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The term was first popularized by E.P. Thompson in an article in the Times Literary Supplement in 1966.

The first history of this type done was largely on modern history. Journals and letters are easily found; in even more recent eras audio interviews are also possible with those who have lived through them. In ancient studies the lives of the common individual were far less often recorded. However, as time has progressed historians have become more and more aware of the vast amounts of government records that date back many centuries. Sources such as tax records, coroner's inquests, court records, property deeds, and many other sources are only now beginning to be analysed.

Early history from below was closely linked to Marxist historiography, but in recent years that close connection has begun to disappear. Many modern historians feel that Marxist notions such as class and political consciousness have very little importance before the modern period, and have thus turned to other theories.

History from below is far more likely to draw on other fields than is history from above. It is closely linked with economics and economic history, and it also draws heavily upon sociology and anthropologyAnthropology (from the Greek word ANTHROPOLOGIA consists of the study of humankind (see genus Homo . It is holistic in two senses: it is concerned with all humans at all times, and with all dimensions of humanity. Central to anthropology is the concept of. Archeology also plays an important role. In recent years even more eclectic fields have been drawn upon such as nutrition science s.

Historians in this field:

• Emmanuel Le Roy LadurieEmmanuel Le Roy Ladurie (born 1929) is a noted French historian whose work is focused upon Languedoc in the ancien regime focusing on the history of the peasantry. He is currently a professor at the College de France. He is a noted pioneer in the fields o
• Carlo GinzburgCarlo Ginsburg is a noted historian and pioneer of microhistory. Born 1939 in Italy, received a PhD from the University of Pisa in 1961. Occupied teaching positions at the University of Bologna and since 1988 at the University of California, Los Angeles.
• Barbara A. Hanawalt
• Alan Macfarlane
• Eugene D. Genovese
• Howard Zinn16 February 2004 Howard Zinn (born December 7, 1922 in Brooklyn, New York) is an influential American leftist historian. Zinn is retired from a professorship at Boston University. He has received the Thomas Merton Award, the Eugene V. Debs Award, the Upto