10.6092/issn.2611-2752/9074
application/pdf
2611-2752
9074
en
Lorenzo Costaguta
USAbroad – Journal of American History and Politics
Bringing the History Back In
Text.Serial.Journal
https://usabroad.unibo.it/
2
Bringing the History Back In
2019-03-01
2019-02-13
2019-03-01
2019-11-05
USAbroad
Lorenzo Costaguta
2019/03/01
10.6092/issn.2611-2752/9074
University of Birmingham
2611-2752
en
Bringing the History Back In
https://usabroad.unibo.it/article/download/9074/8974
2
Editorial                                              USAbroad – Journal of American History and Politics. Vol. 2 (2019)
https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2611-2752/9074                                                             ISSN 2611-2752




                                 Bringing the History Back In


                                               Published: March 1, 2019




    In 2014, historians Jo Guldi and David Armitage published The History Manifesto, in which the two
argued for the need to recover la long durèe in historiographical narratives. In an epoch characterized
by “accelerated crisis,” “permanent campaign” and “the ever-present threat of short-termism,” Guldi
and Armitage assigned to historical writing the crucial role of encouraging a reversal of presentist
trends and hyper-specialisation by privileging long-term analyses, bridging gaps between disciplines
and rediscovering the function of history as a discipline that can offer critical and innovative insight
in an epoch of social and political turmoil.
    Five years have passed since the publication of The History Manifesto, and the goal set by Guldi
and Armitage is far from achieved. The column Bringing the History Back in picks up their challenge
and sets out to offer a space where scholars have the chance to publish broad and comprehensive
articles that aim to give original interpretations of the present from the perspective of the professional
historian. We see this space as an open and an intergenerational forum, where senior historians have
the opportunity to share their historical analyses in a publication edited by and aimed at early career
researchers.
    The opening article, Federico Romero’s Globalization’s Nemesis: from Liberal Internationalism to
White Nationalism, represents the perfect balance between historical interpretation and analysis of
the present. In it, Romero identifies key turning points which help understanding the evolution of
international politics from a US perspective. Starting from the end of the containment in the 1970s,
Romero traces the transformation of the American role in the international system showing how a
world order based on sovereignty has been progressively substituted by another based on market
competition. However, as Romero points out, with the rise of China as a world economic power, dur-
ing Trump’s presidency the United States chose a path of aggressive unilateralism in foreign policy,
mainly aimed at damaging China’s growth. Moving away from a 20th century internationalism that
promised development as a universal path, the current administration embodies a return to a logic
of great-power conflict where nationalism is the matrix of world (dis)order and antagonism.


Copyright © 2019 USAbroad                                                                                    Art. #9074
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons BY License.                                                         p. 1
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
