From the History of Empires to Global History: A View from Lisbon

The purpose of this lecture is to sketch and debate the developments of the last decades in the field of “imperial history”, not necessarily from the customary Western-centered (often British-centered) perspective, but by using a broader lens in order to encompass other early modern imperial formations and their historiographies. The lecture goes on to explore the possible common ground between the history of empires and the growing field of global history in its several variations. This exercise is suggested by a Portuguese historian who has relocated to Lisbon after many years abroad and uses the history of the early modern Portuguese empire as an entry point to global history. This being said, and somewhat ironically, the recommended readings mostly direct us to the “British world”.

Suggest readings: 

• Simon J. Potter, and Jonathan Saha, J (2015) “Global History, Imperial History and Connected Histories of Empire,” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 16 (1).
• Linda Colley, The Ordeal of Elisabeth Marsh: A Woman in World History (London: Harper Collins, 2007), “Introduction” (pp. xix et seq.) & “Ending – and Continuing” (pp. 288 et seq.).