Transport history
Transport history's emergence as a subject of academia rather than nostalgia in Britain can be seen to have taken place in the immediate post-war period, prompted by a combination of increasing specialisation within the historical profession and the growth of the social sciences, which were interested in transport for a variety of reasons and interested in studying it using historical models. Since then the subject has been generally regarded as a sub-discipline of economic and social history, and was at the forefront of the cliometric revolution which produced several significant studies focused on transport. Though still a large field, and an area of history of great interest to the general public, it has been criticised both for its lack of methodological innovation and for what has been seen as an excessive focus on the railway industry.
- Historians:
- Thompson, Francis Michael Longstreth
- Institutions:
- Institute of Railway Studies and Transport History
Journal of Transport History - Themes:
- Cliometrics
Economic history
Quantitative history
Urban history
Related publications
- Gijs Mom, 'What kind of transport history did we get? Half a century of JTH and the future of the field', Journal of Transport History, 24, 2 (2003), 121–38
