Empire in current global historiography

Abstract

There is no doubt: empires strike back, not only in history but also in historiography. This famous expression of colonies that impact the (former) imperial metropolis has been inspired by the manifold experiences coming from the everyday presence of people, material resources, and cultural patterns circulating across imperial spaces. The renewed, and surprisingly growing, interest in the study of empires by historians – as well as far beyond a narrow institutional understanding of the discipline – takes inspiration from a whole series of observations. The old narrative “from empire to nation”, which reflected the ideas of historians at the end of the nineteenth century as well as during the mo-ments of massive decolonization, now seems outdated. The nation-state is obviously not the only and final stage in world history – replacing everything that came before. This insight is fed both by the observation that nation-states are not the only spatial format with which societies react to the global condition – both at the end of the nineteenth as well as during the twentieth and at the beginning of the twenty-first centuries – and by the disillusionment with the failed dream of anti-colonial activists that the declaration of independence would mean immediate sovereignty over the definition of transregional connectedness.

Biographical Note

Matthias Middell (SFB 1199 & Leipzig University, Germany)

Matthias Middell is a professor of cultural history at Leipzig University as well as a speaker of the SFB 1199 and director of the Global and European Studies Institute at Leipzig University. He studied history earning his PhD from Leipzig University with his research focusing on the French Revolution. Since 2013, he has served as the director of the Graduate School Global and Area Studies in Leipzig and is currently the head of the Erasmus Mundus Global Studies Consortium. He teaches regularly at partner universities and co-supervises PhD candidates with colleagues from France, South Africa, and Ethiopia. His current research interests include the history of the French Revolution from a global perspective, history of cultural transfers around the world, and the role of space in the understanding of the current world being the result of long-lasting global connections.