Interview über die Globalgeschichte mit Prof. Dr. Sebastian Conrad (Berlin)

Abstract

The interview with one of the leading global historians in the German-speaking world, the Berlin-based Professor Sebastian Conrad, deals with the history, analytical innovations, and also problems of writing 'global history'. More specifically, Conrad compares this perspective with other competing approaches beyond the national framework (like transnational history), and critically analyses the potential of global history to overcome the historiographically established dichotomy between the 'west and the rest'. Here, he addresses pitfalls and problems of the still unsettled 'great divergence' debate, and also critically reflects on the question how globally is global history actually written today, and to what extent is it informed through the Anglo-Saxon cultural and lingual dominance. Lastly, Sebastian Conrad points to those fields that in his opinion will attract much attention in the coming years – such as the discussion of 'early modernities' in other world regions, which are not understood as a diffusion of European norms and values. Here, according to Conrad, the main problem will be not to construct parallel paths of historical progress, which are then ultimately culminating in a (previously defined) 'modernity'. Otherwise, processes of rationalisation, individualisation, and 'disenchantment' would remain the implicit categories of analysis, thus preventing the analysis of autochthonous processes of 'modernisation' in different parts of the world.