"History unravels gently, like an old sweater. lt has been patched and darned many times, reknitted to suit different people, shoved in a box under the sink of a censorship to be cut up for the dusters of propaganda, yet it always - eventually - manages to spring back into its old familiar shape. History has a habit of changing the people who think they are changing it. History always has a few tricks up its frayed sleeve. It's been around a Iong time."*
To me, the history of modern societies blends social and cultural history with the social sciences. It takes into account the political and economic framework of societies, as well as the actors’ underlying values, be it religion, ideology, or any other kind of identity. My work focuses on structures and dynamics at the macro level, and deals with the social meso level (such as communities, organizations, companies) as well as the perspectives of individuals. The focus of this historical work includes religious communities such as the Amish, which I deal with in my current book project. Such groups are by no means "on the fringes" of modern societies, but instead are integral to them as part of a non-linear and heterogeneous modernity. As Shmuel Eisenstadt describes it, they represent multiple modernity; for Thomas Welskopp and Alan Lesoff, they are part of fractured modernity.
*Terry Pratchett, Mort: A Discworld Novel. The Discworld Series 4. (repr., Corgi Books, 1988), 150.