Microhistories and The Return of Martin Guerre

     In my blog this week, I would like to consider the role The Return of Martin Guerre plays in the larger theme of our class's question: "What is a mircohistory?"  Both The Return of Martin Guerre and The Cheese and the Worms are told in an entertaining style that invites the reader to carry on through the book enthusiastically.  However, it seems to me that these books offer much more than just an entertaining read - they actually teach the reader a lot about what life was like during a particular time period.   Even something as simple as the wooden leg is given a framework that situates it within an appropriate historical period.  I knew, like most people, that people in the past had been given wooden legs, but I didn't know off the top of my head whether or not this was the case in 16th century France (edit: Spain, I suppose I should say).
     There are a great many other things that I learned about life in 16th century France by reading The Return of Martin Guerre.  I learned, for example, about the way in which a convicted criminal can appeal his case.  I also learned about religious views on marriage, and the way in which at least some people believed that it was wrong for a wife to divorce her husband, even if he had been missing for twenty years.  It seems to me that the lucid narrative style found in the works of both Ginzburg and Davis helps readers to easily situate what they're learning in a historical framework, which is certainly one of the advantages of microhistories.
     The aforementioned question, however, remains unanswered.  It seems that these two characteristics, (a relatively entertaining narrative style when compared to drier historical works, while also enlightening the reader as to what life was like during a certain period) are characteristic of a microhistory.  However, other historical works can be entertaining and enlightening, but not be considered microhistories.  The fact that the entirety of one story can be told within a manageably sized book also seems to be characteristic of microhistories.  However, while we have seen at this point in the semester examples of microhistories, and are gaining a clearer picture on what a microhistory is, the question still needs to be worked on throughout the rest of the semester.