Il ‘colonialismo’ come categoria storiografica all’epoca della global history

The essay intends to propose a reflection on the intersections between colonial studies and colonialism and historiographical perspectives of ‘global history’. It starts from the reconstruction of the recent emergence and use of the term ‘colonialism’ in the English, French and Italian languages, linking it to international political developments after World War II and to the subsequent opening up of new forms of historical research on colonial and imperial phenomena on a global scale and in comparative terms. It points out that, in the field of colonial studies, a specialism has developed that has investigated the specificity of the forms of colonial domination on the economic, political, social, cultural and religious levels, drawing a particular impulse from post-colonial studies and the emergence of non-Western historiographies. A consideration of the research paths of some of the most important contemporary historians of colonialism and empires serves to show how precisely this kind of experience, with the ability to confront different sources and to take different points of view from the traditional ones of Western historiography, has opened some of the most fruitful paths towards global history, with its drive towards denationalization and criticism of Eurocentrism, and its adoption of pluralist perspectives on progress, modernization and civilization. Finally, it illustrates a series of historiographic fields which, starting from the study of colonial phenomena, have favoured and enriched the emergence of a global view of the past. It concludes with a reflection on the persistent and still visible relationship in the present between colonial legacies and macro-phenomena of a global nature.