Apresentação

Abstract

What is the importance of the periodical in the production and dissemination of knowledge? What are the specific conditions of the editorial process in journals with a consultative council? What type of differentiated role befits them, if there is one? The answer to these questions involves the discussion of the meaning of a periodical like the Brazilian Journal of History, founded in 1981 and, ever since, a decisive vehicle for promoting much new thinking in Brazilian historiography. E.P. Thompson, in a classical text on historical logic, demonstrated the specific conditions for the production of knowledge by historians and the validation of the results. Historical practice consists of a dialogue between concepts/hypotheses and evidence, in a sort of dynamic "court of appeal" in which the various researchers, under historical perspectives and conditions, and in the context of the struggles and impasses of their own time, go over their successes and failures together. In this unending, incomplete, imperfect debate, historiography outlines the diverse meanings that the past can come to assume for us, positioning itself face to face with the world and the men of our own time. The activities that the publication of a periodical presupposes involve rich intellectual learning processes. The judgment of texts presented to peers without the identification of the authors makes it possible to abandon the facile respect for reputation and authority, to breakdown hierarchies, and blaze a trail for originality and competence. The authors exercise intellectual detachment and maturity, with a readiness to listen. Such dialogues yield auspicious results for the renovation of historical knowledge and should be impartial to the point of guaranteeing space to challenge what seems established or unquestioned. This is the role that this journal wishes to reaffirm. The articles that comprise this issue resulted from the work of the members of the Editorial Council, of the opinion writers and of a wide range of authors that sent in their texts, whether or not they were accepted for publication, as limits on space impose choices that are not always easy. The improvement of our editorial