Among the many Italian journals dedicated to contemporary history, Past and Present (Passato e presente) stands out on account of several fundamental cultural choices it has made, choices which have ensured it success since its foundation in 1982. First of these choices was a refusal to adopt any ideological outlook - this manifests itself in the rigour of the research, in the journal’s continuous tackling of the latest topics and methodologies to arise in international historiography, and in its severe take on the political use of history, a use which has been widely adopted by the mass media and which contributes to the creation of an uncritical ‘communal sense’. Open to diverse historiographic approaches, the journal does not deny the inevitable subjectivity of judgement and, therefore, the civil commitment that distinguishes the historian from the purely erudite scholar. Another characteristic feature is the periodisation the journal has chosen. Past and Present seeks to respond to the reduction of contemporary history to the history of the 20th century, a tendency that is taking hold in schools and which risks becoming a simplification that rides roughshod over historic problems. The journal, however, identifies the roots of the contemporary world in the great economic, social, political and cultural processes that were set off at the end of the 18th century by the Industrial Revolution in England and the French Revolution. These cultural choices are also reflected in the rich articulation of features, which make Past and Present a ‘constructed’ journal at every level. The Editorial calls for a historical context to current issues and Discussions hosts an exchange between diverse voices on topics deemed relevant; Essays (Saggi) offers results of Italian and foreign research, while the Contemporary Historians (Storici contemporanei) section focuses on the relationship between the historian’s work and the context in which he/she operates. Considerable space is also given to critiques of international production and the issue of how history is presented by the mass media and in exhibitions, and how it is produced for schools. The result is a journal which as well as boasting illustrious names is capable of speaking, through articles of varying importance and readability, to students, teachers and a wider audience of history enthusiasts.
click here for index of past issues
General editor: Francesca Tacchi (Università di Firenze)
Editor in chief Gabriele Turi (Università di Firenze)
Roberto Bianchi (Università di Firenze), Philip Cooke (Strathclyde University, Glasgow), Valeria Galimi (Università di Firenze)
Editorial board; Giovanni Borgognone (Università di Torino), Catherine Brice (Université Paris-Est Créteil), Carolina Castellano (Università Federico II, Napoli), Massimo Cattaneo (Università Federico II, Napoli), Pietro Causarano (Università di Firenze), Monica Galfré (Università di Firenze), Lorenzo Kamel (Università di Torino), Lutz Klinkhammer (Deutsches Historisches Institut, Roma), Silvano Montaldo (Università di Torino), Xosé Manoel Núñez Seixas (Universidade de Santiago de Compostela), Elena Papadia (Università La Sapienza, Roma), Stefano Petrungaro (Università di Venezia), Raffaella Sarti (Università di Urbino), Luciano Segreto (Università di Firenze), Marta Verginella (Università di Lubiana)
Corrispondenti: Elena Bacchin (Università di Venezia), Chiara Beccalossi (University of Lincoln), Giacomo Bonan (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt), Andrea Borelli (Università della Calabria), Stefano Bottoni (Università di Firenze), Marco Bresciani (Università di Firenze), Carlotta Ferrara degli Uberti (Università di Pisa), Bianca Gaudenzi (DHI Roma-Università di Konstanz-Cambridge University), Stefano Luconi (Università di Padova), Alessio Petrizzo (Università di Padova), Camillo Robertini (Instituto de Estudios Internacionales, Universidad de Chile), Debora Spini (New York University, Shanghai), Giulia Strippoli (Universidade Nova, Lisboa), Luisa Tasca (Libera Università di Bolzano), Alessandro Tuccillo (Università di Torino), Scientific Advisory Committee: Aldo Agosti (Università di Torino), Frederic Attal (Université Polytechnique Hauts-de-France, Valenciennes), Ruth Ben-Ghiat (New York University), Albert Carreras (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona) , António Costa Pinto (Universidade de Lisboa), Gerd Rainer Horn (SciencesPo, Paris), Maurizio Isabella (Queen Mary University of London), Tim Kirk (Newcastle University), Marc Lazar (SciencesPo, Paris), Marie-Anne Matard-Bonucci (Université Paris VIII, Saint-Denis), Lutz Raphael (Universität Trier), Gianpasquale Santomassimo (Università di Siena), Stephen Smith (University of Oxford), Simonetta Soldani (Università di Firenze), Philipp Ther (Universität Wien), Enzo Traverso (Cornell University, New York), Gabriele Turi (Università di Firenze), Christian Wicke (Universiteit Utrecht), Perry Willson (University of Dundee) , Editors: Editorial coordinator rivista: Giulio Taccetti (Scuola Superiore di Studi Storici, San Marino), Multimedia section manager: Davide Serafino (DHI, Roma), Francesco Maccelli (Università di Firenze), Lorenzo Venuti (Università di Firenze)