The uproar over Critical Race Theory and questions of Black cultural influence; apprehension for the threat of Russia against “the West”; fear of Chinese dominance and other perceived perils of and to Pacific rim countries: such public debates draw on particular understandings of History. Historians are, like other scholars, responsible not only for ongoing efforts to refine our discipline, but also for efforts to make informed public discussion possible, including through writing that reflects and responds to present-day concerns. This panel addresses what the presenters see as current blind spots in historiography, especially concerning conceptualization of the dominance and even appropriately unidirectional flow of “Western” cultures. Belinda Davis will initiate the discussion, examining relations both among European nations and regions and between Europe and other parts of the world. She will interrogate the ways that notions such as “the West,” inconsistently as such terms are used with respect to Europe and the U.S., continue to imply cultural superiority--and, thereby, a right to reward or punish other regions of the world, not least through military force. The issue is all the more important as such terms are deployed in textbooks, means by which the greatest number of people are exposed to such world views. Evincing previously un- and under-used sources, Maghan Keita will follow on, to offer new views of the medieval and Renaissance period. The latter term is normally viewed popularly and even still by scholars as overwhelmingly reflecting Europe’s rise (again) as appropriately culturally dominant, even superior, across the world. Keita highlights how historians’ foci have historically erased the critical importance of African cultural influences well beyond the African continent, including in Europe, rewriting our understanding of a time period so frequently dominated by emphasis on European cultural production. Continuing on, Paul Kramer will rework the tool of “connection” with respect to transnational and global histories, offering new means for historians to usefully grasp cultural circulations from the past and into the present, critical to understanding our present. He will pursue this inter alia through attention to the influences of broader Pacific cultures—including to the very variability of social, political, and cultural organization the latter represent. We see these investigations as contributing to ongoing efforts to question blind spots in our historical approaches and to offer alternatives. As we hope the breadth of the contributions, alongside their thematic consistency, will leave considerable possibility for discussion, we will leave commentary for the audience.