2003 Articles

Networks and History

Bearman, Peter Shawn; Moody, James; Faris, Robert

Events and event structures compose the constituent elements of history. In order to construct historical accounts of event sequences, historians have to make cases. This article proposes a method for casing historical events. We illustrate the analytic strategy by considering a complex population of interrelated events that make up a narrative of revolution, counter revolution, and revolution in a small village in China. Implications for the methodology of historical social science are discussed.