Empires In Western Europe

themed issue of Journal of Early Modern History, 22/5, 2018.
In the last decades, a vast body of literature has scrutinized the archive, regarding it as an instrument of power for the Western conquest of the world. More recently, a new, vibrant cultural history of archives has changed our understanding of archives as a fully-fledged historical object and why they matter for extending the geographical scope of history and achieving a more connected image of modernity. The articles assembled in this themed issue delve into the history of imperial archives and archival practices in the period 1500-1800, bringing together different lines of inquiry. Each contribution focuses on a major Western imperial formation at different epochs in their evolution, dealing both with current records and historical collections; each engages with archives as an institution, as assemblages of documents that circulated in and out of official depositories, as a site where colonial administrative knowledge was elaborated, and as a political project.

The aim of this first-year class is to help students think about the processes of political and social transformation in nineteenth century Europe, from the end of the Napoleonic Wars to the 'Age of the Masses', which began at the dawn of the twentieth-century. Our analysis focuses on the joint evolutions of regimes and political organisations (the persistence and reform of multinational empires, nation state building, and the rise of new colonial empires), cultural and political sensitivities (liberalism, conservatism, democracy, socialism), and practices of mobilisation (revolts and insurrections, formal and informal politicisation, war commitments, religious or associative engagements, etc.). Political history is understood in a broad sense, in light of the economic, social, and cultural changes that have affected, at different scales, nineteenth century societies. Europe is not considered in a homogeneous way; we are interested in the tensions and conflicts which have divided it, the imagination of its borders and its limits. Nor will it be considered in an isolated or self-centred way; European expansion will be placed in the context of the 'globalisation' of the nineteenth century and Europe's interactions with the Americas, Africa and Asia. While remaining focused on a well-defined issue, the class will integrate recent contributions of research in transnational history, imperial history, and global history, among other areas, and engage students with primary sources from which narrative and historical analyses are built.

Continued USA Hegemony in Europe 2022: The fear, or rather hate of the "East", (or the "Other"; Muslim, Berber, Black, Latin American, Slavs, Chinese, Indian) in Western mindsets under the mastership of the USA is causing just another war with unforeseen outcomes in the Ukraine. The choices are not so simple. Either negotiate or act against a megalomaniac Western state, turned dangerous international rogue. The world cannot afford the USA any longer. "Let us trust that in the coming century resort to force and violence shall not be glorified and the essence of political power is compassion and justice externally manifested in a dialogue between civilizations" (President Mohammad Khatami, Iran, 2001). The appeal was made a year before the USA once again invaded a sovereign state, Afghanistan (2002), just after the invasion of Iraq and before NATO destroyed the sovereign state Libya. For the moment we will not discuss sanctions against Cuba or the uncountable deaths in Vietnam due to USA intervention nor assassinations by armed aerial vehicles (AAV) on African and Middle-East soil that transgress the sovereignty of people.

Call for Papers
Globalized Peripheries
New Approaches to the Atlantic World 1680–1850
Date: July 5th–7th, 2018
Place: European University Viadrina
(Frankfurt an der Oder, Germany)

Possible topics include but are not limited to:
• The exchange and movement of goods and people across
the oceans
• Merchants and merchant networks
• Consumption and material culture
• (Proto-)Industrial production and development
• Theories of political economy
• (Religious) Minorities as agents of trade
• Gender from a global perspective
• Theoretical and methodological approaches to “Atlantic
History” and/or “centers” and “peripheries”
Although the conference has no specific regional focus, we explicitly invite papers focused on the following “peripheries” of the Atlantic World and/or its historiography:
• Central and Eastern Europe
• West and West Central Africa
• South Asia

Proposals of ca. 300 words as well as a short CV (max. 1 page) should be sent to: globalized-peripheries@europa-uni.de
by October 15th, 2017.

We only accept proposals sent electronically to this e-mail address. Feel free to contact us at this address should you have any further questions. Please also indicate if you would like us to consider your proposal for publication.
We look forward to receiving your proposals!
Klaus Weber, Jutta Wimmler, Anka Steffen & Torsten dos Santos Arnold
www.kuwi.europa-uni.de/globalized-peripheries

 ABSTRACT The global 'turn' in historical scholarship has transformed the study of empire in recent decades. Historians now stress the multiplicity of imperialisms in the modern and contemporary period and the diversity of imperial relations and practices; they also contest the analytical separation between metropole and colony, and explore the influence of the latter on the former. However, when it comes to displacing the grand narrative of 19 th-and early 20 th-century European hegemony and expansion, historians have been less successful and, for all the emphasis on imperial pluralities, the assumption of centre and periphery has been hard to dislodge. Moreover, many new works continue to offer the British and French cases as archetypes of modern colonialism and/or the centrality of Africa and the Indian Ocean as the main theatres of empire. The recent inclusion of Germany among the big imperial players has done little else to broaden the comparative reach of colonial history. Despite research that has complicated the chronologies of European expansion in the modern period, the overriding importance of the late 19 th-century 'Age of Imperialism' is still taken for granted.