ABSTRACT
In the past few years, several historians have attempted to write a history of modern European culture. The most recent is Donald Sassoon’s ambitious synthesis The Culture of the Europeans (2006). Through a critical analysis of this book, which enhances the construction and development of the markets in culture, this chapter aims to define the themes, methods, and approaches that would allow a true cultural history of Europe to be written. Such a history should endeavor to build a set of qualitative, quantitative, cartographic, and-if possible-dynamic indicators. It would use several scales of analysis and synthesis, relating the questions explored by cultural history to other analytical approaches, without either deferring to them or vaunting an illusory independence from other historical discourses (such as political, social, or hermeneutical). It must also define some strategic observation points (such as cultural capitals) to avoid both local and national parochialism and an excessive generalization that would obscure the specificity of any historical moment or cultural object and field.
