The aim of this paper is to take part in the debate about the future of national biographies today. In this sense, we analyse national biographical dictionaries as instruments for the creation of national memory and as a foundation in the processes of building nation-states. We analyse the origin and development of national
biographical dictionaries in the context of the evolution of biography. We
initially observe the elements that condition dictionaries: the geographical
and chronological framework in which they are developed, the criteria for
selecting the personages whose biographies are to be written and for selecting
biographers, the structure and sources of the biographies. At present, this
model of dictionaries and national memory is being put into question by the
emergence of new nationalisms and by the superseding of nations in new
supranational bodies like the European Union. Finally, based on the above, we
set out a proposal for renovating these works in the XXI century.
From the 1990s onwards there has been growing interest in the study of biography. As opposed to those who are skeptical of the biographical method, we defend the historiographical importance of collective biographies by contrasting them with biographical collections. By discussing the historical background of biography as a branch of history, and by focusing on the aims, methodology and outcomes of collective biographies, we attempt to show how they both extend and deepen our concept of historical research.
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