Global Social History: Social Transformation and Spatial Orders in World History

Christof Dejung (U Bern)

Abstract:
This presentation discusses the interdependency of global and social history, exploring global social history as a new field of historical inquiry. It aims to demonstrate that we cannot understand the emergence and transformation of social groups across the modern world, such as the aristocracy, the economic bourgeoisie, the educated middle classes, or the peasantry, without considering the impact of global entanglements on class formation. What is more, the paper discusses the role of the agency of these groups for the establishing of transregional networks and processes of spatialization.

Biographical Note:
Prof. Dr. Christof Dejung (University of Bern, Switzerland)
Christof Dejung is professor of modern history at the University of Bern. He is the author of Commodity Trading, Globalization and the Colonial World: Spinning the Web of the Global Market (Routledge, 2018) and a coeditor (together with David Motadel and Jürgen Osterhammel) of The Global Bourgeoisie: The Rise of the Middle Classes in the Age of Empire (Princeton University Press, 2019).