Aula 4 Historical Method

Journal of Consumer Research, Inc.
Historical Method in Consumer Research: Developing Causal Explanations of Change

Author(s): Ruth Ann Smith and David S. Lux
Source: Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 19, No. 4 (Mar., 1993), pp. 595-610
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2489443 .
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Historical
Method
Causal
Developing
in
Consumer
Explanations
Research:
of
Change
RUTHANN SMITH
DAVIDS. LUX*
Historical research provides a qualitative interpretive method uniquely formulated
to explain the causes of change through time. As such, it offers considerable potential
for expanding our current understanding of inherentlydynamic and volatile consumer
phenomena. Despite recent interest in interpretive approaches among consumer
researchers, the historical consumer behavior literature reveals that this method's
potential has not been fully realized. We argue that this underutilizationderives from
the absence of a full explication of history's methodological assumptions and requirements, which are substantially different from those that have traditionallydominated consumer research. We address this problem by providing a conceptual and
methodological review of historical research methods and by demonstrating the
application of historical method to the study of change in consumer behavior.
uringthe pastdecade,consumerresearchershave
and seeks to untangle the complexity of causes that

move human events (Dray 1957, 1964, 1971, 1981).
Of course, other social science research approaches,
such as time-series analysis or even experimentation,
exhibit a temporal orientation, but history stands virtually alone among social science disciplines in its ability to analyze particular episodes, or empirical cases,
and to explain broad-gauged patterns of social, cultural,
political, economic, and intellectual activity. In exploring change, historical research questions actually
emphasize complexity rather than simplicity, and it is
this characteristic that marks history's most distinctive
break with methodologies employed in other social sciences and humanities (Cantor and Schneider 1967;
Mandelbaum 1977; Watkins 1959). The historian's insistence on including the full complexity of human activity within the research domain is the basis for history's potential value as a research tool for analyzing
complex and volatile consumer phenomena.
Indeed, consumer phenomena often prove complex.
Consumer preferences can shift very quickly, especially
in matters of taste, where dramatic, short-run changes
often occur, as they did with the rise and fall of the
Hula-Hoop in the 1950s or more recently with Hasbro's
Transformers. Consumer attitudes toward business,
government regulation, and advertising can change
quickly, shift slowly, or show remarkable persistence of
form. Consumer values also change, but usually over a
longer run, as illustrated by the notorious baby-boomers
who made news with their anti-materialism in the
1960s, and again with their food processors, designer
jeans, Volvos, and Saabs in the 1980s. Certainly an
ironic twist in values lies behind the fact that many
from the generation of Americans who sported the
"Make love, not war" bumper stickers of the 1960s
initiated a substantial broadening of methodological orientation. This has resulted from a growing
recognition that social science research paradigms based
in economics, cognitive psychology, and behaviorism,
long dominant in consumer research, limit the research
questions the discipline can answer. The knowledge
generated under these paradigms constitutes a rich
foundation for explaining and predicting many forms
of consumer behavior, but the desire to understand
phenomena that have remained intractable has stimulated the adoption of various interpretive or humanistic research approaches. Among these, historical
analysis is emerging as a popular alternative. For that
reason, it becomes especially appropriate to evaluate
its current use among consumer researchers and to suggest ways in which its applications can be enhanced.
Historical method furnishes an important interpretive research approach that, unlike other approaches,
aims specifically at investigating the causal motors that
drive change through time. Although conventional wisdom and popular mythology hold that all historians
merely seek to reconstruct the past "as it really was,"
professional historical analysis very often moves far beyond just describing what happened (Danto 1965, 1985)
*Ruth Ann Smith is associate professor of marketing at Virginia

Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 240610236. David Lux is associate professor of history at Bryant College,
Smithfield, RI 02917. The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of many colleagues, both historians and consumer researchers,
who generously and creatively contributed to the development of
this article. The thoughtful suggestions of three anonymous reviewers
are also appreciated.
595
? 1993by JOURNALOF CONSUMERRESEARCH,Inc.* Vol. 19 o March1993
All rightsreserved.0093-5301/93/1904-0008$2.00

596
JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH
more recently emblazoned their vehicles with one proclaiming "He who dies with the most toys wins!" Historical analysis offers consumer researchers a means to
understand such patterns of change, and the ability to
construct causal accounts explaining how and why such
changes occur. The degree to which this potential has
been realized by consumer researchers is revealed in
the historical literature the discipline has produced to
date, which we review below.
CURRENT USE OF HISTORICAL

METHOD IN CONSUMER RESEARCH
Consumer researchers are developing an appreciable
interest in historical method, as indicated by the frequency with which historical manuscripts are beginning
to appear in the consumer behavior literature. To gauge
how that interest has affected research practices, we reviewed 31 historical articles published between 1983
and 1990 in the Journal of ConsumerResearch, the

Journal of Marketing, the Journal of Marketing Research,Advancesin ConsumerResearch,and the Journal of the Academyof MarketingScience.' Because of
our particular focus, we also included the 25 historical
papers published in the proceedings of the Association
for Consumer Research 1985 International Meeting in
Singapore (Tan and Sheth 1985). These sources certainly do not include all the historically based consumer
research published since 1983, but they are the publications likely to reach the largest number of consumer
behavior researchers and, therefore, the most likely to
become models for further research.
Our primary interest in this literature review was to
discover how historical method is being used in consumer research. Our analysis suggests that consumer
researchers employ this approach in a variety of ways,
which we classified according to a taxonomy of four
nominal categories: chronicles, analyses of continuity
and trends, analyses of change, and methodology, as
displayed in the Appendix. To demonstrate our conclusions about the use of historical method in consumer
research, we will discuss each of these categories and
describe its contributions and shortcomings in terms of
understanding and explaining processes of change in
consumer behavior.
By far the largest category of articles reviewed (45
percent) was classified as chronicles, which focus on
describing past events (Danto 1965; Megill 1989). An
example of this use of historical method is a paper by
Jones and Monieson (1990) which reviewed historical
research in marketing, including consumer behavior.
The orientation of this work is characteristic of the
chronicle category in that it described the frequency of
11983 was selected as the starting point for this literature review
because the Journal of Marketing's special issue on marketing theory
appeared during that year (Vol. 47, issue 4). This event appears to
have marked the real beginning of serious interest in interpretive and
humanistic methods for consumer research.
historical research and the topic areas studied from 1930

to 1990 but did not attempt to explain any changes
observed during that period.
Historical analysis depends on the empirical material
included in chronicles, and, in fact, this material constitutes the data necessary for historical analysis. An
intellectual history of consumer behavior, for example,
would necessarily begin with empirical data such as that
presented by Jones and Monieson (1990). As noted
previously, however, the main contribution of historical
analysis lies in its ability to go beyond merely reconstructing the past to explaining the complex causes of
change. Chronicles do not realize this strength.
Our literature review revealed that consumer researchers also frequently use historical method in analyses of continuity and trends, the second largest category, comprising 30 percent of the articles reviewed.
Articles such as these exhibit a historical orientation in
that they track consumer phenomena over time. Like
chronicles, however, analyses of continuity and trends
do not take advantage of the unique ability of historical
research to explain the causes of change. The primary
contribution of these studies is to demonstrate the longitudinal persistence of phenomena such as consumer
materialism (Belk 1987) or to provide a sociological
analysis of continuous trends such as the relationship
between advertising themes and social values (Belk and
Pollay 1985a, 1985b, 1985c; Gross and Sheth 1989;
Pollay 1985a, 1985b; Tse, Belk, and Zhou 1989; Ursic,
Ursic, and Ursic 1986) or the cultural intrusiveness of
marketing (Friedman 1985a, 1985b, 1985c). Although
representing a valuable contribution to the consumer
behavior literature, research demonstrating continuity
and persistence of form does not take full advantage of
the potential of historical research to explain things that
change, as opposed to those that stay the same.
The review turned up only eight studies (14 percent)
using historical material primarily to explain the causes
of change in consumer behavior. In one of these, Fullerton (1988) debunked the widely held notion of production, sales, and marketing eras and constructed a
causal explanation of the transition to consumer-oriented marketing in the United States and Western Europe. In other studies, Stern (1990) presented a historical
analysis explaining the rapid rise and decline in the
marketing discipline's acceptance of motivation research, and Arnould (1989) challenged diffusion theory
with a historical analysis of the political, social, and
cultural factors affecting consumers' adoption of innovations. Despite a growing literature on the history
of consumption by sociologists (Simmel 1904; Veblen
1912) and historians (McKendrick, Brewer, and Plumb
1982; Mukerji 1983; Williams 1982), the small number
of analyses of change within consumer research itself
suggests that the discipline has not fully realized the
power of history as an analytical tool.
Although we discovered six (11 percent) methodological papers on historical research in our review, we
believe the primary reason for history's underutilization

HISTORICALMETHOD IN CONSUMER RESEARCH
by consumer researchers as a tool for explaining change

is that there exists no complete articulation of its analytical power or the methodological restrictions on its
practice. Savitt's (1980) article (published before the
1983 starting date of our literature review) remains the
most complete and general methodological exposition
available for consumer researchers. But, as will become
clear in the following section, his equation of historical
analysis and scientific method severely limits history's
usefulness while also straining the limits of its ontological and epistemological capabilities. Methodological
articles published since Savitt reveal a narrower focus
in that they discuss specific philosophies of history
(Fullerton 1987) or describe how generalized historical
methods might be applied to a specific consumer or
marketing question (see Kumcu 1987; Pollay 1987;
Rassuli and Hollander 1987). To date, however, no authors have undertaken a comprehensive, general explication of the potential usefulness of historical method
for consumer research. Our goal in this paper is to provide such a methodological overview and assessment
of historical method.
Before proceeding, we would like to explicitly state
a central assumption we have made in pursuing this
goal. History is a discipline whose practitioners can define their research as subtended by the humanities or
the social sciences. In the former view, historians speak
to the literary, aesthetic, and cultural impulses inherent
in the human experience. This orientation regards historical "facts" as mere social constructions and historical narratives literally as stories whose function is to
celebrate the human experience (White 1965, 1979,
1984, 1989).
Other historians, however, define their research activities as speaking to the social science interest in analytical understanding of human behavior. In this view,
historical facts can be discovered, although their interpretation is acknowledged to be a social construction,
and narratives possess an analytical power that goes
beyond mere storytelling. Both the humanities and the
social science approaches to history have long-standing
legitimacy, and professional historians recognize the
validity of each. In what follows, however, we are pursuing methodological principles that are appropriate to
history as a social science. Our emphasis is on using
historical analysis to seek causal analysis of change
through time.
GOALS AND ASSUMPTIONS OF

HISTORICAL ANALYSIS
The social sciences, which have provided the epistemological foundations for consumer research since
the 1950s, typically define the discovery of lawlike
generalizations as their research goal (Braybrooke
1987). As previously noted, many historians do identify
themselves as social scientists. Most, however, still accept the epistemological constraints laid down for the
discipline in the nineteenth-century by theorists such
597
as Leopold Von Ranke and Otto Hintz, constraints that

preclude the possibility of arriving at general historical
laws, or lawlike statements (Dray 1957, 1964; Leff 1969;
Megill 1989; Scriven 1959; White 1959; Wines 1981).
In effect, most historians implicitly deny ontological
validity to the concept of general historical laws, and
the discipline has displayed virtually universal rejection
of attempts to introduce such laws or models (Dray
1957, 1964; Gardiner 1959).
While recognizing the validity of lawlike generalization in allied disciplines such as economics, political
science, or sociology, "historians remain sensitive to
individual peculiarities and to special circumstances,
and wary of supposed 'rules' of human behavior" (Lavin
and Archdeacon 1989, p. 61). Historians can certainly
generalize, but do so in conditioned and restricted
forms. According to Leff (1969), "Historical propositions are always contextual" (p. 78). More specifically,
historians attempt to explain the causes of "unique circumstances or temporal discontinuities" (Lavin and
Archdeacon 1989, p. 62) as opposed to the regularities
in human events.
This nearly universal disciplinary refusal among historians to seek lawlike generalizations derives from
commitment to the twin propositions that human activity is inherently dynamic and that individual motivations and actions respond sensitively to changing social and cultural circumstances (Kloppenberg 1989;
Mandelbaum 1977; Megill 1989). These assumptions
are the premise from which the historian's primary research goals of identifying, explaining, and interpreting
change through time follow, and without these assumptions historical analysis has no obvious rationale.
Of course, this emphasis on change needs tempering
against the reality that not all circumstances of two historical moments will necessarily show change. As Max
Weber demonstrated in laying one of the foundation
stones for modern sociology, many social, economic,
political, and intellectual phenomena do persist and do
remain inherently stable (Gerth and Mills 1946). As a
practical matter, the idealized situation in which the
historian simply explains change, while ignoring continuities, never occurs. Thus, identifying, explaining,
and interpreting change requires first sorting historical
phenomena into the categories of "things that change"
and "things that stay the same."
Consider, for example, the two historical moments
represented by T1 and T2 in Figure 1. The historian's
task consists in comparing these moments to explain
how and why the circumstances at the earlier moment
set in motion a chain of events creating the circumstances seen later. Accomplishing this task requires the
historian to identify the continuities C and D while explaining the disappearance of A, B, and E as well as the
appearance of F, G, and H.
Tracking and explaining continuity and change between T1and T2 constitutes diachronic analysis, analysis
that seeks to document and explain changes across time.
The historical moments selected as the temporal termini

598
for such an analysis can stand widely separated in time,

as in the case of research to explain the differences between colonial American and twentieth-century temperance movements, or they can be temporally more
proximate, as in research on shifting consumer acceptance of"lite" products since Miller Brewing Company
first established Lite as a brand name for its low-calorie
beer.
The "lite" phenomenon furnishes a particularly appropriate example here because the proliferation of
"lite" and "light" products through the 1980s actually
followed more than a decade of historical development
of consumer behavior. The first low-calorie beer, Reingold's Gablingers brand, failed in the market of the late
1960s. A later introduction of low-calorie beer by the
Miller Brewing Company in the 1970s under the brand
name Lite proved so successful that, by the end of that
decade, Miller was fighting to establish an exclusive right
to the term "lite" and its phonetic equivalents. Historical analysis of this dramatic shift in consumer preferences will cast a diachronic research design that requires
(1) selecting the terminal points for analysis, (2) defining
the given circumstances at both T1 and T2 2 and (3)
explaining the dynamic cause-and-effect relationships
moving events from the first set of circumstances to the
second.
In this example, continuous factors C and D in Figure
1 might represent American consumers' persistent
fondness for beer and Miller's strength in the brewing
industry during the period from the 1960s to the present.
Factors A, B, and E are discontinuities in that they were
present earlier but not in 1990. Factor A, for example,
might be the possibility of trademark protection of Lite
and its equivalents during the 1970s. Once Miller lost
this legal battle, that possibility was eliminated. Thus,
as factor A disappeared, a new factor, say F, took form
in the legal recognition of "lite" and "light" as generic
terms describing low-calorie beer.
Brewing industry shake-out and consolidations, consumer activism, growing consumer consciousness of
diet and health, new advertising strategies, economic
cycles, changing demographics, developments in pack2No necessary restriction holds T2 in the past. While traditional
research procedures in history call for defining the circumstances at
T1and T2 as the pathway for discovering causal processes, no historical
logic requires that approach. As long as any two elements of the tripartite analysis are known, the researchercan work through acceptable
historical method to knowledge of the third. In effect, then, historical
method allows for prediction (at least in a modified form) in that
information about the circumstances at one historical moment, taken
together with an understanding of the causal processes of change that
are operating, permits conclusions about the likely circumstances at
a future moment. Such prediction, however, will take on a restricted
form that will necessarily focus on deep structural and contextual
causes rather than on the specific triggering causes that typically provide the focus for historical analysis. (These categories of cause are
discussedunder Synthesis:Historical Causes and Explanation,below). Thus, historical method allows for predicting structural change,
and even for the development of situations that will become the contextual causes for specific events, but not for the prediction of those
specific events.
FIGURE 1
GOALS OF HISTORICALRESEARCH
Ti
T2
A
-
E
-
aging and transportation, changes in the Federal Trade

Commission's regulatory policies-any or all of these
(and numerous other phenomena) can be taken as factors for inclusion in a diachronic analysis focused on
consumer acceptance of"lite" beers. Depending on the
terminal points chosen to frame an analysis, each factor
needs explanation as either a continuity or a discontinuity (whether a new appearance or a disappearance).
It is important to point out that the particular continuities and discontinuities observed between two historical moments will depend entirely on the historian's
choice of the temporal termini for the investigation.
Factors that show continuity between T1 and T2 may
exhibit change when compared in other chronological
periods. Similarly, the discontinuities between these
periods may be continuities under yet another periodization. Historians necessarily define time as socially
constructed, and the researcher's decision about bracketing time will determine which things have changed
and which have stayed the same. Selecting temporal
limits for research thus becomes a critical issue in research design.
The "lite" phenomenon is a striking illustration of
the potential value of historical analysis for complex

599
consumer phenomena. Although a relatively parochial

marketing issue in the brewing industry during the
1970s, by 1990 the term "lite" had reached far past the
market for low-calorie beer and had developed its
meaning far beyond "low-calorie." Indeed, by 1990 avid
"lite" consumers could ingest a complete diet of "lite"
(although not necessarily healthy) foods. More important, perhaps, those consumers who now prefer such
products may well be more motivated by the presumed
low-fat, low-cholesterol, or low-salt quality of their food
choices than with the brewing industry's 1970s' concern
for a low-calorie product. Identifying any, or all, such
temporally conditioned changes is the primary goal of
historical analysis, and it is this diachronic focus that
differentiates history most strongly from other social
sciences, in which synchronic analysis provides the
strongest methodological anchor.
The proliferation of "lite" products and the multiple
changes in the term's meaning exemplify the significance of history's ability to refine our understanding of
changes in consumer phenomena. A historical analysis
of the "lite" case from the 1960s to the 1990s would
first serve to explain the change in consumer acceptance
of "lite" in one product category-beer. In diachronic
analysis this first object of explanation quickly becomes
a tool for further explanation in that the initial acceptance of "lite" beer became a causal factor in subsequent
acceptance of other "lite" products. In this sense, the
diachronic analysis in historical explanation readily accepts the same consumer behavior as both cause and
effect in successive (or even simultaneous) episodes. Indeed, because of the developmental assumption in any
diachronic research, such handling of cause and effect
furnishes the cornerstone in historical analysis.
As a case study, the "lite" example involves a double
set of political, economic, social, and intellectual
changes-changes involving both the producers and the
consumers of a product. Potentially, the matrix of possible factors available for historical analysis of the "lite"
phenomenon is unlimited. The obvious question of how
to isolate the key factors causing change thus becomes
critical. The next section begins to answer that question
by developing a model for historical explanation.
Our model reflects the thoughts and writings of many
historians and philosophers, but is unique in that it articulates a comprehensive process of doing historical
research not previously explicated, either by historians
or by consumer researchers. The value of the model,
we believe, lies in its potential to facilitate the execution
of historical consumer research that fully realizes the
method's analytical and explanatory power.
HISTORICAL METHOD: RESEARCH

DESIGN AND ANALYSIS
The practice of historical method involves two stages,
as represented in Figure 2. The first stage, research design, shares obvious similarities with research design as
practiced throughout the social sciences-practitioners
must ask research questions and select procedures.

Nevertheless, as will become clear in the discussion below, the historian's understanding of these tasks is
unique. Likewise, historical analysis, the second stage
of the model presented here, consists in an approach
to research that differs from standard practices in the
social sciences, especially in any research where the focus is explicitly synchronic. Historical analysis proceeds
in three steps-investigation, synthesis, and interpretation-that fulfill the three goals of identifying, explaining, and interpreting change.
Stage I: ResearchDesign
Historians work under an important research constraint. Like paleontologists, criminal investigators,
geologists, financial auditors, and war correspondents,
no historian can create raw data. All historical data are
found in the record of what really happened. Therefore,
historical question framing and research procedures
follow from historical data, whereas in science-based
disciplines questions are asked and procedures selected
before data collection begins. For those who take the
scientific method as their research model, adjusting research questions after beginning data collection is unthinkable; for the historian such adjustments constitute
the basis for research design.
Question Framing. The key to historical question
framing is found in tailoring successive iterations of
specific research questions to developments in research
results. In the finished narrative the research question
must rise out of the description of what really happened,
and, in the end, success with historical analysis rests on
fitting the research question to that story, just as it does
for the paleontologist or the detective. Theoretically,
historians approach question framing in two direct
ways: deductively (through critical review of the existing
historical literature) and inductively (through direct inspection of primary, or archival, sources). In practice,
however, historians must alternate between critical reviews and archival visits in refining research questions.
Whichever approach generates the first iteration of
the research question, the primary function of that
question is to link the data of the historical record with
the project's interpretive end or research goal. Researchers can address an unlimited number of specific
interpretive ends, but any particular research question
can serve just one of three general goals-theory development, theory testing, or the explanation of anomalies.
Nonhistorians often assume history's most powerful
use lies in theory testing, just as nonbiologists often
assume one key fossil can prove or disprove evolutionary theory. Neither assumption is warranted. The historian, like the evolutionary biologist, can never create
new data; s/he can only find data. Moreover, neither
the historian nor the paleontologist can assume that the
material currently available constitutes all relevant data.
Limited to induction, the historian must confront an

600
JOURNAL OF CONSUMER
RESEARCH
FIGURE2
CONCEPTUALMODELOF HISTORICALMETHOD
I.
RESEARCH DESIGN<o
Question
* Research
II.
frami.ng
procedures
HISTORICAL ANALYSIS
* Investigation
of facts
Discovery
Identification
of historical
facts
* Synthesis
of causal
Construction
statements
Production
of explanatory
narrative
* Interpretation
inherent paradox: a single counterexample based on tomorrow's newly discovered data can outweigh years of
accumulated confirming instances. Such an epistemological constraint on historical explanation severely restricts its potential in theory testing. In fact, history is
far more powerful as a research tool for explaining the
variance found in anomalous cases-those cases that
violate general patterns in social science theory-and
in providing the preliminary case study material for
developing new theories (Watkins 1959).
Historical question framing links specific data to an
interpretive end. This point is made best in a hypothetical example: assume that a researcher developing
a model to explain the diffusion of new products discovers an anomaly in working-class neighborhoods. In
these neighborhoods, suppose that standard demographics predict the acceptance of innovative products
in some categories-toys, detergents, cosmetics, and
household appliances-but lack predictive value in the
case of tires, sporting goods, and beer. Some workingclass neighborhoods strongly resist new products in
these male-oriented categories while others show rapid
acceptance. The researcher in this situation might well
begin to question why working-class consumers' adoption of innovations should be product specific.
The consumer researcher seeking to apply historical
method to answer this question will progress through
a series of research questions, each linking data to the
interpretive end of explaining the observed anomaly.
The first round of the process might involve a case study
of a particular product, such as Miller Lite beer, to determine whether demographics will explain its acceptance when introduced in the 1970s. Archival data in
the form of beer distributors' sales records will furnish
the answer and may well show that acceptance was
neighborhood specific. Thus, the first question is answered.
The same data might also constitute the basis for a
second research question. Assume the sales records reveal that, in the neighborhoods where acceptance of
Miller Lite was slow, retail sales picked up only after
the brand had developed some momentum in local,
working-class taverns. The second iteration of the research question, might take this form: "What's so special about consumer behavior in taverns?" Once again
the question serves to link data to the interpretive end

of explaining anomalous patterns of new product adoption.

To address this question, the researcher's next steps
may be toward the library, where a key word search of
the social science literature reveals numerous historical,
sociological, and anthropological articles published on
social behavior in working-class taverns. Assume that
review turns up a history of the influence of television
on working-class sociability during the 1940s and 1950s
showing that, in Boston's neighborhood taverns, television influenced the formation of political opinion by
first disrupting the established patterns and then providing a basis for a new consensus. This study's conclusion that working-class taverns were a focal point
for establishing political opinion in the 1940s and 1950s
raises the question of whether this influence would extend to other domains of working-class sociability, such
as the adoption of innovative products. More specifically, this data source might lead to yet a third iteration
of the question, framed as "How and why did taverns
influence consumer acceptance of Miller Lite?"
This new question takes the hypothetical research
program beyond the point where question framing and
research simply provide information and suggest hypotheses. This new question casts more complex, openended research and asks for a causal answer, one involving the construction of historical narrative. The
consumer researcher seeking to pursue this inquiry will
need to meet four criteria in framing questions that (1)
allow a nontautological answer, (2) allow development
of causal narrative, (3) allow development through diachronic analysis, and (4) allow linkage to the interpretive end. Without the earlier research that revealed taverns as taste leaders in working-class acceptance of
Miller Lite, framing a question around the how and
why of tavern influence would become tautologicalthe question assumes influence. Yet, at this point in the
hypothetical research program we can take that influence as given.
Having established this, our question, "How and why
did taverns influence consumer acceptance of Miller
Lite?" meets the historian's standard criteria. It demands an open-ended analysis in that it does not eliminate any possible causal influence. Further, it requires
a causal answer based on diachronic analysis comparing
time periods before and after the brand's acceptance.
As with the first two rounds of question framing, the
answer promises results that have interpretive significance in developing a new theoretical proposition about
an anomaly in working-class consumer behavior. The
research conducted under this question cannot create
that new theoretical statement, but it can explain a specific instance of anomalous behavior and provide case
study material sufficient to suggest hypotheses for testing
under the research paradigms familiar to all consumer
researchers.
In this hypothetical research program, several questions have been framed, each linking newly discovered
data to the general interpretive objective of explaining
601
an anomalous consumer behavior. At each stage of this

program, different procedures have been suggested,
which raises the issue of how one selects procedures to
answer historical research questions. This decision
constitutes the second component of historical research
design.
Research Procedures. In choosing research procedures, historians enjoy tremendous methodological latitude. Some historical research questions will demand
a large-scale, number-crunching approach, while for
others a case study or library or archival research will
be more appropriate. The only requirement for selecting
research procedures is that they clearly tie the data to
the research question in a way that allows the development of interpretation.
Choices of procedure follow from question framing
and evolve along with refinements in the questions
posed, as previously illustrated. These choices simply
call for matching data to the interpretive end driving a
research question, yet this is a task requiring care. The
researcher examining an anomalous change in consumers' adoption of product innovations by investigating consumer behavior in mid-twentieth-century
working-class taverns, for instance, might undertake an
archival analysis. Period newspapers offer ample source
material on consumer behavior in working-class taverns
during the 1960s and 1970s-as do police blotters and
court records from that period. While containing material for a lurid and graphic account, such sources will
probably yield little of interest to most consumer researchers because of their focus on exceptional, rather
than typical, behaviors.
Census data and insurance maps can yield more information on tavern life, as can diaries, magazine articles, memoirs, oral histories, business records, novels,
movies, and television. These sources are likely to interest consumer researchers, as they offer insights about
mainstream, rather than deviant, behaviors. Yet none
of these sources-or even all of them taken togethercan yield anything meaningful about consumer behavior unless the historian uses question framing to link
the data to the interpretive end. Simply compiling the
available sources into a running narrative fails to explain the causes of change. The value of these sources
has to be produced in the historical analysis.
Stage II: Historical Analysis

As indicated in Figure 2, historical analysis involves
investigation, synthesis, and interpretation. The purpose of this research stage is to answer the research
question by using the procedure previously selected.
The activities undertaken during analysis are the deduced consequences of the research design in that the
research question constitutes a conceptual framework
guiding the empirical analysis. Figure 3 provides a
schematic of historical analysis that elaborates on the
components of investigation, synthesis, and interpretation while also suggesting their interrelationships.

/h,
--
historical
NOTE-Fj,
Mere
facts;
interpretation;
Icr,HF1,
FX
--
historical
consumer
C,,
research
Mr
Ml
Mt
Motives
deep
''
facts;
HF,
CausesCs
--
interpretation.
structural
I
causes;
cc,
F4
HF2
--|
contextual
Cc
causes;
HFs
~~~Causal
Ct,
Fs
F7
|_
triggering
------
causes;
Mt,
ANALYSIS
1-
I
I
Fs
C,
|----
transparent
Fs
---
motives;
Mu,
Flo
-unconscious
-
Fil
motives;
Mc,
~~~~~~~~~HF4
HF,
,F
conscious
Interpretation
motives;
HISTORICAL
FIGURE
3
Synthesis

Investigation
603
As we will show in the following sections, the investigation stage involves discovering data sources to establish the salient facts of an episode or event. The critical task here is to distinguish between mere facts (those
lacking causal relevance) and the special category of
knowledge historians accept as historical facts (those
bits of knowledge from which we derive causal understanding; Carr 1961). During synthesis-the second
stage in analysis-historians construct causal statements and develop the narrative exposition for ordering
causal priority. With interpretation-the final stage of
analysis-the historian explicates how that causal narrative answers the research question, thus developing
its interpretive significance. This interpretive stage
constitutes the application of historical knowledge in
theory development, theory testing, or the explication
of significant exceptions to generalization.
Investigation: Facts and Historical Facts. Identifying those things that stay the same and those things
that change between two historical moments requires
the historian to determine what really happened in a
historical process, episode, or event. In effect, the historian must begin the investigation with two synchronic
fact-finding missions carried out at the two temporal
termini under consideration (T1 and T2in Fig. 1). These
two characterizations, comparable to snapshots, constitute the starting point for diachronic analysis. The
records of the past, however, offer an infinite number
of facts, from an almost unlimited number of sources,
about most historical moments. Consequently, the first
principle in historical investigation has to be the practice
of selection-the process that narrows the facts from
whatever is available to those appropriate to the question and procedures chosen for the research design.
Facts from the past furnish the raw data for historical
analysis, but the possibilities for uncovering new facts
in documentary remains are so vast that historians differentiate between mere facts and those special historical facts that can contribute to causal explanations of
change. For example, take F1 in Figure 3 as the fact
that the Miller Brewing Company markets a low-calorie
beer under the brand name Lite. This fact can be determined empirically, and is subject to no meaningful
dispute. It shows, however, scant prospect of contributing anything toward answering questions about
whether low-calorie beers caused changes in consumer
tastes and, ultimately, in the structure of the brewing
industry. Investigation involves differentiating between
mere facts such as this and historical facts that can contribute to a causal explanation of change.
The difficulty of this task has fueled more than a halfcentury of theoretical debate among modern professional historians (Levine 1989). The focus of the controversy rests on the question of whether historical facts,
which are the product of investigation, dictate the ultimate interpretation. That is, are the historical facts
selected inductively in developing an interpretation, or
does the interpretation deductively determine the choice
of historical facts (Hobart 1989; Mandelbaum 1977)?

For the purpose at hand, the particular issues of this
chicken-or-egg debate carry less importance than the
knowledge that it can yield a highly articulated criterion
for differentiating between mere facts and historical
facts.
More specifically, no fact can serve as historical unless
it contributes to the construction of a causal statement
(Carr 1961). Any historical fact must stand in relation
to a second historical fact. Like husband and wife, or
father and child, the statement of a first historical fact
implies the existence of a second historical fact. In this
insistence on a relationship between historical facts,
historians forge the intellectual links that ultimately
bind explanations together. Note, however, that, in developing an explanation, the causal relationships among
historical facts may differ from their chronological relationships. Chronologically, events are related sequentially in time. The historical significance of facts, however, rests less on when they occurred and more on
their implications for a process of change. While a cause
obviously cannot occur after the event it supposedly
caused, events far removed in time from a particular
change of interest may nonetheless be more relevant in
explaining its occurrence than events immediately preceding it.
As indicated in Figure 3, it is possible that several
mere facts may relate to a single historical fact. Referring
again to the Miller Lite example, take F2 as the traditional appeal of beer to men, rather than women, and
F3 as the feminist movement during the 1970s. Both of
these mere facts are related to the historical fact that in
the 1970s and 1980s women came to constitute a major
segment for low-calorie beers. That is, changing gender
roles may have furnished an important element in the
success of low-calorie beer as women began to engage
in some traditionally male behaviors. If so, we must
elevate F2 and F3 to the status of historical fact, HF1,
because both relate to a single factor that may have
historical significance in explaining what, if any, impact
low-calorie beers had on changing consumer tastes and
on the structure of the brewing industry.
The necessary relationship between historical facts is
also illustrated in this example. A second historical fact,
HF2, might be the growing concern for health and fitness among American consumers. This fact is related
to HF1 in that the emergent interest of female consumers in beer may have focused on low-calorie (as opposed
to other) brands because of their concern for physical
well-being while making their feminist move into beer
drinking.
The criterion that guides the selective process for differentiating mere facts from historical facts is relevance.
The status of historical facts depends on their relevance
to a causal explanation of change, and what is deemed
relevant or not relevant is a question of interpretation.
The merit of a historical explanation rests on the historian's judgment about the relevance of facts. And
therein lies the art to history. While the same set of

604
historical facts may be applied to a variety of interpretive ends, no relevant fact can be excluded from the
analysis, and those facts that are included must have a
clear and direct relation to the causes of change advanced in the explanation. The selection of relevant
dyadic historical facts moves analysis from investigation
into synthesis.
Synthesis: Historical Causes and Explanation.

Historical investigation produces interrelated historical
facts. During synthesis, the second stage of historical

analysis, the historian brings these facts together into
an explanatory narrative. Historical narrative is a form
of explanation that tells a story about what caused the
change between two historical moments that constitute
the story's beginning and end. A valid historical narrative must satisfy the criteria of (1) containing all the
facts relevant to the question under investigation, (2)
containing no facts that are not relevant to that question, and (3) adequately explaining the change that is
the question's subject (Danto 1985). Epistemologically,
historians construct narratives consisting of causal
statements at three distinct levels of analysis (deep
structural, contextual, and triggering causes), and with
reference to three states of the historical actor's mind
(transparent, unconscious, and conscious motivation)
as shown in Figure 3.
Consider the example of a man who arrives early for
a business luncheon at a restaurant located in a shopping mall. He goes to a department store in the mall
just to kill time and buys a necktie on sale. This consumer had visited the same mall on numerous other
occasions but had not previously made any purchase
in a clothing store. In attempting to account for the
change in his behavior, the historian would construct
a narrative identifying three levels of cause, differentiated on the basis of their temporal relationship to the
unique event, the unplanned purchase.
Deep structural causes, denoted C, in Figure 3, have
origins far removed in time from the focal event and
include such things as the prevalence of multipurpose
shopping malls as distribution channels for goods and
services in twentieth-century America. Contextual
causes, Cc, include the layout and displays in the department store and the lunch appointment, causes that
stand in a more proximate temporal relationship to the
unplanned purchase. If asked, however, the customer
would most likely refer to triggering causes, Ct, which
are closest in time to the focal event, and say he bought
the tie "because I was there and had some time on my
hands." This type of causal attribution is discussed by
Bloch (1953, p. 191):
It is not that this antecedentwas most necessaryto the
occurrenceof the event. Many others were just as necessary.But it wasdistinguishedfromall the restby several
very strikingcharacteristics:it occurredlast; it was the
leastpermanent,the most exceptionalin the generalorder
of things;finally, by virtue of this greaterparticularity,
it seemsthe antecedentwhichcouldhavebeen most easily
avoided. For these reasons,it appearsto have exerteda
more direct influence upon the result, and we scarcely

can avoid the feeling that it was reallythe sole cause of
it.
In developing explanations of change, historians recognize that factors distant in time are necessary to create
an environment in which the focal event can occur but
are insufficient themselves to precipitate it. In the example above, the design of the shopping mall and the
store layout clearly created conditions favorable to an
unplanned purchase. Without the triggerprovided by
the early arrival, however, these factors could not cause
the purchase. Similarly, it could not have occurred in
their absence. These different levels of cause also reflect
the historian's dual concern with those things that stay
the same and those that change. In this hypothetical
example, deep structural causes reflect continuity across
the consumer's several visits to the shopping mall, while
the triggering causes are the things that are unique or
different about the visit when the unplanned purchase
took place.
Explaining change also requires the historian to consider the historical actor's state of mind, or motivation.
Events are not solely a result of environmental or situational factors. They are also shaped by human reactions, and these reactions may be motivated at a
transparent, unconscious, or conscious level-levels
that differ with respect to the actor's degree of selfawareness. Transparent motives, identified as M, in
Figure 3, are so obvious to the actor that they defy explicit acknowledgment. Referring once again to the unplanned purchase example, the customer would be unlikely to say gender motivated him to buy the necktie.
In our culture, the fact that men wear neckties is a
transparent cause of purchase behavior. It is so obvious
that one is probably unaware of it as a behavioral determinant, and one would be unlikely, therefore, to
think to mention it.
Unconscious motives, Mu, derive from impersonal
social forces. Unlike transparent motives that "just are,"
unconscious motives arise from social circumstances
that do not necessarily have to stand as they. are, but of
which the individual may not be consciously aware at
the time an act occurs. Such unconscious motives might
be likened to unreflected experience (Thompson, Locander, and Pollio 1989) in that they constitute a ground
against which behavior is the figure.
In the consumer context, for example, advertising
creates perceptions that can motivate an actor without
conscious awareness. Assume, for instance, that the
man's unplanned purchase was of a brand of necktie
with an upscale image created by an aggressive advertising campaign. In selecting that brand rather than
other, less prestigious offerings, he may have been unaware of a status-seeking motive even though he might
acknowledge in the abstract that advertising and other
marketing strategies affect his behavior.
Conscious motives, Mc, constitute a third level. Similar to reflected experience (Thompson et al. 1989), these
are the motives of which the actor is aware during de-

605
cision making. Jn the example of an unplanned purchase, the customer will likely refer to tangible attributes
such as a sale price as the motivation for choosing a
specific tie in preference to others. Because the actor is
aware of these motives, they exert the most direct effect
on the decision about how to act. While transparent
and unconscious motives, like deep structural and contextual causes, are necessary for an event, they are more
continuous through time and less avoidable or controllable by the individual actor.
The historian's primary tasks of identifying and explaining change, then, become something more than a
straightforward sorting of phenomena into categories
of continuity and change. That sorting completes the
first task of identifying change but only sets the stage
for the higher-order goal of explanation. Here, the historian must develop an analysis incorporating deep
structural, contextual, and trigger causes while simultaneously considering the actor's transparent, unconscious, and conscious motivations. During the synthesis
stage of analysis, the historian has nine possible categories of cause from which to construct an explanatory
narrative.
Historical explanations of change involve causal
statements such as "Economic dominance of big business (deep structural cause and transparent motivation),
a rapidly growing middle class (contextual cause and
unconscious motivation), and the muckrakers' desire
to expose unsanitary conditions in the meat packing
industry (triggering cause and conscious motivation)
all combined to create the consumer movement in early
twentieth-century America." As this example implies,
the construction of unitary causal statements such as
this does not complete the historian's analysis. The
complexity of human activity is such that no single
causal statement will explain an episode as sweeping as
the consumer movement (or, for that matter, one as
minor as the individual consumer's decision to purchase
a new item of clothing). The nature of historical processes requires manifold causal statements woven into
an overall explanatory narrative (Megill 1989).
In synthesizing such an explanation, the historian
walks a narrow path between projecting an artificially
simplified structure on a multiplicity of causes and overstating their inherent complexity. Historical causes
exhibit interactions and interdependences that cannot
be ignored if one is to avoid sterile, mechanistic explanations. Fischer (1970, p. 179) discusses this problem
as follows:
Imaginethat an effect E was caused by A, B, C, and D.
If all of these four causal componentswere necessaryto
that effect, then the removal of any one of them would
not diminish E by one-fourth.Its absence would make
E impossible. On the other hand, it is easy to imagine
that A, B, C, and D, though not individuallynecessary
to E, neverthelessinteracted in a geometrical ratio. If
therewere only A, then E would be of a magnitude 1. If
therewere only A and B, then the effectwould be not 2
but 22, or an E of magnitude4. A, B, and C wouldproduce
an E of 9, and all four causal components, an E of 16.

This is an involved way of sayingthat a causal complex
is somethingother than the sum of its parts.
Interpretation. Once the historian has woven the
historical facts from the investigation stage into a causal
narrative during the synthesis stage, the way stands open
for interpretation, the final component of historical
analysis. It is here that the historian addresses the implications of the narrative for the research question.
The historian's task at this point of the research process
is somewhat analogous to that of interpreting experimental results. The data analysis in an experiment produces a variety of implications that may be applied in
a number of ways to answer a research question. Similarly, as indicated in Figure 3, the same historical narrative may be subject to various interpretations.
A traditionalconsumer researchinterpretation,ICr,
for example, would focus more on deep structural or
contextual causes (i.e., social class, situation) or unconscious and conscious motives (i.e., self-image enhancement, product attributes) to explain consumer
behavior and would incorporate only one or a few such
factors in the interpretation. The historian's interpretation, Ih, while recognizing the importance of those
causes and motives, would also include the triggering
causes and the transparent motives and would seek to
retain the complexity of a multitude of causes at various
levels and motives with different degrees of self-awareness. Like experimental data, the narrative imposes
some empirical limits on interpretation, but historical
questions, by definition open-ended, permit wide latitude.
More precisely, the answer to the research question
constructed at this stage of historical analysis ties the
research to one of the historian's three interpretive
ends-developing a theory of change, testing or corroborating an existing theory, or explaining anomalies
unaccounted for under current theory. These interpretive outcomes exhibit a cyclical relationship that can
be illustrated by the example of historical research on
the effect of bureaucracy on capitalism.
Schumpeter (1942) used the results of his research
on bureaucracy and business structures to construct a
theory holding that the larger corporations become (a
necessity for competition in a free market), the more
they stifle entrepreneurial activity-and therefore ultimately destroy capitalism. Thus, growth-necessary
for survival in a free market system-entails the ultimate destruction of that same system. Subsequently,
this theory became widely accepted as economists and
historians found confirming instances where corporate
growth did appear to stifle entrepreneurial vitality (Livesay 1977).
A number of businesses, however, have posed anomalies for the Schumpeter thesis in that the entrepreneurial spirit has appeared to thrive within their large, bureaucratic structures. In an effort to explain these
anomalies, Livesay (1977) used the historian's case-

606
study method and examined three businesses chosen to

represent different organizational types. He constructed
a narrative suggesting that the personalities and capabilities of key individuals can reverse the inexorable
logic of destruction embedded in the Schumpeter thesis.
He interpreted his findings as showing that, beyond
structure, individual capability can determine corporate
vitality. Thus, he challenged the original theory and
suggested lines for new theory development.
Although a single interpretive end may guide the historian's preliminary decisions during research design,
historical analysis permits mid-course methodological
corrections that may lead to an entirely different interpretation from the one originally envisioned. In this
way, historical method is flexible and adaptive and
might be compared to the hermeneutic circle, or a partto-whole approach to interpretation (Bleicher 1980).
That is, the intended interpretive end is the whole that
defines the parts of the research design, but in executing
that design the interpretive end may change, leading in
turn to changes in the design. As investigation and synthesis progress, the ultimate interpretation and application may follow very unexpected directions free from
the methodological encumbrances that sometimes
plague other forms of social science research.
CONTRIBUTIONS OF HISTORICAL
RESEARCH TO CONSUMER
BEHAVIOR
Historical method offers important opportunities for
investigating many dynamic and volatile consumer
phenomena. In large part, current knowledge of how
consumers behave in the marketplace consists of unrelated still photos depicting consumers at isolated times
and places. Historical analysis provides the methodological tools needed to integrate these snapshots into
interpretive accounts that will enhance our understanding of the processes that produce changes in consumer behavior. Historical analysis can augment our
considerable social science knowledge about ongoing
or stable patterns in consumer behavior and allow us
to analyze patterns of change, understand volatile episodes, and establish causal linkages between such episodes.
The potential contributions of historical research to
explanations of consumer behavior follow from its interpretive ends. Historical research designs can be
turned to theory development, theory testing, or to the
explanation of anomalous behavior. Obviously, in each
of these uses, historical method stands as only one alternative among a variety of research strategies, and its
advantages need to be gauged against its potential contributions to the discipline's larger research framework.
In weighing these advantages, two strengths-one conceptual and one practical-stand out as particularly attractive to consumer researchers.
Conceptually, historical method offers significant
advantages in dealing with consumer phenomena where
changes have occurred or might be expected to occur.

For example, recent Federal Trade Commission regulations on marketers' use of the term "lite" or "light"
to designate a variety of attributes of food products are
the result of a complex causal chain that stretches back
almost 20 years. As such, the "lite" phenomenon is an
ideal candidate for historical analysis.
At the practical level, the greatest strength of historical research derives from its ability to offer high yields
on the research investment. Following the initial costs
of methodological mastery, the marginal costs of historical research are relatively low. In the "lite" case, for
instance, the archival materials necessary for historical
research are as close as the nearest business library.
Shifts in consumer purchasing decisions can be seen in
sales figures; the intricacies of the legal decisions are
spelled out in periodicals such as the Wall Street Journal
and Advertising Age; corporate adjustments in marketing strategies can be tracked through similar sources.
At this point, a research design to investigate the
"lite" phenomenon beyond the first several rounds of
question framing and research remains hypothetical,
but even the limited research design encompassed here
takes that example far enough to illustrate the methodological validity of historical method in consumer
research. Moving as it has between consumer taste,
marketing strategy, legal decisions, and possible government regulation, the main line of research necessary
to understand the "lite" phenomenon plays directly to
the historian's strengths. The potential for applying
historical method far more extensively to such consumer events is real. Historical method is ideally suited
to formulating the explanatory framework necessary to
encompass such episodes into the larger domain of substantive interests among consumer researchers.
APPENDIX
Historical Literaturein Consumer Research

Chronicles:
Helgeson et al. 1984
Belch and Belch 1985
Eshghi 1985
Gorn and Claxton 1985
Gr0nhaug and Gronmo 1985
Helgeson, Mager, and Kluge 1985
Ho and Sin 1985
Laroche 1985
Lesch 1985
Meissner 1985
Moschis and Smith 1985
Newman 1985
Rivas, Roche, and Mugica 1985
Robinson, Rao, and Mehta 1985
Schiffman and Sherman 1985
Sheth 1985
Tse and Wilton 1985

Van Raaij 1985

Venkatesan and Anderson 1985
Wada and Saito 1985
Wee and Yeoh 1985
Fullerton 1990
Jones and Monieson 1990
Savitt 1990
Zuckerman and Carsky 1990
Analyses of continuity and trends:

Belk and Pollay 1985a, 1985b, 1985c
Friedman 1985a, 1985b, 1985c
Fullerton 1985
Pollay 1985a, 1985b
Ursic et al. 1986
Belk 1987
Gross and Sheth 1989
Tse et al. 1989
Witkowski 1989
Dixon 1990
Shaw 1990
Zinn and Johnson 1990
Analyses of change:
Hendon and Muhs 1985
Fullerton 1988
Arnould 1989
Droge, Germaine, and Halstead 1990
Mittlestaedt 1990
Morris 1990
Stern 1990a
Witkowski 1990a
Methodology:
Firat 1987
Fullerton 1987
Kumcu 1987
Pollay 1987
Rassuli and Hollander 1987
Lavin and Archdeacon 1989
a
The stated purpose of these papers was methodological; the authors introduced new methods of doing
historical research. The papers are classified as analyses
of change, however, because the examples used to demonstrate these methods provided causal answers to
questions about historical change.
[Received August 1990. Revised May 1992.]
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Journal of Consumer Research, Inc.

Historical Method in Consumer Research: Developing Causal Explanations of Change

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and seeks to untangle the complexity of causes that

*Ruth Ann Smith is associate professor of marketing at Virginia

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JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

CURRENT USE OF HISTORICAL

and 1990 in the Journal of ConsumerResearch, the

historical research and the topic areas studied from 1930

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HISTORICALMETHOD IN CONSUMER RESEARCH

by consumer researchers as a tool for explaining change

GOALS AND ASSUMPTIONS OF

as Leopold Von Ranke and Otto Hintz, constraints that

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JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

for such an analysis can stand widely separated in time,

aging and transportation, changes in the Federal Trade

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HISTORICALMETHOD IN CONSUMER RESEARCH

consumer phenomena. Although a relatively parochial

HISTORICAL METHOD: RESEARCH

must ask research questions and select procedures.

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HISTORICALMETHOD IN CONSUMER RESEARCH

of explaining anomalous patterns of new product adoption.

an anomalous consumer behavior. At each stage of this

Stage II: Historical Analysis

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HISTORICALMETHOD IN CONSUMER RESEARCH

of historical facts (Hobart 1989; Mandelbaum 1977)?

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JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

Synthesis: Historical Causes and Explanation.

facts. During synthesis, the second stage of historical

more direct influence upon the result, and we scarcely

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HISTORICALMETHOD IN CONSUMER RESEARCH

an E of 9, and all four causal components, an E of 16.

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JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

study method and examined three businesses chosen to

changes have occurred or might be expected to occur.

Historical Literaturein Consumer Research

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HISTORICALMETHOD IN CONSUMER RESEARCH

Van Raaij 1985

Analyses of continuity and trends:

[Received August 1990. Revised May 1992.]

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JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

Fischer, David Hackett (1970), Historians' Fallacies: Toward

Tiong Tan and Jagdish N. Sheth, Singapore: National

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HISTORICALMETHOD IN CONSUMER RESEARCH

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JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

N. Sheth, Singapore: National University of Singapore,

Historicism, ed. H. Aram Veeser, New York: Routledge,

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