(Postone, 1993) Habermas, a contemporary social historian contributor, was also very influenced by Weberian thinking in regarding rhetoric as an action rather than creating truth. As Weber or Habermas, or Marx or any other philosopher of history, among others, puts it, social history is a complex science and can have many facets. As Soon Won Park presents, connected with the colonial history of Korea, "history is now understood not simply as one aspect of a national hmogenous culture, tradition and nation-state, but in more inclusive, complex and pluralistic terms." (Shin, 1999, pg 128) the new type of history that Park talks about is somehow similar to what Habermas is also talking about and it deals with a more complex understanding of the past than just in Marxists of Weberian terms. The new social history, therefore, requires new methods and areas to be analyzed, and also new analytical categories in the focus.

Since the 1970s the Journal of Social History has tried to adapt and re-invent history as to offer the best explanations. Far beyond what Marx was reaching, the new social history studies also issues like ethnic history; gender relations; race in American history; family history;...

Yet, as Peter Stearns show, social history is at a crossroad, the field looking from within and out as an incoherent gathering of topics. There is a clear need for "social historians willing to reassert the importance of teaching about processes rather than events and eager to dispute a narrowing or rigidification of the history canon." (Stearns, 2003)
Bibliography

Marx, Karl. A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Beekman Pub. 1972

Poistone, Moishe. Time, Labor and Social Domination. A Reinterpretation of Marx's Critical Theory Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1993

Shin, Gi Wook and Michael Robinson. Colonial Modernity in Korea Harvard East Asian Monographs. 1999

Stearns, Peter. "Social History Present and Future" Journal of Social History, Vol. 37, 2003

Thompson, E.P. "The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century" Past & Present No. 50 (Feb., 1971)

Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. London:…