身临其境：历史学家如何探索前人的情感体验

An emerging field of history asks if we can ever really understand how our forebears experienced love, anger, fear, and sorrow. By Gal Beckerman Illustrations by Nicolás Ortega The historian Rob Boddice sat cross-legged on his couch in Montreal on a frigid day last winter and conjured for me the image of a medieval carpenter, hammering away in his workshop. “Imagine this guy; he’s building a table,” he said. Suddenly the carpenter misses the nail and bangs his thumb instead. “What did that feel like for him?” Boddice asked. I stared for a few seconds while Boddice smiled encouragingly, as if he’d just asked me to solve a quadratic equation in my head. …