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I completely understand your frustration. Like you, I’m interested in applying the transnational lens to the early modern world and those non-state actors who traversed it. I share your skepticism about the existence of relevant source material though, and your

Who’d of thought a Queen classic would so aptly sum up transnational history. As the first verse goes: I want to break free I want to break free I want to break free from your lies You’re so self satisfied

Delving into biographical histories this week brought me back to what I have always found so interesting in history: storytelling. I am, and have always been, an avid reader of fiction, biography and autobiography. Whether it’s 1950s rural Naples (My

When place is central to the construction of one’s identity, perhaps it is only natural that humans, and especially historians, make sense of the world through strictly defined spaces. As a unit of analysis, the nation-state is often taken to

This month I was reading an excellent article from the Economist reporting on the role of Private Military Companies (essentially mercenaries) in Syria. The more I’ve delved into the issue, the more tangled it becomes. Mercenaries are becoming increasingly prevalent

Reading Transnational Lives this week I stumbled across Shellam’s ‘Travelling Knowledge in Western Australia’s Southwest’. Her article dismantled the ‘binary’ model of ‘power and passivity’ assumed to characterize 19thcentury indigenous-European relations in Australia by charting the career of Manyat; an Aboriginal

So I got started on my project early, because the proposal is due within two weeks of two psych assignments and the short essay for this class. My original topic idea was that I wanted to do something about romantic

The sheer scale and ambition of transnational history initially seems to restrict the potential of the individual as a level of analysis. Though an essential part of what we can conceive as being ‘transnational’ in character is the individual human

A perennial enemy of mine the last two and a half years at St. Andrews has been the Department of History’s word count limits, which are usually set between 1500 and 2500 words. I inevitably find myself tearfully saying goodbye

In #week 2 we introduced you to a few books on transnational and global history. One of them was Sebastian Conrad’s (Free University Berlin) What is Global History? There is now a new podcast available via “History & Theory” with

In #week 2 our final speed-writing exercise included a postcard to Granny. Grappling with the openness, alleged lack of definition, this is what we wrote. Dear Granny, greetings from sunny St Andrews. This semester I am doing a module on

When I was in school we never did European History. In elementary school we explored the history of concepts like writing and numbers. I remember carefully marking a clay tablet in cuneiform. When I switched schools in 4th grade we

You are ten, maybe eleven weeks into your final semester of sub-honours-level history. And, although the town has been left feeling curiously post-apocalyptic after weeks of snow, ice, and bitter pensions disputes, you’re clinging to your last few tutorials as

I have yet to find any clear definition of transnational history, and perhaps this should come as little surprise. The ‘angle’, ‘way’, ‘perspective or ‘response’ of transnational history is relatively new: not just to me, but the wider academic community