Institute of History

Modern History and Contemporary History

Chair of Contemporary History

Contemporary History in a Global Perspective

The chair of contemporary history deals with the 20th and 21st centuries, with a focus on the period after 1945.

Our research group is largely concerned with the topics of transnational and non-European as well as global history. The global historical perspective denotes a particular view of historical developments with which we attempt to analyse multi-layered aspects of global connections or transnational processes, and to explore their interactions with local processes. It is thus about the trade-off between economics, politics, society, culture and religion. The theoretical concern of global history is to overcome national-historical and eurocentric ways of thinking. Through procedures such as reflecting on categories, international contextualisation or comparisons, global history strives to make more comprehensive statements or identify tendencies. In this way, it ultimately approaches a historical social science.

Director

PhD Students

Administration

  • Global history of the 20th century
  • Comparative studies of mass violence in the 20th century
  • History of «development policy» in non-industrialised countries
  • History of global capitalism
  • Guerrilla warfare and asymmetric warfare
  • Imperialism and colonialism after 1945
  • Cold War and decolonisation
  • Hunger, agrarian policy and rural change
  • Contemporary History of South and Southeast Asia
  • Politics and religion in post-colonial states, religious fundamentalism
  • National Socialism and the Second World War