ABSTRACT
In the past decade, numerous pleas have been made by scholars and critics (Robinson 2011; Roy 2011) for alternative perspectives in the field of planning history. These have included calls for more comparative, transcultural, and negotiated viewpoints on the discourse and practice of urban planning. This essay probes into three of the most intensive fields of historiographic renewal: questions of authorship, center-periphery relations, and definitions of theory. It argues that these alternative historiographical perspectives of the early 21st century not only have radically changed the character of planning history, but also pose a set of methodological challenges. They invite us to question our fundamental categories, tools, and procedures of history writing.
