Transnational as a Perspective

A view from and despite Florence

Conventionally, the task of a dictionary or an encyclopaedia is seen as to aggregate, organize, and hierarchize the consolidated, maybe even canonical knowledge of a time on a particular issue or field. This goes hand in hand with a re-evaluation of pre-existing knowledge – otherwise, it would also be difficult to find a publisher and an audience for such a project. Besides, these publications quite often have a covert or explicit political agenda; with Diderot’s Encyclopédie as an obvious example that aimed at nothing less than to change the way people think (See Diderot’s entry „Encyclopédie” in the Encyclopédie.).

Compared to such endeavours, the PDTH has a modest claim – as already its awkward acronym denotes. It does not, according to the Dictionary’s introduction, pretend to be canonical. In a quite submissive manner, its editors state that it even hopes to be revised, updated, and highjacked. Indeed, the PDTH takes a truly relaxed view on important issues: by no means does it want to offer a complete list of entries. And instead of a rigid delimitation of transnational history from other recent branches of historiography and their buzz words such as “global”, “new global”, or “shared history”, it aspires to let all flowers bloom. This mixture of humility, imperial overstretch, and pragmatism is not just an expression of a post-modern age and is highly attractive. It also bespeaks of the editors’ honesty and level of reflection.

And yet, reader beware, never place too much trust into such statements. Already the fact that the introduction speaks of „the Dictionary“ several times could be read as a translatio imperii from the Encyclopédie over the OED to this project. The short introduction smuggles in a definition of transnational history through the back door that is not shared by everybody in the field. Accordingly, transnational history is seen as a specific historical perspective. I wonder if the community of transnational historians will agree with that interpretation. So far, many in the field would rather define transnational history as a level of research, a method, or maybe even a paradigm.

Personally, I adhere to the PDTH definition of the transnational. Paradigm it is not because it does not deny the legitimacy of other ways of viewing and writing history, be they strictly national, local, or anything else. So, keep the Kuhn in your holster. Also, transnational does not qualify for a specific level, such as a layer around the national realm. Extra-territorializing the transnational would be the ultimate form of othering and marginalization, simply because the metaphor of layers suggests that there still remains an inner, immaculate world to which “trans” has no access. If used properly, the transnational scalpel cuts across all boundaries and dissects transnational connections just about everywhere. Finally, research sailing under the banner of transnational has adopted many different strategies and methods, from comparative history over transfer studies to network analysis and other approaches – or, in the best of all worlds, a sound combination of several such takes.

Instead, the PDTH interprets the transnational as a perspective. I agree. But suddenly finding oneself as part of a rising orthodoxy is probably the best provocation to start thinking. What, actually, is a historical perspective? Unfortunately, the PDTH has no entry on this, and the term itself would deserve a proper, article-length treatment at some point. In English, the term “perspective” is used often with reference to history and yet it lacks precision. What can be said is that the past is neither national, regional, transnational, global nor, for that matter, in line with any other single notion or perspective that has a less territorialized connotation. It is simply the past. No history can revive, recapture, or reconstruct its entire multifariousness. People, ideas, products, processes, and patterns very often have many dimensions – and the only thing that is revealing is that historical scholarship so far has very often singled out one of them, by writing national history. Transnational history thus simply stands for a different take when it is interested in “links and flows … that operate over, across, through, beyond, above, under, or in between polities and societies” (PDTH: 18).

So, transnational history deals with the same past slightly differently than, for example, national history. Basically, it is defined by a specific research interest. Simultaneously, it is a reflection of the changed times we live in. As every good history, it does not pretend to be about the past only but it admits to be about us, too. Even contemporaries might have perceived the structures and processes that transnational history is now interested in as transnational. But this does not have to be the case. The petty sides of cosmopolitanism and the cross-cultural connections of parochialism might as well be part of the story. Furthermore, condoms and pesticides tend to think very little and still they deserve their entries in the PDTH.

To sum up: the Latin verb “perspicere” means to “ see through something” or to “perceive” something. This might not be very precise. But at least the more sophisticated ways of using the noun “perspective” today emphasize the relationship between an observer and his or her object of study. So, perspective establishes a relationship between the historian and the past. Is there anything else one can say about this link? Living on the hills overlooking Florence, “perspective” reminds me of Renaissance art. Writing in English, this is even more the case because this language (as some but not all others) tends to identify the particular perspective that we associate with the Renaissance as the perspective. This is problematic – and not just because the standard Giotto di Bondone-Brunelleschi-story for example neglects Baghdad’s contribution to the development of this artistic convention, as demonstrated by  Hans Belting in his  Florenz und Bagdad. Eine westöstliche Geschichte des Blicks . This is even more the case because there are many ways of representing three-dimensional objects other than the one that became canonical in the Western world in the brief moment between 1500 and roughly 1900 which incidentally also saw the rise of the modern (nation) state. Romanesque art, Islamic painting, or Cubism are examples of alternative forms of representation. “The” perspective, however, has perfected to record and replicate the view one sees with one eye only. Also historians have been monocular for long enough. Transnational history is one attempt to move from Cyclops like the Odyssey’s Polyphemus to Argus with his 100 eyes, to open new space for creativity and imaginativeness.

Kiran Klaus Patel, holds the Joint Chair in EU history and transatlantic relations at the European University Institute, Florence. He has worked on a number of issues, including the history of the European integration process and ways of linking it to the debate on transnational history. Latest publication: Wettlauf um die Moderne. Deutschland und die USA. 1890 bis heute (ed. with C. Mauch), Pantheon: Munich 2008