The Name of the Game: Finding a Title and a Purpose

As far as I remember, this project’s label was flexible. The first drafts and early correspondence with Akira set forth the idea of a reference volume that would cater for people like us, who were interested into aspects of modern history that stretched over the limits of countries, and who found it difficult to gather basic information to document, contextualize, or spur their research and teaching undertakings. The project, for a time, was tagged ‘global/transnational/crossnational historical dictionary’. The evolution of the name was tied to our reflection on the substance of the volume.

From the very first notes I have kept, the chronological focus was to be on the years 1850-2000. Not just because both of us have been trained as historians of the modern age, but rather because focusing on these 150 years would make it possible to sharpen the approach.

First, by picking up from about 1850, we would be able to surf the wave of the nationalization of the world, starting from when territorialized polities and societies hardened their limits and isomorphisms in the aftermath of the ‘Age of revolutions’, at a moment the nation-state was championed as the one best way for organising polities and societies across the world. In general terms, we wanted to investigate the relation between this trend and the mobility of goods, people, words, germs, monies and ideas. We wanted to know what the crystallization of nations did to these connections and circulations, and what these connections and circulations did to crystallizing nations. The idea was definitely not to write a history against or without the nations, as a sort of historical service to prophecies about the withering away of nations and states. We believed that identifying the traps of methodological and territorial nationalism should not lead to jettison the nation and other territorial units as relevant objects for historical research. Rather, our exploration of flows and links would come to terms with nations and states, tying together the trope of mobility with that of power.

On the other hand, the focus on the last 150 years would allow us to follow connections and circulations through periods which are often presented as distinct. This distinction is embedded into canonical periodizations like ‘the nineteenth century’, ‘the interwar’, ‘the Cold War’, or into ad hoc categories such as the ‘first globalization’ of 1850-1914, the ‘deglobalization’ of the 1920s-1930s, the ‘reglobalization’ of the post 1945 era... We started from the hypothesis that some kinds of circulations and connections could thrive while others were shattered, and that there was no beating pulse of the world order, be it economic or political, that would pace every kind of flow. Accordingly, we wanted to be able to follow our connections and circulations even through moments that were not deemed congenial to mobility and exchange. Take war, for instance, which transforms borders into front lines and seems a hindrance to trade, migrations and cultural flows. But war did not mean foreclosure, even in a world of nations. Wars triggered new flows of people, civilian and military, before, during and after the fighting; wars generated weaponry trade, supplies circulation, money loans, strategic coordination, military technology transfers as well as administrative and policy cross-learning among allies, and not to mention the cross observation and espionage between the enemies. Last but not least, we are all familiar with the crucial role of exiled and refugees who reframed the world of knowledge in host countries, especially in the 1930s and 1940s. This is just one motivation for why we wanted to follow flows and links without abiding by such routinely accepted milestones of historical periodization.

This chronological focus was subsequently a touchstone for defining style and substance. We were sure it would be an encyclopaedia of history, yep, but what kind of history? Of course, we were keen to follow connections and circulations across and between other types of human polities and societies than the nations: ethnic, professional, linguistic, or territorial (empires, regions, cities). But we believed it that these and other types of societies and communities have been pounded and shaped by the national framework in the last 150 years, not the least because the nation and the state were the most successful intellectual, social and political projects to be emulated or imposed across borders in the modern age. Whence it made sense to insist that studying what moved across the limits of the nation-states provides the opportunity to consider circulations and connections that did not take place only or strictly between nations. ‘National’ was to appear in the title, for sure.

This chronological focus also pushed us to discard potential labels or titles, as we felt they did not convey our purpose, or because they were not practical enough, or because it would have been a swindle to claim their clout. ‘International history’ did not qualify because it had been so much identified with the study of relations between state governments since Jeremy Bentham coined it. ‘Global history’ was misleading because we wanted to cover a range of circulations and connections that were not systematically planetary or even long distance. ‘World’ fell under similar restrictions, simply by the fact that the scope of ‘world history’, from the big bang onwards, was much larger than our comparatively small 150-year chunk. ‘Cultural transfers’ was not appropriate as we wanted to consider aspects that did not belong to the cultural sphere, and because the category of transfers did not encompass our interest for studying organisations, events, places or processes. Last but not least, had we tried to call our volume the Dictionary of  ‘Connected’ or ‘Entangled’ History, which would have been true to its spirit,  it would have been difficult to translate it in other languages, notwithstanding the fact that such notions are also relevant for times before the national age.

For all these reasons, ‘Transnational’ was eventually settled upon as the more accurate title, especially as we did not want to coin some convoluted neologism that would have caused the death of hundreds of historians by an attack unstoppable laugh, like ‘The Dictionary of ‘pernational history ’ or ‘the circumnational history companion’. Transnational was easily translatable in other languages; it had been acclimatized by previous uses in the secular and scholar spheres since the late 19^th century, though we would not abide strictly by any of these; it stressed our focus on the modern age, underlined our desire to grapple with the nation, and suggested an emphasis on mobility that was not foreign to our concerns.

Adopting the term involved some translation and appropriation. Our understanding was that adopting a transnational perspective meant an emphasis on connections and circulations that made it possible to advance historical knowledge on three prongs. First, the historicisation of interdepedency and interconnection phenomena between polities and societies in the modern age. We assume that this is the empirical way out of debates on “what is” and “when was” globalisation. Secondly, the advancement of knowledge on neglected or hazy sections in the history of geographically bounded territories (nations, regions, communities), by acknowledging foreign contributions to the design, discussion and implementation of domestic features. We do think that the detailed investigations of circulations and connections can enhance our understanding of self contained entities by shedding light on their composite material. Third, following what circulates and retracing who and what connects, makes it possible to capture trends and protagonists that are often left in the periphery by national or comparative frameworks. This is the condition to recover the history of individuals, groups, concepts, activities, patterns and organisations that thrived in-between and across places.

It is not up to me to say if these promises have been hold: I do consider this dictionary as a demonstration project, and this does include trial and error. But I assume both its ups and downs will trigger further discussion and research, and this is enough a reward for five years of work.

Pierre Yves Saunier is co-editor of The Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History