Verschlagwortet: Global History
In this article, Johan Bolding Rasmussen examines how Critical Theory can engage with global intellectual history. He suggests that by moving beyond Eurocentric perspectives, Critical Theory can address global challenges more effectively. Rasmussen proposes integrating diverse intellectual traditions to enrich critical discourse and enhance its relevance in a global context. According to him, “global intellectual history is the emergence of a promising and strong research field that combines intellectual history with the recent increase in attentiveness towards the global”. Similarly, “recent years have seen a significant number of research monographs” on the Frankfurt School emerge. Inherently universal, the literature does, however, raise crucial questions on its globality.
By Zoe Wineck and Hunadah Al Hariri. The authors start by introducing the field of Global History, explaining its shortcomings regarding epistemic invisibility, and the real-world impact of the field. In the following, they look at how war caused disabilities as a form of colonial subjugation. More specifically, they look at the case of Israel-Palestine and argue that the state of Israel, since its establishment in 1948, has consistently used the maiming of Palestinians as a colonial tool. The history of this practice has been marginalized in historiography but is essential to understanding the conflict today.
By Sebastian Conrad. In this moment of rapid political and cultural change, a reassessment of what global history stands for, what it can contribute and where its limits lie is a timely exercise. Global history as a subfield has had a fast and successful career. Virtually unknown at the turn of the century, it has by now acquired an almost ubiquitous presence in the discipline. This first phase, the era of the field’s establishment was followed by a series of critical assessments. In the wake of the financial crisis, and then the worldwide populist turn of the 2010s, the globalizing trends of the previous decades gave way to anti-globalizing movements and talk of a “backlash” and a “decoupling” of the world. What’s next?
As a metaphor, Marshall McLuhan’s ‘global village’ has seen better days.1 During optimistic times, it succinctly conveyed the image of an ever more closely connected world in which people separated by vast distances could easily have a chat, as if acro…
On 24 February 1938, a crowd of 30,000 onlookers gathered in the rain awaiting the official opening of Tel Aviv port to passenger traffic. Due to bad weather conditions, however, the ceremony had been moved inside a ‘gaily decorated warehouse’ on the s…
Martin Thomas tells the story of decolonization and its intrinsic link to globalization. He traces the connections between these two transformative processes: the end of formal empire and the acceleration of global integration, market reorganization, cultural exchange, and migration. A Conversation.
Archaeological artefacts from the Ottoman Empire have only recently attracted attention in current debates over decolonization and restitution. Mirjam S. Brusius of the German Historical Institute London is researching the excavation of objects, the ro…
In 2020, the Vatican has opened its archives for the pontificate of Pius XII (1939-1958), which has been accompanied by strong media coverage. While a lot of scholarly attention has been given to the actions of the Catholic Church during the Second World War and the Holocaust, the research group “The Global Pontificate of Pius XII: Catholicism in a Divided World, 1945-1958” is the first attempt to focus on the post-war period and tries to address new questions about the Vatican’s role in the phase of reconstruction after 1945, the emerging conflicts between the capitalist West and the communist East, and the processes of decolonization in the global South. Simon Unger and Julian Sandhagen in conversation with Alex Favalli.
By Ferenc Laczó, András Vadas, and Bálint Varga. As a recent project on the global history of Hungary aims to demonstrate, studying Central and Eastern Europe through the systematic application of transnational methods and from a truly global perspective can offer original and valuable insights. In this essay, the authors of Magyarország globális története (A Global History of Hungary) would like to outline their agenda of applying transnational methods to the long-term reinterpretation of a country’s history and reflect on the ambition to embed Hungarian history comprehensively in global frameworks.
By David Malitz. Following its first public conceptualization in 2007, the “Indo-Pacific” has been adopted as the geopolitical framework for strategic policies by numerous governments. This global adoption of the “Indo-Pacific”, with differing geographic definitions, has led to the emergence of a sizable literature on the region and the different strategies, visions, and outlooks formulated for it. In this literature, it is customary to refer to the German scholar Karl Haushofer (1869–1946) as first geopolitical thinker to use the term “Indo-Pacific” in the 1920s and therefore to claim or imply an influence of Haushofer’s thought on 21st century policy.
By Réka Krizmanics. This article discusses a case study of an anticolonial solidarity campaign in the Hungarian countryside based on the archival records of the Hungarian Women’s National Council (HWNC), focusing on spaces and protagonists that are rarely centered in similar investigations. By expanding on this example, it seeks to demonstrate some of the difficulties that arose for women in their practical work that underpinned an important anticolonial initiative.
‘Cocaine flashed like a meteor before the eyes of the medical world.’1 The discovery of cocaine turned out to be an exceptional novelty in the medicinal and pharmaceutical world of the late nineteenth century but the history of the raw material of the …
In her new book, Ismay Milford presents a transregional history of how activists such as Abu Mayanja were crucial actors for the creation of a pan-African Anticolonial Culture.
By Immanuel R. Harisch. Only recently, the decades-old debate regarding former Mozambican contract workers in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) experienced new momentum. Characterized by Marcia C. Schenck as “wandering journeymen of the Cold War” (“Wandergesellen des Kalten Krieges”), the trajectories of Mozambican contract workers were crucially shaped by socialist encounters and the close relations between the GDR and Mozambique.
Mohammed Bamyeh’s 2007 book, Of Death and Dominion, was translated into German in 2020 and released by Turia + Kant. We spoke with the author about his research process, how death played out within historical power structures, and the role of mortality in contemporary society.
By Nükhet Varlık. Plague is an infectious disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. It is known to have affected human societies for at least the last five thousand years. During its long history, it sparked countless local epidemics and three known pandemics, which spread the bacterium to practically every corner of the world.
By Katharina Kreuder-Sonnen. Research on the global history of Cold War Eastern Europe is flourishing. This edited volume stems from two home-bases of the endeavour, Exeter and Leipzig, where most of the editors as well as the series Dialectics of the Global were or are based.