Making Europe: The Global Origins of the Old World

Konzept und Organisation: Sven Beckert, Harvard University, (External Senior Fellow 2008/09, FRIAS School of History), Dominic Sachsenmaier (Duke University), Julia Seibert (University of Trier)

Making Europe: The Global Origins of the Old World

In recent years, a new specter is haunting Europe - the explosion of writings on the history of the continent. These works all advocate an internalist view of Europe that explains Europe - its successes, its failures and its tragedies - largely out of itself, a perspective that contrasts Europe starkly to its Others. Making Europe will offer one of the first sustained critiques of that vision by investigating the economic, cultural, ideological, scientific, and political connections of Europe (and, especially, its regions) to the rest of the world. This conference, and the volume that will result from it, will argue, in contrast to much of the existing literature, that much of what is allegedly distinctly "European" is the result of interactions between particular European regions and other parts of the world. It will show that the efforts to write a history of Europe confined to its own ill-defined boundaries might serve particular political needs of the contemporary moment, but is, in fact, historically inaccurate.

Conference Programme (pdf-file)

Conference Report (PDF)

Artike BZ (PDF)
Artikel Frankfurter Rundschau (PDF)