Hollinger, David A. Isis 80, no. 1. 1989.

Abstract:

What Gertrude Himmelfarb calls the “new” (largely social) history, as opposed to the “old” (largely intellectual and political) history, corresponds in many respects to what historians of science used to call “external” as opposed to “internal” his- tory. Himmelfarb pays no attention what- soever to the recent historiography of science, but had she done so she might have arrived at a less despairing view of the state of history as a discipline. Himmelfarb believes that the two kinds of history are radically distinct and are vehicles for conflicting cultural programs. She believes that the new history is a threat to Enlightenment rationality and has pushed the old to the margins of the profession. But scholarship in history of science surely shows that the values of reason are often carried by…

Read more on Jstor: Review: The New History and the Old: Critical Essays and Reappraisals by Gertrude Himmelfarb