A Global History of Hungary. Concept, Implementation, Reflection

Type of Abstract (select): Paper presentation

Abstract (max. 250 words):
As co-editor of A Global History of Hungary, two recently published volumes in the Hungarian language that contain 203 brief chapters by 159 contributing authors on a total of 1 048 pages, I would like introduce our concept of consistently applying transnational methods to reinterpret a country’s history on the long term and discuss our key ambition to embed Hungarian history in global frames for the first time. I would then discuss the specific manner the overarching concept has been implemented, including the main research questions posed and the types of chapters both volumes contain. I would also like to reflect on how we have drawn on and adapted a new west European “model” of history writing, the challenges this has posed and the opportunities it offers for the history writing of the semi-peripheral parts of Europe. Last but not least, the presentation would address more theoretical questions raised by the current wave in historiography to globally contextualize the histories of individual countries - a wave to which A Global History of Hungary clearly belongs.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Ferenc Laczó is an assistant professor with tenure (universitair docent 1) in history at Maastricht University, an editor at the Review of Democracy (CEU Democracy Institute), and István Deák Visiting Assistant Professor at Columbia University in 2023-24. He received his PhD from the Central European University in 2011 and was previously employed as a postdoctoral researcher at the Imre Kertész Kolleg Jena. He is the author or editor of thirteen books on Hungarian, Jewish, German, European, and global themes.