European perspectives on a longer Atlantic World

Atlantic history is less a new historiographical trend than a methodological approach which rejects both the traditional narration of the occidentalization of the world and the broad generalizations of world history based on economicistic determinism. While this methodological approach has flourished mostly in the US and the UK, its reception in continental Europe has been controversial, due to both historiographical traditions (the primacy of national histories) and extra-academic concerns (the mistrust towards Atlantica in the cold war years). In recent years, however, a new generation of European historians have embraced the Atlantic history framework and is making an original contribution to the field. The objective of this dossier, which brings together junior and established scholars based in France and Italy, is twofold: on the one hand, it provides a sample of a European approach to the history of the Atlantic world and, on the other, it contributes to question the prevailing pattern of periodization in Atlantic history.