Anyone who wants to deal with the issue of “the public use of history” in the last twenty years should take as his/her starting point the fundamental remarks of Nicola Gallerano on the relationship between history, memory and society. The advent of Internet has had a significant bearing on the public use of history, as Antonino Criscione’s recent surveys have shown. The distinctive contributions of Gallerano and Criscione are discussed in this essay. Both scholars share a critical but positive approach to the public use of history, which cannot be confined to msitifying or apologetic revisionism. This applies especially to Internet, where many webs devoted to contemporary history present themselves as “deposits of memory” or “community networks”.
Keywords: Internet, Web, contemporary history, public use of history, Nicola Gallerano, Antonino Criscione.