(history) The study of the past on a small scale, such as an individual neighborhood or town, as a case study for general trends
2009, September 13, Daphne Merkin, Dame of the British Interior, What is certain is that in “The Pattern in the Carpet,†Drabble eschews both chronology and raw autobiographical revelation for a more meandering approach that touches briefly on family pathology and private pain as it crisscrosses the centuries and unfolds the microhistory of jigsaw puzzles, an English invention, circa 1767.
