Summary
Enzo Traverso: History as a battlefield
The year 1989 is not written in the continuity of a linear temporality, but marks a threshold, a moment, by which one epoch ends in order to begin a new one. The 20th century not only exposed the illusions of historicism and illustrated the shipwreck of the idea of Progress, it also recorded the eclipse of the utopias written in revolutionary experiences and enabled the return of events and the rise of global history.
Debates about wars, revolutions, fascisms and genocides that have permeated historiography and, more generally, the social sciences in recent decades - sketch the outlines of a new approach to the contemporary world that greatly exceeds the boundaries of historical research. Many historical works tell us more about their era, illuminating its imaginary and its representations, than about the past, whose mysteries we would like to penetrate. In the 21st century, historians work within new political and "epistemic" coordinates, and the places of production of history are not limited to the university, but touch the media in the broadest sense of the word.
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