In the last two decades of the twentieth century, the research
and teaching of medieval history in the USA has experienced a
radical transformation. These changes have taken place along a
whole range of different
perspectives: How to undertake research, methodology,
historiographical traditions and their overthrow, new thematic
approaches, new geographical areas of research, and the
ideological content. My brief presentation seeks to summarize
these different historiographical patterns and to outline the
nature of the transformations that have taken place in the US
over the last twenty-five years, as well as attempting to
forecast the ares of development of the research and teaching of
medieval
history on the early decades of the twentieth-first century.
An important component of my presentation is to disccuss, in some
detail, the evolution of recent research and teaching of Spanish
medieval history in the USA; from its marginalized position
within the larger field of medieval studies to its recent success
as one of the areas drawing the
greatest interest among students.