Globalisation and the Nation in Imperial Germany

The process of globalisation in the late nineteenth century had a profound effect on the trajectories of German nationalism. While the existing literature on the subject has largely remained within the confines of national history, Sebastian Conrad uses the example of mobility and labour migration to show to what extent German nationalism was transformed under the auspices of global integration. Among the effects of cross border circulation were the emergence of diasporic nationalism, the racialisation of the nation, the implementation of new border regimes, and the hegemony of ideological templates that connected nationalist discourse to global geopolitics. Ranging from the African colonies, China and Brazil to the Polish speaking territories in Eastern Europe, this groundbreaking book demonstrates that the dynamics of German nationalism were not only negotiated in the Kaiserreich but also need to be situated in the broader context of globalisation before the First World War.

'No one has done more than Sebastian Conrad to bring global perspectives into the very centerground of historical debate inside Germany. This book demonstrates with compelling concreteness the difference that doing history transnationally can make.' Geoff Eley, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 'What is impressive about this book is Conrad's range of knowledge about work and migration in the Americas, Asia, Africa as well as Europe and his capacity to use this knowledge to construct a broad but coherent 'global' account of the rise of strong and new kinds of national sentiment and politics and ideology in the German Second Empire.' John Breuilly, London School of Economics and Political Science, 'Methodologically innovative, richly researched, and presented in a lively and engaging manner, Globalisation and the Nation in Imperial Germany brings together the history of Germany, its overseas empire in Africa and Asia, and its wider global engagements. By focusing on the complex intersection of practices of labor, racial and national ideologies, and the production of global inequalities, Conrad offers fresh insight not only into the history of Germany but also into the political, economic, and cultural processes that shaped the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and continue to shape the world today.' Andrew Zimmerman, George Washington University

Sebastian Conrad is Professor of Modern History at the Free University of Berlin.