2006/12/01 by C. A. Bayly, C. A. Bayly, Sven Beckert +4 · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Anthropology #Chose #Communication #Computer science #Conversation #History #Law #Library science #Media studies #Political science #Race, History, and American Society #Sister #Sociology #Subject (documents) #Theme (computing) #World Wide Web
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/ahr.111.5.1441
openalex publication_date 2006/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/21
This year, the AHR inaugurates what we hope to be an annual “Conversation” on topics of wide interest to historians. Inspired by our sister journal, the Journal of American History, which two years ago introduced its “Interchange” feature, our goal is to bring several historians together in a conversational encounter online, where ideas can be exchanged across different geographical, chronological, and subject specialties in a manner that will contribute to our overall understanding of an important theme. For our first foray we chose the topic “Transnational History.” Transnational history is hardly new, neither to the profession nor to the AHR. Indeed, more than fifteen years ago, the journal published a Forum on the topic in relationship to American history (AHR 16, no. 4 [October 1991]); and our more recent issues have increasingly featured articles by historians whose vistas are transnational in scope. But like other innovative approaches to history, it is in danger of becoming merely a buzzword among historians, more a label than a practice, more expansive in its meaning than precise in its application, more a fashion of the moment than a durable approach to the serious study of history. Our hope is that this Conversation will help scholars and students think about transnational history in terms that highlight both its capacious possibilities and its specificity as an approach. The six historians who agreed to participate are all practitioners of transnational history. Christopher Bayly is a modern historian who has written about the British Empire, South Asia, and global history. Sven Beckert is a historian of nineteenth-century America, with a special focus on social and economic history. Matthew Connelly is a twentieth-century diplomatic historian with an interest in international and global affairs. Isabel Hofmeyr studies African and English literature and the global circulation of texts. Wendy Kozol writes and teaches on gender, feminism, visual culture, and human rights. Patricia Seed has written on early modern Latin America and the European conquest of the New World, among other subjects. The Conversation took place over the summer and fall of 2006.