Special issue: The Italian Risorgimento: transnational perspectives: Introduction

Abstract

The term ‘transnational history’ has made rapid ground in recent scholarly debate. In some ways the latest manifestation of an approach that has been variously described as international, comparative, world or global history, transnational history seeks to overcome a historiography focused on the nation and to displace the focus on the nation-state by studying non-governmental institutions, civil associations, informal groups and/or individual actors. Its primary claim to innovation lies in an emphasis on movement, interaction and interpenetration between and across different groups, societies and political units. Thus, the main concern of transnational history is with linkages and networks, perhaps especially in the so-called ‘Global South’; with respect to the latter, an implicit aim of the approach is to challenge the ‘Eurocentrism’ characteristic of historical writing at least since the Enlightenment.