Breaking Down History with the SPICE Factors

Historians are often confronted with a huge volume of sources. Even when we are lucky enough to have our sources pared down to a single book (like, say, our textbook), we still face the problem of organizing information in a way that allows us to make new and interesting observations.
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Luckily, we have several tools at our disposal. One approach we will utilize in this course is the “SPICE” factors. “SPICE” is an acronym representing five important modes of historical analysis: social, political, intellectual, cultural, and economic. By charting these together we can organize our sources to filter out unnecessary facts, sharpen our focus, and draw connections. We can use this basic template to analyze major events in world history. Once you have mastered this approach, you can modify it by trying out other categories like “ecological.”

Acronym	Description
Social	How human welfare is distributed within a community, specifically among various divisions within that community. Human welfare can be measured according to material wealth, health, and overall quality of life. Social categories: class (caste, status, slavery, etc.), gender (male/female binary, sexual orientation, etc.), cultural differentiation (ethnicity, language, or religion, etc.),  ​Analytical approaches: equality/inequality, privilege, patriarchy, family relations, discrimination
Political	How individuals or groups seek or exercise power, especially through the state. Politics also relates to how people aim to protect themselves from the state or other community members. Political systems: the state, coercive apparatus (police, secret police, armies, etc.), diplomacy, law and rights Analytical approaches: structure of government (feudal, absolutist, constitutional, etc.), coercion (punishment, war, imperialism), justice, social justice, freedoms, popular legitimacy
Intellectual	How people perceive the world around them, and how those ideas change over time. Intellectual realms: philosophy (political, moral, etc.), natural sciences, cartography, systems of knowledge transmission (from scrolls to satellites) Analytical approaches: ingenuity, rationality, utility, accessibility
Cultural	How common ideals, beliefs, and artistic taste are expressed. When our notion of expression extends to the core function of language, the line between “cultural” and “intellectual” becomes fuzzy. For our purposes, we will try to keep the two separate. Cultural expressions: visual arts (painting, calligraphy, etc.), music, literature (novels, poetry, etc.), architecture and design, public celebrations, ceremony, festivals, and ritual Analytical approaches: tradition, civilization, high/popular culture, orthodoxy/heterodoxy
Economic	How material necessities and luxuries are created, circulated, and consumed. Economic concepts: production (modes of production, productivity, etc.), trade, wealth, standard of living, money and capital, banking and finance, markets, profit, specialization/occupations

Examples

• SPICE chart of the Early Modern Era (PDF)