Keith Thomas
Keith Thomas, a British historian, advocated innovation in methods of analysing history. He urged a break from the traditional models of historical explanation with their narrow focus on high politics and the political elite. Instead Thomas advocated writing a wider history than that of political events.
Anthropologists, Thomas argued have the “inestimable advantage of direct experience of matters about which historians have only read in books.” He went on to argue that if one accepts the premise that the two disciplines converge, then it is logical to conclude that the two disciplines enrich one another.
According to Thomas “anthropology can enhance our methods of historical explanation.” It is important to study history not only to understand “that political and social structures change,” but it is also important to understand “the social forces which determine them.” Furthermore, Thomas argued an anthropologists does not simply describe things, but analyses and integrates them making them more relevant. The benefit of anthropology “is that it does constitute such an attempt to explain things in terms of each other, rather than treat them separately.”
Keith Thomas’ views on this subject were published in Past & Present (April 1963) in an essay entitled History and Anthropology.