Translation as an approach to history

It is my experience that the more historical our research, and the more embedded it is in the relevant historiography, the less obviously enlightening it is for other translation scholars who are not familiar with this historiography; while the more we address other scholars in translation studies, the less we are contributing to the historical field of our choice. Or to put this another way: the more we immerse ourselves in the historical field of our choice, the more the other scholars of this field become our natural interlocutors and the less we have in common with other scholars in translation studies. Using the author's experience in historical research on translation during the Fascist period as a starting point, this paper explores the relationship between the study of history and the study of translation history, with a particular focus on the contribution that translation history can potentially make to more general historiography.