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This book describes major changes in the conceptual language of the humanities, particularly in the discourse of history. The chapters trace the development of academic vocabularies through the dynamically shifting cultural, political, and linguistic landscapes of the twentieth century. It considers the rise and fall of the “philosophy of history” and discusses past attempts to imbue historical discourse with scientific precision. The book explores the development of the “meta-narrative” and the post-Marxist view of history and shows how the present resurgence of old words—such as “memory”—in new contexts is providing a way to address marginalized peoples. In analyzing linguistic changes in the North American academy, this book ties semantic shifts in academic discourse to key trends in American society, culture, and politics.

The premise of this volume is that historians are conditioned not only by the time in which they write but also by the place from which they write, and it uses American history as written in Europe as a case study of the role of location in the writing of history. It seeks to throw light on the often-hidden institutional and cultural factors that shape the writing of history, and thus is not a state-of-the-field survey of European historiography, but an exploration carrying implications for the writing of history anywhere, including the writing of U.S. history in the United States. The book is divided into four parts, the first three under the headings Historiography, Structures and Context, and Internationalization(s) of U.S. History. These are the substantive chapters written by teams of European historians, each team exploring different aspects of the subject (such as political contexts or comparative history), comprising twenty-four individual scholars. Thus not only is the book a collaborative exercise, but so is each of the chapters. The fourth part of the book brings together reactions from six prominent scholars of U.S. history and advocates of internationalizing history from other parts of the world, each offering a succinct essay on the themes introduced in the volume from his or her own perspective.