Romanticism was influenced by the enlightenment period which had classicism as its dominant art form. They were people who believed that classicism was too rigid and focused too much on scientific things and logic and being rational and wanted to speak more about mystic things and feelings and nature and supernatural and things like that, put more emotion and soul into writing.
Age of realism came as a response to this because they believed that romanticism was too melodramatic and depicted the world in a wrong way. They believed that people were being exploited by the society and the feudal lords or kings and that art should depict the world as it is in order to make people realize how bad things were. They believed romanticism artists were unaware of the troubles the people were going through.<span />
A microhistorian might document one day in a town that experienced particularly high unemployment levels, while a comparative historian might graph unemployment levels in several cities throughout the Great Depression
Critical rationalism was developed by Karl Popper in the middle of the 20th century. His premise is that society developed by solving problems through trial and error. Popper's ideal society is a society which is open to this form of problem-solving. False theories are perceived as false and rejected. Critical rationalism allows unfettered criticism as this form of criticism can lead to a genuine possibility of societal change; in short, an open society. These ideas also provide an opening for accessing philosophical ideas.
