British historian says we should ‘look beyond Europe and America’

A British historian has challenged his profession to look beyond the familiar territory – Europe and North America – that overwhelmingly dominates its research output.

Nicholas Guyatt, lecturer in modern history at the University of York, was speaking on a panel about “Teaching the Wider World” at the Institute of Historical Research on 11 September.

With Luke Clossey, associate professor in world history at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, he has surveyed nearly 2,500 historians in 57 departments in the US, the UK and Canada. About three-quarters of their total research was devoted to Europe and North America. Yet British historians, they say, notably lagged behind their transatlantic counterparts in their global outlook....