The last fifty years have witnessed a number of important historical epistemological and methodological changes. Many of these have been as a result of the rise of the feminist movement, the influences of colonial and post-colonial discourse, and the evolution of gender studies. Today, historical writings reflect the desire to tell the stories of previously marginalised or “subaltern people”, to uncover new sources of data, to spawn new questions, and to continue to build a link between understanding the past and living the present. But is this necessarily something new?

This paper seeks to trace how the knowledge and writing of history have evolved, both positively and negatively since the move from traditional history to gender history. It argues that this new generation of historical work has its foundations deep within the works of the past and that today’s historian may not necessarily be engaging in something new, but rather they are reflecting a different set of experiences and ideas.