What is Translation History?

-- Andrea Chesterman, University of Helsinki, Finland

"[This book] builds bridges between historians and translation scholars by theorizing translation in terms historians will understand and theorizing history in terms translation scholars will understand."

-- Douglas Robinson, Hong Kong Baptist University This book presents a dynamic history of the ways in which translators are trusted and distrusted. Working from this premise, the authors develop an approach to translation that speaks to historians of literature, language, culture, society, science, translation and interpreting. By examining theories of trust from sociological, philosophical, and historical studies, and with reference to interdisciplinarity, the authors outline a methodology for approaching translation history and intercultural mediation from three discrete, concurrent perspectives on trust and translation: the interpersonal, the institutional and the regime-enacted. This book will be of particular interest to students and scholars of translation studies, as well as historians working on mediation and cultural transfer.