Why do we need to divide time into periods, and how do these divisions of time contribute to or impede our understanding? Unlike other studies of periodization that limit discussions to whether particular period definitions are true and accurate, Periodization: Cutting Up the Past delves into our wariness of such categorizing and the impulse to categorize historical time in the first place. This special issue of MLQ covers examples of periodization from the early modern to the present, including a range from the individual year to the longue duree and incorporates a variety of methods from...