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"On the political passions in Europe and America and their implications for Transatlantic History"
Charles Maier’s chapter is a plea for global history. It uses the lens of political passion to present a transatlantic comparison and particularly emphasizes that the Atlantic World has never been as unified as some of the historiographies have us believe. Maier identifies four major fields that have given rise to conflict and political passion: religious authority, self-government, defining the (national) community, and the distribution of wealth and goods. However, as the analysis zooms in on Europe and the United States it becomes evident that these transnational themes may and should also be explored from a global perspective. European history has always had a global dimension, from colonialism to the divisions of the Cold War.