Since the 1970s West German historiography has been one of the main arenas of international comparative history. It has produced important empirical studies particularly in social history as well as methodological and theoretical reflections on comparative history. During the last twenty years however, this approach has felt pressure from two sources: cultural historical approaches, which stress microhistory and the construction of cultural transfer on the one hand, global history and transnational approaches with emphasis on connected history on the other. This volume introduces the reader to some of the major methodological debates and to recent empirical research of German historians, who do comparative and transnational work.
Table of Contents
Preface
Comparison and Beyond: Traditions, Scope, and Perspective of Comparative History
Jürgen Kocka/Heinz-Gerhard Haupt
PART I
Comparative and Entangled History in Global Perspectives
CHAPTER 1
Between Comparison and Transfers – and What Now?
A French –German Debate
Hartmut Kaelble
CHAPTER 2
A ‘Transnational’ History of Society: Continuity or New Departure?
Jürgen Osterhammel
CHAPTER 3
Double Marginalization: A Plea for a Transnational Perspective on German History
Sebastian Conrad
CHAPTER 4
Entangled Histories of Uneven Modernities: Civil Society, Caste Councils, and Legal Pluralism in Postcolonial India
Shalini Randeria
CHAPTER 5
Lost in Translation? Transcending Boundaries in Comparative History
Monica Juneja/ Margrit Pernau
PART II
Transnationalization and Issues in European History
CHAPTER 6
The Nation as a Developing Resource Community: A Generalizing Comparison
Dieter Langewische
CHAPTER 7
Birds of a Feather: A Comparative History of German and US Labor in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
Thomas Welskopp
CHAPTER 8
Visions of the Future: GDR, CSSR, and the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1960s
Jörg Requate
CHAPTER 9
Comparisons, Cultural Transfers, and the Study of Networks: Toward a Transnational History of Europe
Philipp Ther
CHAPTER 10
Germany and Africa in the Late Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: An Entangled History?
Andreas Eckert
CHAPTER 11
Losing National Identity or Gaining Transcultural Competence:
Changing Approaches in Migration History
Dirk Hoerder