ABSTRACT
Following the tragic events of 9/11 and the 2008 election of Barack Obama as president of the United States, much of the world turned to reconsider the history, status, and future of the transatlantic relationship. Defining and discussing the very term “transatlantic relationship” proves difficult at best and becomes controversial quite quickly depending on the time, place, and circumstance of such discourse. Very different from the concerns of individual political leaders of the transatlantic world, the specific and distinct training of scholars by academic discipline provides a myriad of meanings for such a significant affair. What the “transatlantic relationship” means to a historian versus a political scientist when compared to a sociologist or economist or a communication studies scholar confirms the fact that even the phrase is problematic to circumscribe in the academic realm much less the transatlantic world itself. While such a relationship has long been considered the bedrock of international relations, a reassessment is critical in understanding the past if we are to have any hope for the same partnership in the future.
