Boundaries of history

What do we mean by ‘boundaries of history’?

The present volume attempts to answer the question through studies of historical scholarship in the past and present. It includes ten articles by authors from five countries, dealing with three different, yet interconnected, approaches to the question.

The first approach concerns the disciplinary boundaries of history, in two ways: In which way has history been divided into sub-disciplines, and how have historians attempted to overcome this fragmentation? What are, and were, the relations between the history discipline and other humanistic and social science disciplines? Our second approach deals with the geographical boundaries. What kinds of historical problems have lent themselves to cross-national studies, and how have historians tackled the question of methodological nationalism?

Finally, how have historians dealt with the relation between professional history and the larger society with its public? What were their responsibilities, and how did, and do, morals enter into historical scholarship?