Microhistory writing is very important to my research. Microhistory attempts to approach a subject through a full analysis, looking at the important details as well as the overall function of the subject within the much wider social context. As Littles article “A Crime ‘Shrouded in Mystery’: State, Church, and Community in the Kinnear’s Mill Post Office, 1899-1905” demonstrates how a longer historical lens may shed light on biases based on social or economic standing. Little also demonstrates that in taking a historical approach to memory writing, historians may more fully conceptualize the past in their attempted avoidance of bias. That is, through sifting through the available records of the past and considering multiple perspectives, historians more accurately and impartially portray the past.
Little, J.I., “A Crime ‘Shrouded in Mystery’: State, Church, and Community in the Kinnear’s Mill Post Office, 1899-1905,” in Little, The Other Quebec: Microhistorical Essays on Nineteenth-Century Religion and Society, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006: ch. 8.