National security as a transnational issue. The nineteenth-century origins. Introduction.

This issue of Confronti aims to foster a dialogue between history and security studies, thereby contributing to the emergent field of security history. In this framework, Confronti proposes a concrete and specific contribution, going back to the origins of national security. The purpose is to investigate the various forms assumed by transnational surveillance connected to issues of national security in the years prior to the realisation of modes of international police cooperation. With this end in mind, the papers by Aurélien Ligneraux, Beatrice de Graaf, Christos Aliprantis, Chiara Lucrezio Monticelli and Clive Emsley address a time span ranging from the French Revolution to the 1880s against a number of different geographical backgrounds.