A historical view tries to explain things happening in a row by events how they 'naturally' occur, following the calendrical date. Interpretations mostly follow then 'Zeitgeist', meaning that you for example explain things by development. In the same manner life history theory is an approach to explain things by processes. It's the idea that certain decissions start certain processes leading to a certain outcome. The basic is mainly the same belief: Events happen in a row and things can be explained in a more 'mathematical' and biological manner. This theory is mostly influenced by a mechanical view.

When it comes to life course perspective things are rather seen as fields of influence then talking about events. Each point discussed is seen as a location or an area. And in that specific area you can find certain objects or structures acting upon a person. Also do innerpsychical structures play a role: What has a person gone through before? How has this influenced the psychological structure? The theory is mainly influenced by a psychoanalytic view, social psychology and especially field theory of Lewin, trying to combine them with actual knowledge about human behavior from other fields. Any other than the mechanical view trying to generalize the individual mind and its constitution plays a much bigger role here.

I think of the life history approach as much closer to being a method, in the sense of procedures. Life course is more of a theoretical approach -- which is why it is some times referred to as a "perspective" in the sense of a way of viewing a research topic. Thus, you could use a life course perspective as a way of framing your research question, and a life history approach as a way of collecting and analyzing the data.

Thematic analysis is more flexible since you can use different kinds of data such as interviews and journals (it allows interpretive method of data in your analysis). You don't really need a ground theory type of approach : )