Translated by Adam Schoene<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Columbia University Press<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pub Date: November 2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today, history is increasingly written in the first person. A growing number of historical works include an autobiographical dimension, as if writing about the past required exploring the inner life of the author. Neither traditional history nor autobiography, this hybrid genre calls the norms of the historical profession into question. In search of new and creative paths, it transgresses a cardinal rule of the discipline: third-person narration, long considered necessary to the objective analysis of the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Singular Pasts<\/em> offers a critical account of the emergence of authorial subjectivity in historical writing, scrutinizing both its achievements and its shortcomings. Enzo Traverso considers a group of contemporary historians, including Ivan Jablonka, Sergio Luzzatto, and Mark Mazower, who reveal their emotional ties to their subjects and give their writing a literary flavor. He identifies a parallel trend in literature, in which authors such as W. G. Sebald, Patrick Modiano, Javier Cercas, and Daniel Mendelsohn write their works as investigations based on archival sources. Traverso argues that first-person history mirrors contemporary ways of thinking: such writing is presentist and apolitical, perceiving and representing the past through an individual lens. Probing the limits of subjective historiography, he emphasizes that it is collective action that produces social change: \u201cwe\u201d instead of \u201cI.\u201d In an epilogue, Traverso considers the first-person writing of Saidiya Hartman as a counterexample. A wide-ranging and illuminating critique of a key trend in humanistic inquiry, Singular Pasts<\/em> reconsiders the notion of historical truth in a neoliberal age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Contents<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Introduction<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reviews<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n “How do historians place themselves in history? Should<\/em> the historical be personal? With his familiar acuity of vision, breadth of erudition, and generosity of thought, Enzo Traverso supplies a rich array of answers to these abiding questions\u2014usually boundary-crossing, sometimes surprising, always grounded in a carefully considered politics of knowledge”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Geoff Eley, author of Nazism as Fascism: Violence, Ideology, and the Ground of Consent in Germany, 1930-1945<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n “Enzo Traverso has written an important book about first-person, more or less subjective and hybridized history\u2014a much discussed and debated approach that has risen to prominence in the recent past. His erudite, insightful analysis extends more broadly to address questions about the very nature of history and its relations to other areas such as literature and film. It should interest not only historians but all humanists and social scientists as well as the general reader.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dominick LaCapra, author of Understanding Others: Peoples, Animals, Pasts<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n “In this engaging book, Traverso guides us through the innumerable narrations of the past by contemporary writers and historians. Focusing on their interactions, he outlines what he deems a significant phenomenon in current historical writing: the growing intrusiveness of subjectivity and personal experience undermining a choral vision of the past.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Carlotta Sorba, author of Politics and Sentiments in Risorgimento Italy: Melodrama and the Nation<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n “In this sweeping review of recent histories written in the first person, at the crossroads between history and literature, Traverso offers a lucid analysis of this subjective turn and a sharp critique of this new \u2018I\u2019 that speaks of and for the past: that of \u2018Historian Narcissus.\u2019”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thomas Dodman, author of What Nostalgia Was: War, Empire, and the Time of a Deadly Emotion<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n “Traverso’s short and breezy survey…rings true.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n New York Review of Books<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n “Sublimely readable.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Marx and Philosophy of Books<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Enzo Traverso is Susan and Barton Winokur Professor of the Humanities at Cornell University. His recent books include Revolution: An Intellectual History<\/em> (2021), Left-Wing Melancholia: Marxism, History, and Memory<\/em> (Columbia, 2017), and Fire and Blood: The European Civil War, 1914\u20131945<\/em> (2016).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Adam Schoene is visiting assistant professor in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University at Buffalo, SUNY.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\n
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n\n\n\nAbout the Author<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53395,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-knjige","category-novosti"],"acf":{"facebook_opis":"\"Today, history is increasingly written in the first person. A growing number of historical works include an autobiographical dimension, as if writing about the past required exploring the inner life of the author.\""},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Traverso.avif","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":52677,"url":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=52677","url_meta":{"origin":53394,"position":0},"title":"CfP: NAVIGATING THE PAST, FACING THE PRESENT: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES IN RE-PRESENTING CONFLICTS AND VIOLENCE IN MEMORY AND EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS, WARSAW, 22ND\u201324TH OCTOBER 2026 (DEADLINE: 30TH APRIL 2026)","author":"Branimir Jankovi\u0107","date":"27. travnja 2026.","format":false,"excerpt":"The conference and graduate workshop (October 22-24, 2026, Warsaw) addresses the representation of history in public and institutional contexts, with a focus beyond the often-studied field of \u201cmemory culture\u201d. Rather than emphasizing the politicization of memory and cultural institutions, the discussion shifts toward new methods, media, and challenges in historical\u2026","rel":"","context":"U "Novosti"","block_context":{"text":"Novosti","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/hsozkult.png?fit=1006%2C241&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/hsozkult.png?fit=1006%2C241&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/hsozkult.png?fit=1006%2C241&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/hsozkult.png?fit=1006%2C241&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":52834,"url":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=52834","url_meta":{"origin":53394,"position":1},"title":"“Spatial Worlds of Medieval Central Europe: Real, Imagined, and Conceptual”, Budapest, 19\u201321 May 2027","author":"Filip \u0160imunjak","date":"6. svibnja 2026.","format":false,"excerpt":"Following successful conferences in Budapest (2014), Olomouc (2016), Zagreb (2018), Gda\u0144sk (2021), Bratislava (2023), and Munich (2025), the Seventh Biennial Conference of MECERN (http:\/\/mecern.eu\/) will focus on spatial worlds in medieval history, especially in Central Europe. The concepts of space, place, and the environment are central to our understanding of\u2026","rel":"","context":"U "Novosti"","block_context":{"text":"Novosti","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Mecern-Logo.jpg?fit=450%2C270&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":54410,"url":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=54410","url_meta":{"origin":53394,"position":2},"title":"CfA: Teaching World History in the Postmodern Classroom","author":"Branimir Jankovi\u0107","date":"1. srpnja 2026.","format":false,"excerpt":"World History Bulletin, a publication of the World History Association (WHA), is seeking contributions from educators, university faculty, curriculum specialists, public historians, graduate students, and educational researchers for its upcoming issue on \u201cTeaching World History in the Postmodern Classroom.\u201d Teaching World History in the Postmodern Classroom Guest edited by Heather\u2026","rel":"","context":"U "Novosti"","block_context":{"text":"Novosti","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/World-history-association.png?fit=1156%2C619&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/World-history-association.png?fit=1156%2C619&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/World-history-association.png?fit=1156%2C619&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/World-history-association.png?fit=1156%2C619&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/World-history-association.png?fit=1156%2C619&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":54066,"url":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=54066","url_meta":{"origin":53394,"position":3},"title":"CALL FOR CHAPTERS: YUGOSLAV WOMEN HISTORIANS: GENDER, KNOWLEDGE, AND PROFESSION IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY","author":"Branimir Jankovi\u0107","date":"12. lipnja 2026.","format":false,"excerpt":"Type: Edited Volume Language: English Publisher: Institute for Recent History of Serbia Editors: Dr. Nata\u0161a Mili\u0107evi\u0107, Senior Research Associate, Institute for Recent History of Serbia\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Prof. Dr. Michael Antolovi\u0107, Faculty of Education in Sombor, University of Novi Sad Contact: jugoslovenske.istoricarke@yahoo.com Timeline: October 15, 2026: Abstract submission deadline June 30, 2027:\u2026","rel":"","context":"U "Novosti"","block_context":{"text":"Novosti","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/CPF-Gender.png?fit=1200%2C460&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/CPF-Gender.png?fit=1200%2C460&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/CPF-Gender.png?fit=1200%2C460&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/CPF-Gender.png?fit=1200%2C460&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/CPF-Gender.png?fit=1200%2C460&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":52679,"url":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=52679","url_meta":{"origin":53394,"position":4},"title":"CfP: CHOSEN NATION(S): HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL INTERPRETATIONS OF EXCEPTIONALISM, BUDAPEST, 10TH\u201311TH JUNE 2026 (DEADLINE: 1ST MAY 2026)","author":"Branimir Jankovi\u0107","date":"27. travnja 2026.","format":false,"excerpt":"The Ludovika University of Public Service (NKE) and the Jewish Theological Seminary \u2013 University of Jewish Studies (OR-ZSE) are pleased to announce a joint academic conference on \u201cChosen Nation(s): Historical and Cultural Interpretations of Exceptionalism\u201d, to be held in Budapest, Hungary. Chosen Nation(s): Historical and Cultural Interpretations of Exceptionalism Keynote\u2026","rel":"","context":"U "Novosti"","block_context":{"text":"Novosti","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/hsozkult.png?fit=1006%2C241&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/hsozkult.png?fit=1006%2C241&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/hsozkult.png?fit=1006%2C241&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/hsozkult.png?fit=1006%2C241&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":54392,"url":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=54392","url_meta":{"origin":53394,"position":5},"title":"Call for Papers: Histories of Anti-Tourism","author":"Branimir Jankovi\u0107","date":"30. lipnja 2026.","format":false,"excerpt":"Deadline for submission: August 3, 2026 Online workshop \u2013 Fall 2026 In-person conference, Berlin \u2013 Spring 2027 In recent years, tourism numbers worldwide have expanded dramatically, often exceeding the capacity of places and communities. In response, residents have protested, debate has intensified, and both public authorities and the tourism industry\u2026","rel":"","context":"U "Novosti"","block_context":{"text":"Novosti","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Call-for-Papers-Histories-of-Anti-Tourism-TU-Berlin.png?fit=1035%2C490&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Call-for-Papers-Histories-of-Anti-Tourism-TU-Berlin.png?fit=1035%2C490&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Call-for-Papers-Histories-of-Anti-Tourism-TU-Berlin.png?fit=1035%2C490&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Call-for-Papers-Histories-of-Anti-Tourism-TU-Berlin.png?fit=1035%2C490&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53394"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53400,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53394\/revisions\/53400"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/53395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}