Editing Historiography (section)

====The cultural turn====
The "cultural turn" of the 1980s and 1990s affected scholars in most areas of history.<ref>It missed some areas. {{cite journal |last1=Martin |first1=Kevin W. |year=2014 |title=Middle East Historiography: Did We Miss the Cultural Turn? |journal=History Compass |volume=12 |issue=2 |pages=178–186 |doi=10.1111/hic3.12142 }}</ref> Inspired largely by anthropology, it turned away from leaders, ordinary people and famous events to look at the use of language and cultural symbols to represent the changing values of society.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Grigor Suny |first1=Ronald |year=2002 |title=Back and Beyond: Reversing the Cultural Turn? |journal=American Historical Review |volume=107 |issue=5 |pages=1476–1499 |doi=10.1086/532855 |jstor=10.1086/532855 }}</ref>

The British historian [[Peter Burke (historian)|Peter Burke]] finds that cultural studies has numerous spinoffs, or topical themes it has strongly influenced. The most important include [[gender studies]] and [[Postcolonialism|postcolonial studies]], as well as memory studies, and [[film studies]].<ref>Peter Burke, ''What is Cultural History? '' (2nd ed. 2008), p. 140 {{ISBN|978-0745644103}}</ref>

Diplomatic historian [[Melvyn P. Leffler]] finds that the problem with the "cultural turn" is that the culture concept is imprecise, and may produce excessively broad interpretations, because it:
{{blockquote|seems infinitely malleable and capable of giving shape to totally divergent policies; for example, to internationalism or isolationism in the United States, and to cooperative internationalism or race hatred in Japan. The malleability of culture suggest to me that in order to understand its effect on policy, one needs also to study the dynamics of political economy, the evolution of the international system, and the roles of technology and communication, among many other variables.<ref>Melvyn P. Leffler, "New Approaches, Old Interpretations, and Prospective Reconfigurations", ''Diplomatic History'' (1995) 19#1 pp. 173–196, quotation at p 185</ref>}}