Publications

No other phenomenon has shaped human history as decisively as capitalism. It structures how we live and work, how we think about ourselves and others, how we organise our politics. Sven Beckert situates the story of capitalism within the largest conceivable geographical and historical framework in this fascinating new book.

Capitalism, argues Beckert, was born global. Emerging from merchant communities across Asia, Africa and Europe, capitalism’s radical recasting of economic life rooted itself only gradually. Then it burst onto the world scene, as European states and merchants built a powerful alliance that would propel them across the oceans. This epic drama corresponded at no point to an idealised dream of free markets. All along, state-backed institutions and imperial expansions shaped its dynamics.

Capitalism decentres the European perspective, highlighting agency, resistance, innovation and ruthless coercion around the world through to the present with the rise of Asian economies, particularly China. Sven Beckert doesn’t merely add up capitalism’s debits and credits in this monumental book, but allows us to think afresh about the past to help us re-imagine the future.

Laird Bell Professor of History at Harvard University, Sven Beckert researches and teaches the history of the United States in the nineteenth century, with a particular emphasis on the history of capitalism, including its economic, social, political and transnational dimensions. He was a Marie S. Curie Fellow at FRIAS in 2019.

Understandings of Black-Jewish relations have been notable for the near consensus among scholars that the Yiddish press repeatedly condemned discrimination and prejudice against African Americans, and highlighted the similarities between the situation of Jews in Eastern Europe and Blacks in America. This book argues that this view covers just a sliver of the varied representations of Black women and men. East European Jewish culture during the immigration era was not uniformly supportive of Black Americans as those interpretations suggest.

Crude Creatures draws on a mixture of previously unexplored Yiddish press, theatre, and literature from Eastern Europe and the United States through 1929 to examine how Black Africans and African Americans were depicted. It charts a significant gap between the sincere condemnation of lynching, violence against Black Americans, and racial segregation on the one hand, and the ways in which Jewish authors, newspapers, playwrights, actors, and theater managers actually represented Black people on the other. While most East European Jews would not have seen a Black person before their arrival in America, they had already acquired preconceived imagery of Black people through rabbinic exegesis, pious advice, travel narratives (either original or adapted from other languages), folklore, scientific explorations, pulp literature, press reports, political rhetoric, and educational materials. Thus, Yiddish writers commonly described Black people as cannibals, oversexed, prone to violence, childlike, or just happy-go-lucky people.

Crude Creatures provides a critical revision, correcting the accepted rosy narrative of Black women and men’s portrayals in Yiddish culture, and highlighting what we can learn from these representations about how immigrant groups integrated their own cultures into American racial hierarchy and vocabulary.

Gil Ribak is an Associate Professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Arizona. Crude Creatures is the result of his 2021-22 stay at FRIAS as a Marie S. Curie Fellow.

Das Wohl aller Menschen bei moralischen und politischen Entscheidungen zu berücksichtigen – das ist heute für viele zumindest als Ideal gerechtfertigt. Aber schon immer gegeben und universell verbreitet ist ein solches Menschheitsethos nicht. Wann und wo ist es also entstanden – und warum eigentlich? Ist es eine Besonderheit der jüdisch-christlichen oder der westlich-aufklärerischen Tradition? Und wie hängt seine Entstehung mit der Geschichte imperialer Weltherrschaft zusammen? In seinem faszinierenden Buch folgt Hans Joas diesem Menschheitsethos in globaler Perspektive.

Von der sogenannten »Achsenzeit« ausgehend, zeichnet er dessen Entstehung in der griechischen Antike, in Judentum und Christentum, in Indien und China nach und betrachtet es im Zusammenhang mit imperialen Reichsbildungen bis hin zum Kolonialismus, Faschismus und Kommunismus. Kann es einen Universalismus ohne Imperialismus überhaupt geben? Und wie steht der Islam zu den achsenzeitlichen Entwürfen eines Menschheitsethos? Joas’ Antworten auf diese großen Fragen fügen sich zu einem Opus Magnum, mit dem er seine vielbeachteten Arbeiten zur Geschichte von Religion und politischer Macht krönt.

“The period between the seventh and fourteenth centuries is hardly thought of as an era of globalization. Entire societies in the Americas, Australia, and Oceania developed in relative isolation from other parts of the world. Even on the interconnected landmass of Eurafrasia, many people had little to do with processes of transregional exchange.

Yet the period 600–1350 CE in fact witnessed an explosion of connectivity amid the consolidation of sophisticated approaches to human organization. Flows of people, goods, and ideas across regional boundaries intensified, changing lives at all social levels, from rulers to the enslaved. In the Americas, large cities and north-south trade networks took shape. The Arabic-Islamic conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries, along with the Mongol expansion of the thirteenth, tied together diverse polities from southeast Asia to sub-Saharan Africa. Regions also became more culturally and politically integrated: Latin-Christian models of social organization spread across Europe; the Sinitic written language drew eastern Eurasia into a common elite culture; and the accumulation of significant agricultural surpluses in the Indian subcontinent supported the emergence of a settled political order.

Entangled Worlds sees the completion of the magisterial six-volume set A History of the World, offering an authoritative introduction to a vibrant era of global history. The distinguished contributors make clear that there never was a stagnant “Middle Ages” wedged between Antiquity and Modernity but instead a period defined by decisive strides toward global connection, urbanization, and the cultural and political formations we live with today.” (Harvard University Press)

Jürgen Osterhammel is a Distinguished Fellow since 2019. He is the General Editor of the Series “A History of the World” along with Akira Iriye. This specific Publication is edity by Daniel G. König.

Unsere Welt steht an einem Wendepunkt. Die Plastikfluten verschmutzen unsere Ozeane, die Klimakrise bedroht unser Leben, und das Artensterben reißt tiefe Lücken in unsere Natur. In der Graphic Novel Welt im Wandel begleiten wir fünf Jugendliche aus verschiedenen Teilen der Welt, die sich den großen Herausforderungen unserer Zeit stellen.

In kraftvollen Bildern und bewegenden Geschichten werden die historischen Wurzeln der globalen Probleme beleuchtet. Die Jugendlichen zeigen mögliche Wege, wie wir gemeinsam eine bessere, nachhaltigere Welt schaffen können. (Verlagstext)

Die Graphic Novel ist ein kollaboratives Projekt von Mitgliedern der am FRIAS angesiedelten Young Academy for Sustainability Research

To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause is a compelling account of the Soviet dissident movement that defied the Kremlin and hastened the collapse of the Soviet Union. Benjamin Nathans chronicles the dramatic stories of individuals—from renowned figures like Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn to lesser-known activists—who used Soviet law to challenge state power. Drawing on personal diaries, memoirs, letters, and KGB records, Nathans reveals how these dissidents, acting like free people in an unfree society, became symbols of resistance. This vivid narrative not only illuminates their impact on the 20th century but also resonates with ongoing struggles for freedom today.

Benjamin Nathans was FRIAS Marie S. Curie FCFP Fellow 2022/23. As for October 2024, he is Professor of History at the University of Pennsyvania