Suchergebnisse

"In 1775, the Atlantic world was utterly dominated by four monarchies: those of Great Britain, France, Spain and Portugal. Between them, they largely controlled the seaways. They laid claim to vast territories, including most of the two American continents. They mustered the region's strongest land armies. Their subjects carried out nearly all of its most dynamic economic activity, much of which was supported by slave labor. Only a tiny percentage of these subjects had a voice in how they were governed. Fifty years later, this dominion was at an end. Each of the four monarchies had been shaken to the core by the wave of revolutions that began in Lexington, Massachusetts on 19 April 1775. At a minimum, the Atlantic territories affected by revolution included the United States, France, present-day Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland, Haiti, and the vast mainland American possessions of Spain and Portugal"--

Debates about history have never been strictly confined to the world of scholarship. They have also been at the centre of political controversies in society. 'The problem for professional historians', Eric Hobsbawm once observed, 'is that their subject has important social and political functions'.1 'This duality', he noted, 'is the core of our subject'. This essay offers some reflections on the political role of historians, exploring the relationship between their scholarly work and their involvement in political debates. A closer look at the issue shows that it is not so much a problem as an opportunity for historians to engage with their subject on various levels, from the realm of scholarship to the realm of contemporary politics, which makes their position in society both more complex and more critical.

Abstract
This essay offers a reflection on the historical study of modern Europe's entanglements with the wider world. It explores the ways in which European history can be integrated into global history, considering Europe as not only an engine but also a product of global transformations. Providing a broad historiographical overview, the author discusses the impact of the "global turn" on different fields of modern European history, including political, economic, social, intellectual, and environmental history. He argues that global history represents not only a challenge but also a huge opportunity for Europeanists to open up modern European history. This will ultimately help us reshape our understanding of the boundaries of Europe—and the field of European history itself. In other words, it will allow us to deprovincialize Europe. More generally, the essay also engages with broader questions about continents (and other spatial units) as ontological categories in historical studies.

Globaliser l'EuropeCet essai propose une réflexion sur l'étude historique des liens entre l'Europe moderne et contemporaine et le reste du monde. Il explore les manières dont l'histoire européenne peut être intégrée à l'histoire globale, en considérant l'Europe non seulement comme un moteur, mais aussi comme un produit des transformations mondiales. À partir d'un large aperçu historiographique, l'auteur discute de l'influence du « tournant global » sur différents domaines de l'histoire européenne moderne et contemporaine, notamment l'histoire politique, économique, sociale, intellectuelle et environnementale. Il soutient que l'histoire globale représente tant un défi qu'une opportunité considérable pour les européistes d'ouvrir l'histoire européenne moderne. Cette approche nous aidera finalement à remodeler notre compréhension des frontières de l'Europe – et du domaine de l'histoire européenne lui-même. En d'autres termes, cela nous permettra de déprovincialiser l'Europe. De manière plus générale, l'essai aborde également des questions plus larges sur les continents (et d'autres unités spatiales) en tant que catégories ontologiques dans les études historiques.

The article examines Germany's policy towards Islam in the Soviet Union during the Second World War. At the height of the war, when German troops entered Muslim territories in the Crimea and the Caucasus, officials in Berlin began to see Islam as politically and strategically significant. In both areas, Nazi Germany started to promote a military alliance with the Muslim population against the Soviet Union. The article enquires into the ways in which German authorities, most notably in the Wehrmacht and the SS but also in the Ministry of the East and the Foreign Office instrumentalized religious practice, custom and iconography, as well as religious rhetoric and terminology, for political and strategic ends. It adds a crucial dimension not only to the history of the Second World War, but also to the history of the engagement of the great powers with Islam in the modern age.

The article examines the travelogues kept by the Qajar ruler Nasir al-Din Shah during his European tours in 1873, 1878 and 1889. To the monarch, Europe appeared to be an exotic and at times troubling place and he recorded his experiences with delight, criticism and humor. Focusing on his notes on Germany, the article explores Nasir al-Din Shah's encounters with people on the streets and at court, and in particular his perception of the female sex. Scholarship has either neglected the diaries or rejected them as a historical source, referring to the strong influence of literary convention and the Shah's alleged lack of understanding of the political, social and cultural conditions in Europe. Drawing on the uncensored versions of the diaries, the article argues that a closer look at the texts reveals fruitful, often amusing, insight into the monarch's experiences with social roles and cultural patterns alien to him. It suggests that a more careful reading of the diaries will also be beneficial in regard to the Shah's perception of European history and monuments, technology and scientific innovations, and landscape.