Translation, Travel, Exchange: Microhistory in Ibero-America

There is abundant evidence of the early importance of microhistory, in the strict sense of the work produced by its Italian promoters or the books they included in the famous Microstorie collection published by Einaudi (1981–91), in both Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking Ibero-America. The early translation of many of these works into Spanish and Portuguese is enough to confirm this, though one should also consider the absence of translations of other exponents. In the same way, additional evidence is provided by the presence in the libraries of important historians from the region, such as Enrique Tandeter and José Emilio Burucúa in the case of Argentina (Excesos lectores), of these works in the original languages and in translations into other Romance languages prior to their publication in Spanish and Portuguese. Similarly, the systematic inclusion of this bibliography in undergraduate and postgraduate university programs is also relevant, as are the numerous attempts to balance the tradition itself and its uses (or absence thereof) in Latin America and the visits by Carlo Ginzburg and Giovanni Levi in the 1990s.