From local to public history. Some weakness and certain achievements

Abstract

As we usually say, the professionalization of our discipline produced a caesura, separating the academic history from such other in hands of erudites, archivists and amateurs. And while the first were dedicated to national history, the second were relegated instead to the local and the mere nostalgia. That idea was maintained at least until the 1970s. The change, as is known, was closely related to the social movements in the previous decade, which broadly assumed the return of the subject, with a multiple dimension, and the emphasis on human action. This historiographical essay explores these changes, starting from two different proposals for the rescue of the local - microhistory and popular history - and shows how the current defence of the local is largely combined with public history.