The most common known history is usually the extreme events, like wars or disasters. And when people talk about learning from history it most often means don't repeat the same mistakes they did.
Wouldn't it be more useful to learn from the times when things worked out well? When there was a crisis or big social shifts that didn't result in violence.
Like how in psychology there's a domain called "positive psychology" which studies wellbeing rather than mental illness.
Is there a similar "positive history " domain?
Probably the most explicit field that focuses entirely on what went well would be Peace Studies. Its primarily in the field of intentional relations but inevitably involves the study of history and is of interest to political historians. Sometimes also referred to as peace and conflict or peace and security studies it is focused in the causes of peace and conflict (I say the causes of peace because in my opinion peace is something that needs to be achieved and not a ground state that occurs when everything is going well), with normative thinkers being concerned with how to produce peace.
You might also be interested in things like domestic history and the history of microeconomics both of which largely deal with the day to day lives of individuals rather than the grand political dramas or warfare.
Economic development looks at what drives some countries' increasing economic output, though of course there is often dispute about the extent to which economic development is good, with critics pointing out the environmental costs. On the other hand, economic development is associated with more peace, less corruption, lower child mortality, more political freedoms, more social equality. Note that I'm using the word "associated" rather than "drives" or "is driven by", the causal relation is highly debated and may well be circular, a virtuous circle.
One nice thing that comes out of economic theory is that it is better to have richer trading partners than poorer ones, so things like colonial exploitation are bad for the colonisers (of course not remotely as bad as said exploitation is for their victims). One depressing thing is that the economic argument that colonial exploitation is bad for the colonisers is probably more effective at discouraging such atrocities than the moral argument.
I'm not sure if it's quite what you are thinking of, given that econonic developmemt doesn't necessarily follow a crisis or a big social shift.
Source
Deidre McCloskey, 2006, Keukentafel Economics and the History of British Imperialism, South African Economic History Review 21 (Sept 2006): 171-176. http://www.deirdremccloskey.com/docs/imperialism.pdf