The article presents a framework for integrating historical sources with elements of the geographical space recorded in unique cartographic materials. The aim of the project was to elaborate a method of integrating spatial data sources that would facilitate studying and presenting the phenomena of economic history. The proposed methodology for multimedia integration of old materials made it possible to demonstrate the successive stages of the transformation which was characteristic of the 19th-century space. The point of reference for this process of integrating information was topographic maps from the first half of the 19th century, while the research area comprised the castle complex in Kórnik together with the small town – the pre-industrial landscape in Wielkopolska (Greater Poland). On the basis of map and plan transformation, graphic processing of the scans of old drawings, texture mapping of the facades of historic buildings, and a 360° panorama, the source material collected was integrated. The final product was a few-minute-long video, composed of nine sequences. It captures the changing form of the castle building together with its facades, the castle park, and its further topographic and urban surroundings, since the beginning of the 19th century till the present day. For a topographic map sheet dating back to the first half of the 19th century, in which the hachuring method had been used to present land relief, a terrain model was generated. The transition from parallel to bird’s-eye-view perspective served to demonstrate the distinctive character of the pre-industrial landscape.

The article presents the concept of the economic history of Witold Kula. He understands economic history as historical and comparative anthropology. However, he does not see the need to change the name of the discipline because he understands anthropology in a traditional way. This name refers to a separate discipline of knowledge which is primarily interested in primitive societies. Taking account of the existence of different research styles in anthropology, it must be stated that Kula’s research on the economy represents the scientistic style of researching culture.

The aim of this paper is to partially capture the state of theoretical debate amongst Polish historians on their own discipline in the second half of 20th century. To achieve this we analyse the content of the first twenty five volumes of journal Historyka published in the period when Celina Bobińska was its editor-in-chief (1967–1995). We assume that Historyka – the only journal dedicated to the theory of history and history of historiography – was situated in the centre of exchanges on academic historical practices. We do not treat its content as a reflection of contemporary studies in the theory of history, but as a dominant position in the self-understanding of the discipline competing with other utterances. The paper is a reconstruction of this offer, which is composed of the definitions of subjects of historical studies, descriptions of productive methods, hierarchy of masters of historical writings and their influential books.

The article presents the author’s perspective on the achievements of Polish historiography in the field of economic, social and historical demography of the pre-industrial period. It also suggests new directions of research that would relate to trends, methods and theories prevalent in world historiography.

The article describes features of Jerzy Topolski’s narrative in economic history. It focuses on four important threads and moments in his research on this field: great manor property, estimation of national income in the history of Poland, the birth of capitalism in Europe, social dependencies in the manor economy system.