This article offers a theoretical overview of transnational history in relation to the history of ideas, a field that certain specialists of transnational history have singled out as a promising field of future transnational research. Recent historiographical discussions within Enlightenment studies are offered to throw light about the actual novelty that a transnational perspective would offer for the history of ideas. Rather than being an entirely new outlook, transnational types of analysis can be understood as lying at the heart of classical, universalistic Enlightened scholarship, a perspective that was challenged according to the fundamental problem of context.
“Mason without apron”
(2019)
While the lack of religion in Alexander von Humboldt’s work and the criticism he received is well known, his relationship with Freemasonry is relatively unexplored. Humboldt appears on some lists of “illustrious Masons,” and several lodges carry his name, but was he really a member? If so, when and where did he join a lodge? Are there any comments by him about Freemasonry? Who were the renowned Masons he was surrounded by? This paper examines these questions, but more importantly it analyzes what a membership might have meant for Humboldt’s scholarly work. It looks particularly at the unprecedented success he enjoyed in the United States in the early 19th century and the factors behind it. What could he have gained from these connections and how was he viewed by Masonic leaders and lodges in the trans-Atlantic world?