Encountering the Global in Early Modern Germany: Microhistories of Mobility, Materiality, and Belonging(30 Studies in German History)

Global history has come of age but has had little impact on the historiography of early modern Germany. This volume seeks to bring a global perspective to the history of Central Europe by addressing understudied global and colonial entanglements. Exploring the impact of these interactions on court life and home towns, labor migration, material culture, and religious communities, the microhistories presented here reveal the myriad ways in which connections and disconnections underpinned early modern Germany. The authors engage with contemporary debates about global history in general, taking its lacunae as a cue for substantial methodological revisions.

Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction: Globalizing Early Modern Germany Christina Brauner, Renate Dürr, Philip Hahn, Anne Sophie Overkamp, and Simon Siemianowski Part I: Mobility: Moving and Belonging Chapter 1. Their Last Days in Europe. Germans on the Amsterdam VOC Fleet of 1775 Jelle van Lottum and Lodewijk Petram Chapter 2. Between Beutelsbach and Batavia: A Cooper’s Career and His Involvement in Colonial Violence Philip Hahn Chapter 3. Encountering Opportunities: Inheritances, Knowledge Gaps, and Invented Global Connections in the German “Hinterland” Lukas Wissel Chapter 4. Between Slavery and Exoticism: People of Color at the Dresden Court Rebekka von Mallinckrodt Part II: Globality: The World of the Hometown Chapter 5. Bringing the World to German Home Towns? Lutheran Baptisms in the Context of Abduction and Slavery Renate Dürr Chapter 6. Two Inventories – Two Braunschweigs: Hometown Germans and the Eighteenth-Century Slave Economy Eve Rosenhaft Chapter 7. Encountering the Middle East in Early Modern Germany: A Prince of Palestine in Nuremberg, 1778–1779 Tobias P. Graf Chapter 8. A Small Town in Germany and Its Global Dis:connections Anne Sophie Overkamp Chapter 9. Putting the Hanse on the Map: The Civitates Orbs Terrarum (1572–1617) as a Mediated Global Encounter Suzie Hermán Part III: Materiality: Local Tastes for the Global Chapter 10. Global Goods, Familiar Strangers, and Some Local Knowledge of the World: A View from the German-Dutch Borderlands, ca. 1700 Christina Brauner Chapter 11. Global Food in Southwestern Germany around 1770 Daniel Menning Chapter 12. Reading Materials: Gift Exchanges between Sonora, Spain, and Lucerne Simon Siemianowski Chapter 13. Global Itineraries, Curative Effects, and Sacred Scents: Eaglewood Rosaries in Early Modern German Material Culture Anne Mariss Chapter 14. Colonial Objects in the Cabinet of Curiosities? Christoph Weickmann’s “Outlandish Things” in Ulm Kim Siebenhüner Part IV: Going Beyond: Perspectives and Agendas Conclusion: German Global Microhistory, or: The How and The Why Ulrike Strasser Appendix 6.1 Appendix 6.2 Index

About the Author :
Christina Brauner is a professor of Late Medieval and Early Modern Global History at the University of Tübingen. She specializes in the history of West and West Central Africa before 1800, diplomatic and economic history and history of religion.