Centre, Periphery and Back

This special issue consists of a collection of six articles by Greek historians of the periphery of Europe that look at the perplexities and challenges of European historiography of the centre. Their analysis aims to interpret pivotal moments that have shaped recent historiographies in tackling the advance of global history, and the successful or unsuccessful ways in which world histories have rearranged notions of nation, empire and interconnectedness through economy and culture. They seek not to write a different history than a native historian would, especially as academic connectedness and informed research is the aim of every historian in any case, but to express how, in their opinion, ruptures in dominant convictions and essentialised ideas function in historiographical terms today. A common thread in these essays is that, despite the expansion of methodologies and globalised historiographical endeavours, the nation persists in many recent historical works as a constant, essential unit in the historical profession. In that sense, even when the peripheries enrich historical research, they rarely produce holistic works or independent theoretical frameworks.