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Transcultural History pp 11–67Cite as

Part I: Theories and Concepts

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Abstract

A border crossing transcultural history substantiates what is known as global history. Despite the overwhelming interest in global history and its transformation into a disciplinary melting pot, the nature of its potential contributions remains a matter of conjecture. Africanists point to the connections between globality and the Asian boom, complaining bitterly about a mix of market-related strategies and a shift in public interest from Out of Africa to Slumdog Millionaire. Indeed, regarded in this light, globalisation does seem to be replacing one blind spot with another. Instead of an additive approach that connects the continents, the thrilling aspect of a new global approach develops mostly from Globalizing the Research Imagination.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Jane Kenway and Johannah Fahey, Globalizing the Research Imagination (London and New York: Routledge, 2008).

  2. 2.

    Serendipity appeared as a concept in Western literature in the middle of the eighteenth century and referred to a tale from Sri Lanka. In the discourse of the enlightenment, the main characters, three princes travelling through the world, gained knowledge not by systematic discovery but by accidental sagacity and open-minded curiosity. Robert K. Merton and Elinor Barber, The Travels and Adventures of Serendipity: A Study in Sociological Semantics and the Sociology of Science (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004).

  3. 3.

    See footnote 128

  4. 4.

    George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four reflected World War II experiences. Memory politics turned to an important field of research, e.g. in the concept of Pierre Nora, who saw in memory sites (lieux de mémoire) the creation of a collective memory. See Jacques Le Goff and Pierre Nora, Constructing the Past: Essays in Historical Methodology (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985).

  5. 5.

    Jörn Rüsen, Historische Orientierung: Über die Arbeit des Geschichtsbewusstseins, sich in der Zeit zurechtzufinden (Köln: Böhlau, 1994).

  6. 6.

    As an introduction to the fundamental epistemic problems of history see Chris Lorenz, Konstruktion der Vergangenheit: eine Einführung in die Geschichtstheorie, Beiträge zur Geschichtskultur, Bd. 13 (Köln: Böhlau, 1997).

  7. 7.

    See Friedrich Nietzsche, Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie für das Leben, Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen, Teil 2 (Leipzig: Fritzsch, 1874), Kapitel 3.

  8. 8.

    Prasenjit Duara, “Why is History Antitheoretical?,” Modern China 24, no. 2 (1998): 105–20.

  9. 9.

    “Invention of tradition” is a strong historical concept introduced by Eric Hobsbawm (see below, note 48). For the identity building function of invented traditions see the introduction of national holidays and founding myths in the nineteenth century. As an example see the role of the legendary freedom fighter Wilhelm Tell for the Swiss nation building. Jean François Bergier, Wilhelm Tell: Realität und Mythos (München: List, 1990).

  10. 10.

    Duara, “Why is History Antitheoretical?,” 107.

  11. 11.

    Lutz Raphael, Geschichtswissenschaft im Zeitalter der Extreme: Theorien, Methoden, Tendenzen von 1900 bis zur Gegenwart (München: C.H. Beck, 2003).

  12. 12.

    This concept follows the idea of discourse analysis and the assumption of a dominant master narrative. For an example of how master narratives can shape historiography see James Elkins, Master Narratives and their Discontents, Lectures in the Theory of Modernism and Postmodernism (London: Routledge, 2005).

  13. 13.

    Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (London: Routledge, 1970).

  14. 14.

    A legal principle stating that what is not in the files (i.e. documented in written form) is not part of the world (i.e. does not exist). First used for the documentary evidence of the state, this principle privileges governmental collections, first of all the national archives that developed from the nineteenth century into an additional attribute of sovereignty.

  15. 15.

    For an example of this approach see Hegel: “Afrika ist kein geschichtlicher Weltteil. Was wir eigentlich unter Afrika verstehen, das ist das Geschichtslose und Unaufgeschlossene, das noch ganz im natürlichen Geiste befangen ist.” Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Geschichte, ed. Eva Moldenhauer and Karl Markus Michel, Werke in zwanzig Bänden, Bd. 12 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1986), 129.

  16. 16.

    Konrad Hugo Jarausch and Martin Sabrow, “‘Meistererzählung’: Zur Karriere eines Begriffs,” in Die historische Meistererzählung: Deutungslinien der deutschen Nationalgeschichte nach 1945, ed. Konrad Hugo Jarausch and Martin Sabrow (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2002), 9–32.

  17. 17.

    Georg G. Iggers, Q. Edward Wang, and Supriya Mukherjee, A Global History of Modern Historiography (Harlow: Longman, 2008). Q. Edward Wang and Franz L. Fillafer, eds., The Many Faces of Clio: Cross-Cultural Approaches to Historiography, Essays in Honor of Georg G. Iggers (New York: Berghahn, 2007). Including the subaltern studies’ debate: Manfredi Merluzzi, Ad limina: percorsi storiografici di frontiera, Scienze storiche, filosofiche, pedagogiche e psicologiche, 349 (Roma: Aracne, 2008).

  18. 18.

    Robert O. Keohane, Power and Governance in a Partially Globalized World (London and New York: Routledge, 2002), 193.

  19. 19.

    The “imagined community” expresses a key element in modern histories of the nation, introduced by Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983).

  20. 20.

    Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).

  21. 21.

    Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Geschichte, ed. Eduard Gans and Karl Hegel, 3rd ed. (Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1848), 24. Hegel is again gaining importance in recent debates on universal history. It is indeed an interesting approach to go into Hegel’s reflections on slavery and, with the revolution of the slaves in Haiti, start thinking about Europe’s leading role as a result of influences from the periphery. See Susan Buck-Morss, Hegel, Haiti and Universal History (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009).

  22. 22.

    For an example see Frederic H. Hedge, “The world’s history is not an aimless succession of events […], but a process and a growth. The ages are genetically as well as chronologically related”, in Frederic H. Hedge, “The Method of History,” The North American Review 111, no. 229 (1870): 323.

  23. 23.

    One of the most efficient carriers of knowledge, the popular encyclopedia, spread the idea of contributing a glorious past and a difficult present to the East, or told the history of Western discovery. For an example of the latter see “Indien,” in Meyers Konversationslexikon, 5. gänzlich neu bearbeitete Auflage (Leipzig und Wien: Bibliographisches Institut, 1896), Bd. 9, 203f.

  24. 24.

    See Karl Hegel, Vorrede zur zweiten Auflage: “In den späteren Vorträgen hingegen wurden China und Indien, der Orient überhaupt, kürzer durchgenommen und der germanischen Welt mehr Zeit und Aufmerksamkeit zugewendet.” Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Geschichte, XXI.

  25. 25.

    Iggers, Wang, and Mukherjee, A Global History of Modern Historiography.

  26. 26.

    Rudolf G. Wagner, “Importing a ‘New History’ for the New Nation: China 1899,” in Historicization = Historisierung, ed. Glenn W. Most, Aporemata, 5 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2001), 275–92.

  27. 27.

    Anderson’s latest publication masterfully unfolds the idea of historical exceptionalism, pointing first of all to a Western orientated Japan, which moved onto the Western mind-map after the Russo-Japanese War in 1904-05. This typification discounts the global impact that the Philippine independence movement had from the late 1860s onward. Benedict Anderson, Under three Flags: Anarchism and the Anti-Colonial Imagination, 2nd ed. (London: Verso, 2007).

  28. 28.

    Ibid., 22.

  29. 29.

    Also named as Kenicho Suematsu (1855–1920).

  30. 30.

    William Gerald Beasley, Historians of China and Japan, ed. School of Oriental and African Studies, Historical writing on the peoples of Asia, 3 (London: Oxford University Press, 1961), 274ff.

  31. 31.

    Instructions, in Gustavus George Zerffi, The Science of History (London 1879), xi. The mentioning of the parliament is especially interesting, since Japanese parliamentarism refers to German and British models, although the National Diet had not yet start working at this time.

  32. 32.

    The text mentions Voltaire. Ibid., xii.

  33. 33.

    Ibid., xiii.

  34. 34.

    Tibor Frank, From Habsburg Agent to Victorian Scholar: G. G. Zerffi, 1820–1892, East European Monographs, vol. 576 (Boulder, Colorado: Columbia University Press, 2000).

  35. 35.

    Iggers, Wang, and Mukherjee, A Global History of Modern Historiography, 142.

  36. 36.

    The translation of Zerffi’s The Science of History was published with the title Shigaku (史学) in 1887/1888. “shi” means history and “gaku” study oder science.

  37. 37.

    Gustavus George Zerffi, “On the Possibility of a Strictly Scientific Treatment of Universal History,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 3, no. 1 (1874): 380–94. Combining racism with the measuring of brains and contemporary ethnology, Zerffi repeated a widespread popular historical approach: “The Black is pre-historical, and continues without; the Yellow has developed to a certain degree, and then remained stationary; and only the White is progressively historical and has influenced, and still influences, and will influence the destinies of the world.” Zerffi, “On the Possibility of a Strictly Scientific Treatment of Universal History,” 389. For the same argumentation see Zerffi, The Science of History, 56.

  38. 38.

    Zerffi, The Science of History, 772.

  39. 39.

    For the programme see “La Société d’Histoire Diplomatique,” Revue d’histoire diplomatique 1 (1887).

  40. 40.

    One hundred years later, feminists started alluding to the exclusion of women in diplomatic history and international relations, see Cynthia Enloe, The Curious Feminist: Searching for Women in a New Age of Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004).

  41. 41.

    Matthew Smith Anderson, The Rise of Modern Diplomacy: 1450–1919 (London and New York: Longman, 1993), 123.

  42. 42.

    Howard Jason Rogers, ed. International Congress of Arts and Science [1904 in St. Louis], vol. 2: Political and Economic History, History of Law, History of Religion (London and New York: University Alliance, 1908), 86.

  43. 43.

    Karl Lamprecht, What is History? Five Lectures on the Modern Science of History, trans. E. A. Andrews (New York and London: Macmillan, 1905). The contribution started with a provocative first sentence: “History is primarily a socio-psychological science.” (Lecture 1: “Historical Development and Present Character of the Science of History”, p. 3). The same contribution was published in Volume 2 of the 15-volumes of congress publications, which was published in 1908. The introduction to this volume came from Woodrow Wilson, president of Princeton University in 1904 and later president of the United States. See Rogers, ed. International Congress of Arts and Science [1904 in St. Louis], vol. 2. The spread of congress publications is impressive. A smaller version had been published in 1904 in 8 volumes.

  44. 44.

    Lamprecht, What is History? Five Lectures on the Modern Science of History, 208.

  45. 45.

    Roger Chickering, Karl Lamprecht: A German Academic Life (1856–1915), Studies in German Histories (New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1993).

  46. 46.

    See contribution of Woodrow Wilson, who welcomed the congress members as president of Princeton University, in Rogers, ed. International Congress of Arts and Science [1904 in St. Louis], vol. 2, 3–20.

  47. 47.

    For an example see George H. Schodde, “Israel’s Place in Universal History,” The Biblical World 10, no. 4 (1897): 272–76.

  48. 48.

    Benjamin Ide Wheeler, Alexander the Great: The Merging of East and West in Universal History (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1900).

  49. 49.

    ———, “Alexander the Great,” The Century Magazine 57/58 (1898/99). The Alexander series started in November 1898 and ended 12 contributions later in October 1899.

  50. 50.

    [Unsigned], “Review: [Alexander the Great],” The American Historical Review 6, no. 1 (1900): 113–15.

  51. 51.

    This critical approach found its way into a popular encyclopedia. F. J. Goldsmid took the opportunity to write a Britannica article on Persian history and explained that Oriental history held only little attraction for the West. See Frederick John Goldsmid, “Perplexities of Oriental History,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (New Series) 2, no. 4 (1885): 365–89.

  52. 52.

    Asakawa wrote on F. Brinkley, A History of the Japanese People (New York 1915): “One may ask (…) if Brinkley’s failings as a catholic historian are not most evident along some of the most important lines of his work; his weakness seems manifest on the cultural side in its deeper features, and is still more lamentable on the entire institutional side”. The review ends in praising the book as the best available in the West. K. Asakawa, “Review: [A History of the Japanese People],” The American Historical Review 21, no. 3 (1916): 600f.

  53. 53.

    Vincent Adams Renouf, Outlines of General History (New York: Macmillan, 1909). Hans F. Helmolt, ed. Weltgeschichte, 9 vols. (Leipzig and Wien: Bibliographisches Institut, 1899–1907).

  54. 54.

    In the case of the German Weltgeschichte, the first three volumes were dedicated to America, Asia and Africa, an approach justified by the growing political importance of the Far East.

  55. 55.

    James A. James, “Review: [Outlines of General History],” The American Historical Review 15, no. 3 (1910): 673f.

  56. 56.

    In both Hague Peace Conferences in 1899 and 1907 introduction of arbitration in international law discussed an intermediary use by limiting arbitration to international organisations. In addition, the Universal Postal Union treaty gave the model for the arbitration clause discussed in The Hague. See James Brown Scott, ed. The Proceedings of the Hague Peace Conferences, Translation of the Official Texts (New York: Oxford University Press, 1920).

  57. 57.

    Wolfgang Schwentker, Max Weber in Japan: eine Untersuchung zur Wirkungsgeschichte 1905–1995 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998).

  58. 58.

    Jacob Haberman and Ludwig Stein, “Rabbi, Professor, Publicist, and Philosopher of Evolutionary Optimism,” The Jewish Quarterly Review (New Series) 86, no. 1–2 (1995): 91–125.

  59. 59.

    Paul S. Reinsch, “International Administrative Law and National Sovereignty,” The American Journal of International Law 3, no. 1 (1909): 6.

  60. 60.

    Denys P. Myers, “Representation in Public International Organs,” American Journal of International Law 8 (1914).

  61. 61.

    Paul S. Reinsch, “Energism in the Orient,” International Journal of Ethics 21, no. 4 (1911): 407–11 and “Intellectual Life in Japan,” The North American Review 194, no. 670 (1911).

  62. 62.

    The Austrian pacifist Alfred H. Fried described his booklet Das internationale Leben der Gegenwart as a travel guide to the discovery of an international space structured by international organisations and multilateral treaties. The artist and architect Hendrik Christian Andersen sent plans for a global capital to different governments before World War I. It had an Eiffel-tower-like centre which served as centre of communications. The metaphor of the tower was a well-known sign of transcultural globality. A “column of progress” (Siegessäule) decorated the San Francisco World’s Fairs in 1915. See Stella George Perry and Alexander Stirling Calder, The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition: A Pictorial Survey of the Art of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (San Francisco: P. Elder and company, 1915).

  63. 63.

    Faries worked in the Presbyterian city mission in Minneapolis before he set out on a year-long journey through Asia and the Levant in 1894. Based on these experiences he became a lecturer on the Orient in Minneapolis and made his way as a publisher. He therefore did not obtain his PhD until he was in his late 40s. For his curriculum vitae, see: John Culbert Faries, The Rise of Internationalism (New York: W.D. Gray, 1915).

  64. 64.

    Madeleine Herren and Cornelia Knab, “Die Zweite Haager Friedenskonferenz und die Liberalisierung des politischen Informationsmarktes,” Die Friedens-Warte. Journal of International Peace and Organization 82, no. 4 (2007).

  65. 65.

    George Creel, “Public Opinion in War Time,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 78 (1918): 190.

  66. 66.

    Charles Kingsley Webster, The Congress of Vienna, 1814–1815 (London: Oxford University Press, 1919), III. Cf. Woodrow Wilson, “Address of the President of the United States Delivered at a Joint Session of the Two Houses of Congress, February 11, 1918,” in Papers relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1918, ed. United States Department of State, Supplement 1: The World War, Volume I, Part I: The Continuation and Conclusion of the War - Participation of the United States, 109f., accessed March 11, 2011, http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=turn&id=FRUS.FRUS1918Supp01v01&entity=FRUS.FRUS1918Supp01v01.p0200&q1=Count%20von%20Hertling%27s%20reply%20is., 2011.

  67. 67.

    John Baylis and Steve Smith, The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

  68. 68.

    The publication of historical source material proving the innocence of the respective government started shortly after World War I with the Farbbücher and continued with the publication of foreign relations documents. See Sacha Zala, Geschichte unter der Schere politischer Zensur: amtliche Aktensammlungen im internationalen Vergleich (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2001).

  69. 69.

    The German war guilt statement of Fritz Fischer grew into the so called Fischer-Kontroverse, a crucial moment when political history was confronted by the approaches of newer forms of social history. See John Anthony Moses, The Politics of Illusion: The Fischer Controversy in German Historiography (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1975).

  70. 70.

    Erez Manela, The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial Nationalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).

  71. 71.

    Susan Buck-Morss, The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project, Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1989). Michael P. Steinberg, Walter Benjamin and the Demands of History (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996).

  72. 72.

    Zara S. Steiner, The Lights that Failed: European International History, 1919–1933 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 130ff.

  73. 73.

    E.g. international women’s organisations; see Rupp, Worlds of Women: The Making of an International Women’s Movement.

  74. 74.

    Even before national socialist ideology and politics merged internationalism with communism and antisemitism, Henry Ford published “The International Jew” in the early 1920s. Henry Ford, The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem, 4 vols., Reprint of a Series of Articles Appearing in "The Dearborn Independent" (London: The Britons, 1920–22).

  75. 75.

    In 1919, American newspapers celebrated the idea of a “cosmopolitan army”, mentioning the Chinese, and even Inuit fighting in the American Army in Europe. See [Unsigned], “Cosmopolitan Heroes; Winners of D. S. C. in 77th–Gassed Chinaman Who Would not Leave His Post,” The New York Times, May 4, 1919.

  76. 76.

    See introduction to Alfred Hermann Fried, Das internationale Leben der Gegenwart (Leipzig: Teubner, 1908). According to Fried, the international land already exists but needs a travel book: “Das, was man so oft als Utopie bezeichnet hat, ist Wirklichkeit.” Ibid., III.

  77. 77.

    E.g. John Van Antwerp MacMurray, ed. Treaties and Agreements with and Concerning China, 1919–1929, Pamphlet series of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Division of International Law, no. 50 (Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1929).

  78. 78.

    Tomoko Akami, Internationalizing the Pacific: The United States, Japan and the Institute of Pacific Relations in War and Peace, 1919–1945, Routledge Studies in Asia’s Transformations (London: Routledge, 2002).

  79. 79.

    For an example see: John Eugene Harley, International Understanding: Agencies Educating for a New World (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1931). Harley’s list of agencies is impressive and includes academic institutions and courses, international organisations with educational endeavours (which covers most of the existing official and nongovernmental organisations), and the major endowments and foundations.

  80. 80.

    Zara S. Steiner, The Triumph of the Dark: European International History, 1933–1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).

  81. 81.

    Handbook of International Organisations: Associations, Bureaux, Committees, etc., (Geneva: League of Nations Publications, 1938). Former editions: Geneva 1921, 1923, 1925, 1929, 1931 [Supplement] and 1936.

  82. 82.

    Peter J. Katzenstein and Takashi Shiraishi, Network Power: Japan and Asia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997). For the fascist new Europe see George P. Blum, The Rise of Fascism in Europe (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1998).

  83. 83.

    Daniel Chernilo, “Methodological Nationalism: Theory and History.”

  84. 84.

    See above, footnote 109.

  85. 85.

    Joseph S. Nye, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (New York: Public Affairs, 2004).

  86. 86.

    None of the organisations in the Japanese Handbook were mentioned in the League’s Handbook, not even the Asiatic Society of Japan, founded in 1872, which is now located in the German Club and is one of the few with foreigners in leading positions. Also in contrast to the League, the Japanese dataset provided the opportunity to present Manchukuo as a new factor in international relations, while the League carefully avoided mention of the Manchurian puppet state as a member in an international organisation. For different editions of the League’s Handbook of International Organization see above, footnote 109.

  87. 87.

    Samitaro Uramatsu, “Review: [Cosmopolitan Conversation],” Pacific Affairs 7, no. 2 (1934): 238.

  88. 88.

    Hoover Institution Archives (Stanford) Online Archive of California, “Register of the Germany. Deutsche Kongress-Zentrale Records, 1870–1943,” accessed March 11, 2011, http://www.oac.cdlib.org/view?docId=tf0d5n9790;query=DKZ;style=oac4;doc.view=entire_text#hitNum1.

  89. 89.

    Debates on Geertz within the historical academic community describe the difficult process of differentiation between social and cultural history. While in the case of social history the structures of economy and power are behind culture, the idea of culture introduced by Geertz shapes reality. From this point of view, culture loses its additive character as the expression of a superstructure with economy as its driving force. Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York: Basic Books, 1973).

  90. 90.

    The leading scholars in this field are anthropologists. See Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996).

  91. 91.

    Jürgen Kocka, “Einladung zur Diskussion,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft: Zeitschrift für historische Sozialwissenschaft 27, no. 3 (2001).

  92. 92.

    In the history of international relations, non-governmental organisations now gained significance as expressions of world culture, and performative aspects found attention in international politics. John Boli and George M. Thomas, Constructing World Culture: International Nongovernmental Organizations since 1875 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1999), 13–15. Jürgen Osterhammel, Weltgeschichte (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2008).

  93. 93.

    Iggers, Wang, and Mukherjee, A Global History of Modern Historiography, 379.

  94. 94.

    For subaltern studies as a method for “destructing historiography” see María do Mar Castro Varela and Nikita Dhawan, Postkoloniale Theorie: eine kritische Einführung, Cultural Studies, Bd. 12 (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2005).

  95. 95.

    Courageous readers should see Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London and New York: Routledge, 1994). As a more general introduction, see Stephan Moebius, Kultur - Theorien der Gegenwart, 2nd ed. (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2011).

  96. 96.

    For a short introduction to critical theory see Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Critical Theory,” accessed March 11, 2011, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/critical-theory/.

  97. 97.

    Nikolas Kompridis, “Normativizing Hybridity/Neutralizing Culture,” Political Theory 33, no. 3 (2005): 319.

  98. 98.

    Although in taking a global perspective the debate itself has a clearly shaped origin, e.g. when pointing to the European Union’s supranational structure, where legal ontology replaces democratic participation.

  99. 99.

    For an insight into this debate see Seyla Benhabib et al., Another Cosmopolitanism: Hospitality, Sovereignty, and Democratic Iterations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 13ff. Here, Benhabib starts with the discussion between Karl Jaspers and Hannah Arendt about the Eichmann trial and opens up a Kantian approach to debate. The book goes back to one of the core texts in Western discussions of cosmopolitanism: Immanuel Kant’s essay on perpetual peace. Benhabib underlines the fact that Kant protected foreigners by introducing the concept of hospitality, and relies on an ongoing debate, initiated by Jacques Derrida’s interpretation of Kant’s essay.

  100. 100.

    Taylor Cox, Cultural Diversity in Organizations: Theory, Research, & Practice (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1994). The United Nations Convention on Cultural Diversity (2001) found a substantial extension in the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (2005). But again, the cultural policy of the UN is closely connected to the affirmation of cultural sovereignty and to the independence of cultural policy of its member states. See UNESCO, “Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.” Accessed March 10, 2011, http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=31038&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html.

  101. 101.

    Iggers, Wang, and Mukherjee, A Global History of Modern Historiography, 390. As mentioned by Iggers and Wang it is also true that Immanuel Wallerstein, André Gunder Frank, et al. have worked with global approaches for a long time, not to mention contemporary concepts such as Weltpolitik (world politics), which is difficult to use for the nineteenth century outside an imperialistic context.

  102. 102.

    For biographical information about Ortiz, who made a career as diplomat, politer and scholar, see: Mauricio A. Font and Alfonso W. Quiroz, eds., Cuban Counterpoints: The Legacy of Fernando Ortiz, Western Hemisphere Studies (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2005).

  103. 103.

    For the impact Oswald Spengler had on the idea of world history, see Prasenjit Duara, “The Discourse of Civilization and Pan-Asianism,” Journal of World History 12, no. 1 (2001): 99–130.

  104. 104.

    For the historical development of the concept see Diana Taylor, “Transculturating Transculturation,” Performing Arts Journal 13, no. 2 (1991): 90–104.

  105. 105.

    For this debate see Viranjini Munasinghe, “Theorizing World Culture through the New World: East Indians and Creolization,” American Ethnologist 33, no. 4 (2006): 549–62. An answer by Ulf Hannerz, one of the representatives of global culture, is in the same volume.

  106. 106.

    Wolfgang Welsch, “Transculturality: The Puzzling Form of Cultures Today,” in Spaces of Culture: City, Nation, World, ed. Mike Featherstone and Scott Lash (London: Sage, 1999).

  107. 107.

    Boli and Thomas, Constructing World Culture: International Nongovernmental Organizations since 1875. Ulrich Beck, Living in World Risk Society, Teorie del diritto e della politica (Torino: Giappichelli, 2008). ———, Was ist Globalisierung? Irrtümer des Globalismus, Antworten auf Globalisierung (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997). For historians still very helpful: Craig N. Murphy, International Organization and Industrial Change: Global Governance since 1850 (Oxford: Polity Press, 1994). Akira Iriye, Cultural Internationalism and World Order (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997).

  108. 108.

    Madeleine Herren and Sacha Zala, Netzwerk Aussenpolitik: Internationale Kongresse und Organisationen als Instrumente der schweizerischen Aussenpolitik, 1914–1950 (Zürich: Chronos, 2002). Madeleine Herren, Hintertüren zur Macht: Internationalismus und modernisierungsorientierte Aussenpolitik in Belgien, der Schweiz und den USA, 1865–1914, Studien zur internationalen Geschichte, Bd. 9 (München: Oldenbourg, 2000).

  109. 109.

    Sebastian Conrad, Shalini Randeria, and Beate Sutterlüty, eds., Jenseits des Eurozentrismus: Postkoloniale Perspektiven in den Geschichts- und Kulturwissenschaften (Frankfurt am Main and New York: Campus, 2002). Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000). Dieter Gosewinkel, Zivilgesellschaft - national und transnational (Berlin: Sigma, 2004). Helmut K. Anheier, Marlies Glasius, and Mary Kaldor, Global Civil Society Yearbook 2009 (London: Sage, 2009). John A. Hall and Frank Trentmann, Civil Society: A Reader in History, Theory and Global Politics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). Of specific importance within this group are newly shaped national histories that connect the national narrative to transnational aspects. See Ian R. Tyrrell, Transnational Nation: United States History in Global Perspective since 1789 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). Sebastian Conrad and Jürgen Osterhammel, Das Kaiserreich transnational: Deutschland in der Welt 1871–1914 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004). For new imperial history see Kathleen Wilson, A New Imperial History: Culture, Identity, and Modernity in Britain and the Empire, 1660–1840 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

  110. 110.

    Iggers, Wang, and Mukherjee, A Global History of Modern Historiography. Conrad and Sachsenmaier, Competing Visions of World Order: Global Moments and Movements, 1880s–1930s. Steffi Richter, Contested Views of a Common Past: Revisions of History in Contemporary East Asia (Frankfurt: Campus, 2008).

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    Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Ulf Hannerz, Transnational Connections: Culture, People, Places (London: Routledge, 2000).

  112. 112.

    Prasenjit Duara, “The Discourse of Civilization and Decolonization,” Journal of World History 15, no. 1 (2004): 1–5.

  113. 113.

    In international relations journals the term “intercultural” did not appear before the late 1920s. For an early use of this term see: Elizabeth Green, “Conference Trends in China: A General Indication of Round Table Discussion,” Pacific Affairs 5, no. 1 (1932): 25.

  114. 114.

    “Roosevelt’s World Fair Speech,” The Washington Post, July 1, 1938, 11.

  115. 115.

    Founded in 1929, The World Fellowship of Faiths is an interesting mix of an older forerunner (World Parliament of Religions), a movement within the British Empire, scientific interest in religions, and a pacifist movement. The international congress held in 1933 received extensive press coverage. Yoshiaki Fukuda, presented as “official representative of the Konhokoyo Shinto sect of Japan”, made the statement in favour of Japanese expansionism. See John Evans, “Japan Must Have Room To Expand, Shintoist Warns,” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 30, 1933, 8. His statement against the League of Nations policy in Manchuria lit the fuse for an already explosive message. See Charles Frederick Weller, ed. World Fellowship: Addresses and Messages by Leading Spokesmen of all Faiths, Races and Countries (New York: Liveright, 1935).

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    Nobusuke Fukuda, “An Issei’s Six Years of Internment: His Struggle for Justice,” accessed March 11, 2011, http://www.discovernikkei.org/en/journal/2008/5/8/enduring-communities/.

  117. 117.

    Arjun Appadurai, “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy,” Theory, Culture & Society 7(1990): 296f.

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    “Editorial,” Journal of Material Culture 1, no. 1 (1996): 5f.

  119. 119.

    Katherine Solomonson, The Chicago Tribune Tower Competition: Skyscraper Design and Cultural Change in the 1920s, Modern Architecture and Cultural Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

  120. 120.

    Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt, “Multiple Modernities,” Daedalus 129, no. 1 (2000). ———, ed. Multiple Modernities (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2002).

  121. 121.

    Jacques Rancière, Les noms de l’histoire: essai de poétique du savoir (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1992).

  122. 122.

    Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences.

  123. 123.

    This form of storage became closely connected to the “imagined community” of the nation. Until the twenty-first century, whenever a new state was founded, a national archive, library, and/or museum would appear. For a recent example, see the archives of Belarus that had a long list of changing names according to the respective government: Archives of Belarus, “Department of Archives and Records Management under the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Belarus,” accessed March 11, 2011, http://archives.gov.by/eng/index.php?id=713043. More examples can be found in the development of national archives in the newly created African states.

  124. 124.

    Although protected by international law, looting of archives was the standard practice of Western imperialists. Discussions about granting Asian states similar protection started with the Boxer intervention in China. See G. G. Phillimore, “Booty of War,” Journal of the Society of Comparative Legislation 3, no. 2 (1901): 214–30.

  125. 125.

    For an overview on the history of archiving: Sebastian Jobs and Alf Lüdtke, eds., Unsettling History Archiving and Narrating in Historiography (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2010).

  126. 126.

    The Library of Congress, founded in 1800, is a good example of the problem of information availability in a democratic system. The founders’ argumentation focused on the parliament’s need for information comparable to that which was available to the government. See Library of Congress, “History - About the Library,” accessed March 11, 2011, http://www.loc.gov/about/history.html.

  127. 127.

    For a first orientation see UNESCO Archives Portal, “An International Gateway to Information for Archivists and Archives Users,” accessed March 11, 2011, http://www.unesco-ci.org/cgi-bin/portals/archives/page.cgi?d=1.

  128. 128.

    For the spread of such collections see the International Federation of Library Associations. The organisation was founded in 1927, and the librarian of the League of Nations, T.P. Sevensma, acted as secretary of the Federation. William W. Bishop, “Review: The ‘Actes’ of the International Library Committee,” The Library Quarterly 6, no. 2 (1936).

  129. 129.

    The Nazi-Era Provenance Internet Portal, “About the Portal,” accessed March 11, 2011, http://www.nepip.org/public/info/about.cfm?menu_type=info. lootedart.com, “The Central Registry of Information on Looted Cultural Property 1933–1945,” accessed March 11, 2011, http://www.lootedart.com/. The Art Loss Register, “Home,” accessed March 11, 2011, http://www.artloss.com/.

  130. 130.

    Paul Otlet, Traité de documentation: le livre sur le livre, théorie et pratique (Bruxelles: Mundaneum, 1934).

  131. 131.

    In the early twentieth century, museum builders preferred a “pyramidal” design, where the basement, as the largest part of the building, provided vast storage rooms. See Benjamin Ives Gilman, “The Museum Design as Tested by Experience,” Museum of Fine Arts Bulletin 22, no. 133 (1924).

  132. 132.

    For an example see the Ems telegram of 1870, a crucial document in the history of the Franco-Prussian War. “The Ems Telegram,” accessed March 11, 2011, http://www.uncp.edu/home/rwb/Ems%20Telegram.htm.

  133. 133.

    Walter R. Houghton, ed. Neely’s History of the Parliament of Religions and Religious Congresses at the Worlds Columbian Exposition (Chicago: Neely, 1893).

  134. 134.

    Ibid., 8f.

  135. 135.

    For an introduction to this problem see the re-edition of Johannes Fabian, Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes its Object (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002). Prasenjit Duara, Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995).

  136. 136.

    In European history, 1919–1939 is called the “interwar period”—a concept not transferable to Asia, where war between Japan and China ended in 1939.

  137. 137.

    Tej Ram Sharma, Historiography: A History of Historical Writing (New Delhi: Concept Publishing, 2005).

  138. 138.

    Places such as “Monte Verità” in Ascona, Switzerland, where colonies promoting alternative lifestyles started in the late nineteenth century, and had a strong connection to Buddhism and Asian cultures. Members of the Theosophical Society and Asian art collectors frequently went to Monte Verità. Robert Landmann, Monte Verità, Ascona: Die Geschichte eines Berges (Berlin: Schultz, 1930).

  139. 139.

    Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger, The Political Doctrines of Sun Yat-Sen: An Exposition of the San Min Chu I (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1937). Similar arguments can be found for other Asian countries, e.g. in the case of Korea, “Land of Eternal Calm”.

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    Arjun Appadurai, ed. Globalization (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003). Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin, eds., The Post-Colonial Studies Reader (London: Routledge, 2006). Patrick Finney, Palgrave Advances in International History (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). Margarete Grandner, Dietmar Rothermund, and Wolfgang Schwentker, eds., Globalisierung und Globalgeschichte (Wien: Mandelbaum, 2005). Frank Lechner and John Boli, eds., The Globalization Reader, 3rd ed. (Malden: Blackwell, 2009). Bruce Mazlish and Akira Iriye, eds., The Global History Reader (New York: Routledge, 2005). Jürgen Osterhammel, Die Verwandlung der Welt. Eine Geschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts (München: C.H. Beck Verlag, 2009).

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    Heinz-Gerhard Haupt and Jürgen Kocka, eds., Geschichte und Vergleich: Ansätze und Ergebnisse international vergleichender Geschichtsschreibung (Frankfurt: Campus, 1996). The book shows how helpful comparative histories are, but the contributions also explain the nation-state as the most often compared entity when an international perspective is involved.

  142. 142.

    Daniel Chernilo, “Methodological Nationalism: Theory and History,” in Annual Conference of the International Association of Critical Realism, (London 2008). Accessed March 11, 2011, http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/law/events/0708/iacr/papers/Chernilo_Methodological_Nationalism.pdf. Debates on methodological nationalism are closely connected to sociological globalisation discourses, but also accompany the process of European integration, see Beck, Was ist Globalisierung? Irrtümer des Globalismus, Antworten auf Globalisierung. For an overview on methodological nationalism see Daniel Chernilo, A Social Theory of the Nation State: Beyond Methodological Nationalism (New York: Routledge, 2007).

  143. 143.

    Relatively late, after the end of the Cold War, feminist historians started to mention this point. See J. Ann Tickner, Gender in International Relations: Feminist Perspectives on Achieving Global Security (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992).

  144. 144.

    See Rupp, Worlds of Women: The Making of an International Women’s Movement.

  145. 145.

    Handbook of International Organisations: Associations, Bureaux, Committees, etc., 264. (In the 1938 edition.)

  146. 146.

    Dame Rachel Crowdy headed the Opium section of the League of Nations.

  147. 147.

    Madeleine Herren, "Die Liaison. Gender und Globalisierung in der internationalen Politik," in Politische Netzwerkerinnen. Internationale Zusammenarbeit von Frauen 1830–1960, eds. Eva Schöck-Quinteros et al. (Berlin: Trafo, 2007), 183–204.

  148. 148.

    Alfons Dopsch, Austria: Conditions of Intellectual Work and Workers, Enquiries into the Conditions of Intellectual Work (Geneva: League of Nations Publications, 1924).

  149. 149.

    League of Nations Archives Geneva, “Personnel File: Egon Ranshofen Wertheimer.”

  150. 150.

    League of Nations Archives Geneva, “Personnel File: J.J. Dalal.”

  151. 151.

    League of Nations Archives Geneva, “Personnel File: Wou Saofong.” Cf. especially: Declaration de rectification de fait concernant mon etat civil, 15.10.1931

  152. 152.

    League of Nations Archives Geneva, “Personnel File: Marie de Regel.”

  153. 153.

    League of Nations Archives Geneva, “Personnel File: Tamara Goetze.”

  154. 154.

    League of Nations Archives Geneva, “Personnel File: Gabrielle Jeanne Anne Marie Radziwill.”

  155. 155.

    League of Nations Archives Geneva, “Personnel File: Dame Rachel Eleanor Crowdy.”

  156. 156.

    William Atherton Du Puy, “300 Look after Business of 52 Nations at Geneva,” New York Times, July 29, 1923, XX4. Sarah Wambaugh, “League Work from inside,” New York Times, August 14, 1921, 75.

  157. 157.

    Société des Nations, ed. Dix-septième session ordinaire de l’Assemblée de la Société des Nations, composistion de la Commission de Contrôle: deuxième rapport presenté par la quatrième commission à l’Assemblée (Genève: Société des Nations, 1936).

  158. 158.

    As one example see the personnel files of Wou K’iuan, who was hired because he apparently lived in China, communicated through diplomatic representatives and successfully hid his residency in Paris. See League of Nations Archives Geneva, “Personnel File: Wou K’iuan.”

  159. 159.

    Gopalan Balachandran, “South Asian Seafarers and their Worlds,” in Seascapes: Maritime Histories, Local Cultures, and Transoceanic Exchanges, ed. Jerry H. Bentley, Renate Bridenthal, and Karen Wigen (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2007).

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    “Mixed Rituals Mark Funeral: Jewish and Buddhist Burial Ceremonies Used Brass Band Gives Services Touch of Modernity Wealthy Shanghai Foreigner Mourned by Chinese,” Los Angeles Times, July 19, 1931, C13.

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  1. Historisches Seminar, University of Heidelberg, Grabengasse 3-5, 69117, Heidelberg, Germany

    Madeleine Herren

  2. Karl Jaspers Centre, Voßstrasse 2, 69115, Heidelberg, Germany

    Martin Rüesch & Christiane Sibille

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Herren, M., Rüesch, M., Sibille, C. (2012). Part I: Theories and Concepts. In: Transcultural History. Transcultural Research – Heidelberg Studies on Asia and Europe in a Global Context. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-19196-1_2

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