The Secret of the World: on Global and Local Histories in Latin America

This article examines the repercussion of global history on Latin American historiography. Like in the central countries, the so-called global turn has gained great prominence in the region in recent years. This article argues that the adoption of this approach presents a paradoxical feature. While world histories, the core of the field in the U.S and British academy, have aroused little interest, the opposite has occurred with relational approaches such as transnational, connected or entangled history. Significant scholarly and geopolitical issues lie underneath such unequal reception. This essay reviews the relationship between Latin American global historiographical traditions and the new universal histories; the research agendas that are taking shape in the continent around this approach toward the past; and, more succinctly, drawing on two important books on the subject, the implications of global analysis models in the rewriting of the national histories of Chile and the United States.