Diacronie was created on 29 January 2008 and founded by a group of contemporary history students at the University of Bologna. Since 2009, its activities have included the publication of a journal. Since that time, its activities have included a journal. Diacronie is a free-access digital resource aiming to collect and promote scientific studies and research on history and historiography. The website is also intended to provide information on events, publications and information resources on historical sciences.

Network

Our project is based on the idea that the Internet has brought about substantial changes in humanistic studies, both in production and in the spread of research. We aim to contribute to the investigation of the opportunities offered by the web to historical research, especially in terms of the legitimacy of studies, materials and sources that do not always obtain full recognition through more traditional publishing channels. Most importantly, it is an attempt to examine the potentials linked to the notion of the web and, therefore, of connection and interaction. Our intention is to create a “widespread socialisation” – between scholars, researchers and society – so that the web page is not just a publication or a collection, but also a guide, a support for research tools and sources. Lastly, the web offers the possibility of exerting critical influence on the knowledge produced, which, to be sustainable, requires maximum freedom of access and discussion of the contents.

Interdisciplinarity

Diacronie supports an interdisciplinary approach to all research themes and methodologies. History studies cannot be separated from the contribution of other sciences – humanities and non-humanities – to face the new challenges posed by the evolving profession of historian in the digital age.

Sharing

The site’s main traits of originality are include its purely digital dimension, democratic and shared editorial management and free access to content. Choosing free access to the contents is a way of ensuring wide circulation of the documents, as we are aware that the topics proposed can and must be of interest not just to a small circle of specialists, but to a wide audience, with interests, curiosity, external and alternative points of view. This interactive medium does not, however, exclude the scientific and methodological accuracy of the research. This project is founded on the desire to share historical research and on the trust placed in readers. We therefore hope that users will acknowledge the authors’ work and intellectual property.

We hope you enjoy the reading.

The editorial staff