Introduction

In the course of over ten years of research and debate sponsored by the Bairati Center for Euro-American Studies at the Universities of Turin and Eastern Piedmont on the political, social, and intellectual dimensions of transatlantic relations in the twentieth century, the idea of an Atlantic community has often loomed in the background, either as a historical and geographical space marked by signifi cant exchanges and interactions of ideas and policies, or as a political and cultural construct overlapping with “the West” during the cold war. The protean character and vague contours of this idea account for both its ubiquity in public discourse and the relative lack of scholarly interest in its defi nition. Historians on both sides of the Atlantic have often resorted to the slippery, ambiguous notion of an Atlantic community as a convenient narrative device-many have assumed it as the obvious, natural framework of their research-but by and large, they have failed to consider it as a legitimate and relevant subject of inquiry. Yet recent developments inside and outside academia suggest that it is time to take this notion seriously.