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La monografia contiene una ricostruzione di storia politica e culturale delle origini e dell osvolgimento della rivoluzione americana. In occasione della presente edizione è stata arricchita con una postfazione che illustra gli sviluppi del dibattito storiografico sulla rivoluzione americana

Discussione del volume di Alan Taylor sulle dimensioni continentali e plurali della rivoluzione americana

A detailed review and discussion of Marcello Carmagnani's 2018 book on the Atlantic economy in the early modern age

I cosiddetti “zoo umani” rappresentarono un fenomeno di vastissima diffusione e popolarità nell’Europa delle grandi esposizioni nazionali, internazionali e universali a partire dalla metà dell’800. Forme spesso brutali di pubblica esibizione di esemplari di umanità selvaggia, gli “zoo umani”, completi di “villaggi” ricostruiti nel dettaglio e popolati di “indigeni” importati come animali da esposizione, costituirono un ingrediente importante – per quanto raccapricciante – della mentalità e dell’auto-rappresentazione dell’Occidente “progredito”, imperialista e colonizzatore. Grazie a questo libro, dopo che numerosi studi hanno indagato il fenomeno in larga parte del mondo occidentale (Germania, Francia, Inghilterra, Stati Uniti, Spagna, Svizzera, Russia, Danimarca) disponiamo ora della prima ricerca sistematica sulle “esposizioni umane” nell’Italia liberale e fascista, viste non solo nella loro funzione politico-ideologica, ma anche in rapporto ai loro antecedenti storici più antichi e nella varietà di declinazioni che, ben oltre la nozione restrittiva di “zoo umani”, esse assunsero nel mondo dello spettacolo, in quello delle attività missionarie oltremare e negli ambienti della ricerca medica e antropologica. L’interesse suscitato dal libro ne ha reso necessaria una seconda edizione riveduta e accresciuta e con una Prefazione di Sandra Puccini. ll volume è attualmente in corso di traduzione presso la prestigiosa casa editrice inglese Routledge.

A presentation of the book.

The aim of this presentation is to outline GSR, an innovative project straddling global history, digital history and cartography, and digital data visualization. Based on the premise that the history of navigation can provide effective evidence of modern globalization processes, GSR aims to apply ground-breaking JT technologies in order to answer the question: how can we represent the historical evolution over time of different types of early-modern and modern European transoceanic sea voyages on a synoptic and comparative scale? We plan to achieve this through the most advanced online IT representation techniques and drawing inspiration from important digital history projects of a similar kind.

L’Histoire des deux Indes fut conçue par l’abbé Raynal comme un point de rencontre et de rassemblement entre philosophes et administrateurs royaux. Sorte de plateforme de la politique ministérielle, l’Histoire des deux Indes ambitionna à dépasser la fracture et la rupture qu’au cours des années 1750 s’était vérifiée entre les « philosophes » et la monarchie de Louis XV. Afin de reconstruire la genèse de l’Histoire des deux Indes et sa réception tout au long du XVIIIe siècle, le contexte culturel et politique de la France après la paix de Paris (1763) a été pris en compte. Issu du colloque international « Autour de l’abbé Raynal », organisée à Pise en février 2016, le volume reconstruit le discours sur les empires et le commerce qui fut développé dans l’Histoire des deux Indes, ainsi que le rôle joué par les colonies dans l’oeuvre de Raynal. Une étude attentive des éditions et de la personnalité des collaborateurs de l’Histoire des deux Indes enrichit cet ouvrage qui ressemble les contributions de chercheurs dont les compétences embrassent des champs différents : de la philologie des textes à l’histoire politique, de l’histoire littéraire à l’histoire des idées. Cette contribution vise à expliquer l'attitude envers la Chine qui se révèle à travers le pages de l'Histoire des Deux Indes et qui denotent une mutation très significative dans la façcon de concevoir les rapports entre Europe et Chine dans un moment crucial de l'évolution des relations globales

George Thomas Staunton’s 1810 translation of the so-called ‘Qing penal code’, the Ta Tsing Leu Lee (in the coeval transliteration), represented a major chapter in the history of Sino-European relations, particularly the evolution of British presence and activities in China. It was, at the same time, an important development in Sinological learning and Western knowledge of China in terms of understanding how to manage commercial relations that had been strained for over a century and were undergoing crucial changes at the beginning of the nineteenth century. It also represented a decisive step forward in a longstanding European discussion about the Chinese empire and its institutions, society, culture and civilization that attributed particular importance to the subject of law and justice and their place within the Chinese state. The first and second parts of this essay retrace the most significant moments of this debate in the European culture and experience, with a special focus on the eighteenth century and the Enlightenment period, when admiration for and even an idealization of China reached their peak, only to decline quite quickly and irreversibly at the turn of the century. While demonstrating that contradictory opinions about China always coexisted in European opinion, this essay proceeds to present Staunton’s interpretation of the Chinese legal and judicial system and to clarify its particular meaning with regard to previous and current debates and the political-economic context of Sino-British relations. The last two parts deal with the discussions prompted in Europe by the English publication of the Qing code and the first two translations in French and Italian. In so doing, the essay shows that Staunton’s intention to promote a favourable view of Chinese institutions and a respectful attitude towards them did not correspond to the development of mainstream European, and especially British, opinion. Indeed, in the decades following its publication, under the pressure of free trade and Protestant missionary opinion, British public opinion became increasingly negative, including the adoption of severely critical mental attitudes and intrusive policies towards China, thus preparing itself for the military aggression known as the First Opium War.

L'articolo ricostruisce i lavori di Bayly sui meccanismi di consolidmaento dell'impero britannico in India attraverso operazioni di raccolta e controllo dell'informazione mediante l osfruttamento e la creazione di reti di informatori e l'edificazione di un apparato amministrativo basato sulla conoscenza della realtà indiana

For a long time, the idea of China as a culture and society which was voluntarily secluding itself from the rest of the world was dominant. But, in reality, China has always been part of the world, just as the world has always sought to penetrate China. The relationship between China and the world was, in the past, sometimes smooth, and at other times it was difficult, but nevertheless the bond remained alive.This collection presents an analysis of China from a global perspective within a broad temporal and spatial spectrum. It reveals the early relations established between the Roman Empire and China, the dynamics developed with the countries of the Indian Ocean, Southeast Asia and Japan, and the gradual path of Europeans and Americans towards China. The book reviews the development of diplomatic relations, the signing of agreements and alliances, and the rise and resolution of conflicts. It also analyses the forging of economic relations, the establishment of commercial exchanges and the creation of companies, professional bodies and institutions of collaboration. Guido Abbattista's contributions explores the changing representations of China in the Western world from the Enlightenment to the First Opium War, and shows how the Enlightenment idea of modernity as depending on the development of a commercial civilization inspired aggressive and interventionist policies at the beginning of the 19th century, thus revealing the persistence of peculiar Enlightenment ideas in Western early 19th century mercantile imperialism