Landscapes of a field

In recent years, most branches of historiography have witnessed a sharp increase in research operating with border-crossing perspectives. Hitherto unusual spatial concepts, be they transnational, transregional, or transcontinental in nature, have become more clearly visible in very different subfields of historiography, ranging from the complex landscapes of “cultural history” to the equally multifaceted environments of “economic history.” Certainly, not all these border-crossing perspectives are “new” in the sense that they were completely unthought-of a generation or more ago. But there has been a decisive change: what were once a few isolated trickles flowing through the landscapes of historiography have now grown into ever more visible currents. Microscopic and macroscopic research interests, which before played only a marginal role in historical scholarship, have now moved closer to the field's centers of attention.