Abstract

Several historiographical approaches have called for a global contextualization of American history in the last twenty years. After some initial methodological resistance, the study of the relations between the United States and the world has been transformed by this global turn. This essay provides a selective and critical look at this transformation, as it assumes a long-term periodization pattern that questions the prevailing focus on 20th-century developments and the cold war. Finally, it argues that the tension between the challenge to American exceptionalism on the one hand and the recognition of the specificity of US power on the other is particularly significant in the realm of international history.