What are the key questions being discussed in French railway history at the moment?
The key question is to allow railway history to become permeated by the general move of historiography towards ‘larger’ questions, as ‘mobility’ including all aspects of transport, ‘culture’ including all aspects of mobility. We have nevertheless to be and remain aware of the fact that one lonely limited self cannot have the same degree of knowledge of all fields and the intimate knowledge of archives which allow not only a well balanced comparison, which was the keyword 20 years ago, but global interpretation and the use of far-reaching concepts. Historians are (or should have been) taught to look at anachronism as the worst of sins. They should stick to this basic faith, especially in matters as the perception of technology, its use, or industrial relations, not to mention the Second World War in occupied countries, which was perforce one of AHICF research topics in the recent years. The AHICF scientific programme for the next ten years or so is based on 5 sub-fields which may sound
