Yearbook of Transnational History 9781683933526, 9781683933519

Table of contents :
Cover
Editorial Board
Contents
Nations, Nationalism, and Transnationalism Revisited
Early Modern Diasporas as Transnational Nations
Intercultural Transfer and the Transatlantic Construction of Cannabis Knowledge‌ Cultures in t
Martin Niemöller Visits America
Intercontinental Labor Migration within the Socialist World‌‌
On the Novelty of Transnational History
Index
About the Editors and Contributors

Citation preview

Yearbook of Transnational History

Yearbook of Transnational History (2022) Volume Five Edited by Thomas Adam Assisted by Austin E. Loignon

FA I R L E I G H D I C K I N S O N U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S

Vancouver • Madison • Teaneck • Wroxton

Published by Fairleigh Dickinson University Press Copublished by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com 86-90 Paul Street, London EC2A 4NE, United Kingdom Copyright © 2022 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. for edited collections All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press gratefully acknowledges the support received for scholarly publishing from the Friends of FDU Press. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available ISBN 978-1-68393-351-9 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-68393-352-6 (electronic) The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Editorial Board

Sven Beckert, Harvard University, Boston, United States Tobias Brinkmann, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, United States Daniela Caglioti, Universita di Napoli, Naples, Italy Pilar Gonzalez, Université Paris I, Paris, France Frank Jacob, Nord University, Bodø, Norway Paul Kerry, Brigham Young University, Provo, United States Axel Korner, University College London, London, Great Britain Alan Lessoff, Illinois State University, Normal, United States Gabriele Lingelbach, Christian-Albrechts-Universität, Kiel, Germany Kris K. Manjapra, Tufts University, Medford, United States Kiran Klaus Patel, University of Maastricht, Maastricht, The Netherlands Pierre-Yves Saunier, Université Laval, Quebec City, Canada Axel Schaefer, Johannes Gutenberg Universität, Mainz, Germany Ian Tyrrell, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

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Contents

Editorial Board

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Chapter 1: Nations, Nationalism, and Transnationalism Revisited Volker Depkat and Susanne Lachenicht



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Chapter 2: Early Modern Diasporas as Transnational Nations‌‌: The Examples of Sephardi Jews and Huguenots Susanne Lachenicht

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Chapter 3: Intercultural Transfer and the Transatlantic Construction of Cannabis Knowledge‌Cultures in the United States Bradley J. Borougerdi

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Chapter 4: Martin Niemöller Visits America‌‌: The Christian– Totalitarian Dichotomy and Transnational Religious Identity in the West, 1945–1950 Ky Woltering Chapter 5: Intercontinental Labor Migration within the Socialist World‌‌: Cuban Contract Laborers in the German Democratic Republic, 1975 to 1990 Berthold Unfried Chapter 6: On the Novelty of Transnational History J. Laurence Hare Index



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About the Editors and Contributors



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Chapter 1

Nations, Nationalism, and Transnationalism Revisited Volker Depkat and Susanne Lachenicht

As with many other crises of our globalized world, the COVID-19 pandemic, starting in 2019/2020, has shattered beliefs in the benefits of globalization. Scientists hold that the virus originated in China,1 from where it spread rapidly around the globe due to intensive mobility driven by global production chains and travel. The entanglements and flows of our globalized world and lives turned a local disease into a global pandemic. Responses to this global crisis, in many instances, moved within the framework of nation-states and nationalist imaginaries. The pandemic saw citizens expecting their national governments to protect them against a global threat. At the same time, people around the world waited for globalized firms to produce vaccines and medications. National borders were closed within the European Union, efforts to battle the virus were largely confined to the territory of the nation-states, and governments drew on nationalism as a cultural resource to mobilize their citizens’ loyalty, solidarity, and sacrifice in the fight against a global disease. As with COVID-19, so with BREXIT, former US President Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda, or the so-called new nationalisms in Poland, Hungary, Italy, Spain, Germany, and France—all of these recent developments have shattered the premises of liberal worldviews and have seemingly proven leading experts of nationalism research such as Eric Hobsbawm wrong. In his Nations and Nationalism since 1780, he predicted the end of nationalism as a political ideology, of nation-states as modernity’s form of political organization, and of the nation as the dominant form of collective identification.2 Globalization, understood not only as a process of increasing economic integration but also as the growing interconnections 1

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between people, regions, technologies, ideas and knowledge, goods, media, narratives, and practices transcending national borders and the nation-state, was expected to create new collective identifications below and beyond the nation, and new forms of supranational collaboration. Not everyone in the field of nationalism research thought like Hobsbawm, however. Benedict Anderson, studying postcolonial nationalisms in Southeast Asia, saw no immediate end to the “the era of nationalism.”3 Indeed, a closer look at the political, social, and cultural developments of the last two decades could have warned us that the notion of an impending end of nationalism was a misconception: the wars in former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the emergence of independent post-socialist republics from the USSR leading to the current war in Ukraine, postcolonial nationalisms in Africa, Catalan left- and rightwing nationalism, UKIP and BREXIT, the formation of national-conservative parties such as the German Alternative for Germany (AfD)—to name but a few developments—made clear that in an age of accelerating globalization, interdependence, and entanglement nations, nationalisms, and the nationstate continued to matter as a historical force shaping and structuring history to a significant degree.4 What are we to make of this? Does this mean that deepening global entanglements produce new nationalisms? Or that the National never went away in the ongoing hyper-globalization? Is the National maybe even an inherent and systemic element of globalization? Can the one not exist without the other? This empirical puzzle invites us to revisit the relationship of the National and the Transnational from a longue durée perspective that includes the early modern period. By the National we mean the complex conglomeration of nations, nationalism, and the nation-state in their varying constellations in different spatial and temporal contexts; by the Transnational we mean the equally complex ensemble of boundary-transgressing flows, circulations, and transfers of goods, people, institutions, and ideas that entangle polities and cultures on different spatial scales: regional, national, continental, and planetary. Globalization, in this context, is but one manifestation of the Transnational, insofar as entanglements and transfers can happen on scales smaller than the whole globe. Our revisiting of the relationship between the National and the Transnational will unfold in three steps: We will, first, start out with a critical analysis of classic nationalism research, its take on the nation, nationalism, and the nation-state as essentially modern phenomena, and how some of its blind spots have furthered or hampered a better understanding of the seeming paradox of the National and the Transnational. We will, secondly, revisit the transnational turn in American and continental European historical research, focusing on the question of what place it assigns to the nation, nationalism, and the nation-state to assess how much this has furthered or hampered an

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understanding of the altogether paradoxical relationship between the National and the Transnational. Based on this diagnosis of the problems nationalism studies and the transnational turn have created for our understanding of the relationship(s) of the National and the Transnational, we propose one possible way to remedy these, when we, thirdly, revisit the secondary literature on the period of the pre-nation-state, that is late medieval and early modern imaginations of the nation, nationalism avant la lettre, the age of European expansion, and state- and empire-building, to better understand how, then, the National and the Transnational conflicted with and enabled each other. We ask to what extent this process of state-formation was itself influenced by the construction of national identities and vice versa—and how much nation-building and nationalism, then, were related to the Transnational. Based on this revisiting of three different literatures on nationalism, the transnational turn, and premodern studies of the nation, we will, finally, make some suggestions as to what this means for future empirical research on the relationship between the National and the Transnational. Our argument departs from the observation that modern theories of nation-building, nationalism, and the nation-state as much as studies on the Transnational have often claimed that the nation is a relatively recent invention, and that during premodern periods the concept of the nation was either not important or fundamentally different from the modern concept of the nation. Specialists of the late medieval and early modern periods have reviewed, rectified, and falsified this suggestion.5 They have shown that we find imaginations of the nation and nationalism in earlier centuries than historians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries would have us believe. If the nation was one major category for competition and conflict in the late medieval and early modern periods already, what does this mean for modern imaginations of nations and nation-states and for the relationship of the National and the Transnational? How were premodern imaginations of the nation and their relation to state and empire reactivated and reinscribed6 in modern imaginations of the nation, nationalism, and state-formation? We argue that taking the premodern concepts of the nation seriously will not only draw our attention to the varieties of how nations, nationalism, and state-building were related to each other in the past—and how they were connected to empires, imperial competition, and early processes of globalization—but also help us overcome the normative concepts and teleological narratives of nation and nationhood circulating in much of the nationalism research on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It would, further, enable us to view the varieties of imaginations of the nation, and how they related to states and societies, how they were and are enabled (and enhanced) by transnational entanglements and globalization processes in past and present.

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The inclusion of the early modern period will excavate forgotten varieties of the National, and will, furthermore, show how others have been reactivated in the modern period, and how they have been transferred and transformed to produce new historical varieties of the National in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. This invites us to reflect upon the history of the National from a longue durée perspective in terms of “fractured continuities,”7 and in its complex and paradoxical relationship to the Transnational. OF THE MODERNITY OF NATIONS, NATIONALISM, AND NATION-STATES Research on nationalism is spread out over many disciplines and follows different trajectories for different historical periods and world regions, to the effect that there is hardly a shared understanding among nationalism researchers as to how to define nation and nationalism. Hugh Seton-Watson even goes so far as to state that “no ‘scientific definition’ of the nation can be devised,”8 a view seconded by Anderson in his Imagined Communities.9 As multivocal and multifaceted the existing research on nations and nationalism is, it has shown, however, that nationalism has meant different things to different people at different times, in different situations, and in different world regions. The specific content, shape, form, and function of nationalism can, therefore, be assessed only in relation to the historical contexts, which it was situated in, and in relation to the groups that carried it. Furthermore, the existing research on nationalism has portrayed it as a Janus-faced historical force that is simultaneously egalitarian and hierarchical, emancipatory and oppressive, integrative and segregationist, and constructive and destructive.10 Many studies depart from the premise that the idea of the nation created a tightly integrated egalitarian in-group, which sharply excluded all individuals and groups not considered to be part of it. As such, it was a promise of equality and participation for its members, and it was anchored in the sharp, potentially aggressive distinction from and exclusion of all those groups not considered to be part of the national community. Nationalism thus had an aggressive potential that could lead to war and genocide.11 Yet, the question of where nationalism resides continues to be an open research question. Is it an emancipatory force originating from below? Is it a repressive tool in the hands of socioeconomic and political elites to prevent democratization and liberalization from happening? Or are governments pursuing the interests of their state the true agents of nationalism? Studies on early nineteenth-century national movements in Germany, France, Italy, and other Western European countries have stressed the emancipatory aspects

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of nationalism, whose work to constitutionalize absolutist rule, overcome feudal inequalities, and create a nation-state culminated in the Revolutions of 1848/1849, which were frequently referred to as the Spring of Nations.12 In that same vein, the historiography of the 1960s to the 1980s on nationalism in Africa regarded it as a political ideology triggering anticolonial liberation, political emancipation, and nation-state building.13 While many of these older studies linked nationalism to Westernized political and intellectual elites, recent studies on postcolonial nationalism in Africa have looked at nationalist mobilization and political imaginations from below, including unseen actors and modes of protest.14 In contrast to studies featuring nationalism as a force from below, those investigating the role and function of nationalism in connection with structures of economic inequality in industrializing economies, societies, and states have highlighted nationalism as a sort of social cement strategically used by socioeconomic and political elites to hold increasingly diverse and antagonistic industrial societies together and to slow down, if not prevent, ongoing processes of liberalization. For the history of Western countries in the late nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century, this is frequently framed as nationalism’s movement to the right in the course of which nationalism became an illiberal ideology, aggressively defending the political and social status quo. As such a mechanism of negative integration, it entered into alliances with racism—which was particularly the case with the nationalism of the slaveholding states in the South of the United States15—but also with anti-Semitism and Social Darwinism to define the superiority of the national in-group while aggressively excluding all identified as other.16 Another strand of the debate about the seat of nationalism sees the state as an agent of nationalism. This question has often been discussed in connection with nationalism in postcolonial Africa but also regarding Eastern and Southeastern Europe, in which the civic-ethnic divide is a major trajectory of nationalism research. Citizens, defined as rights- and duty-bearing, equal members of the polity living in a state, were not necessarily identical with the members of the community created by ethnic imaginations of nationhood anchored in common descent, history, and culture. Several studies on nationalism in Eastern Europe built upon the three-phase model of nationalism developed by the Czechoslovak historian Miroslav Hroch. Hroch distinguishes, in chronological order, a phase of the discovery of a shared culture as the basis of community of the nation, a phase of nationalist agitation by intellectual and functional elites, and a phase in which nationalism thickens into a mass movement.1718Historians working with this model have noted the crucial importance of the state in disseminating firm ideas of nationhood in Eastern and Southeastern Europe.19 Several works on the USSR and Yugoslavia have shown how new nations were consciously built by communist nation-builders,

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with Terry Martin coining the influential phrase “Affirmative Action Empire” to describe Soviet nation-building practices under Josef Stalin, who, from 1923 to 1939, pursued a policy of promoting non-Russian languages, elites, and cultural forms at the expense of Russian nationhood and culture to integrate the multiethnic Soviet Union and stabilize its experiment in socialism.20 Here, the state appears as the crucial agent of nation-building, sometimes before the emergence of popular mass movements.21 The studies on nations and nationalism in Eastern Europe also raise the fundamental question of how state- and nation-building are actually related in other parts of the world, including Western Europe. Even here, the relationship between nation- and state-building from the nineteenth to the twentieth century is more complicated than much of the historiography, that sees the modern state coming to full fruition in the form of the nation-state, suggests. While leading nationalism scholars, developing their theories on the basis of Western European history, hold that the nation-state turned former subjects into citizens and created new categories of identification along the lines of national belonging,22 they still grapple with the many civic-ethnic divides that make the relationship between nation- and state-building anything but clear. The leading typologies of Western nationalism distinguish between political, rights- and territory-based concepts of nationhood (Staatsnation) and descent- and culture-oriented ones (Kulturnation). This typology let France and the United States appear as models of a Staatsnation, while Germans, Italians, and many Eastern and Southeastern European nations were treated as manifestations of Kulturnationen. As a result, investigations into nineteenth-century Italian and German nationalism saw them following an irredentist dynamic that strove to create a nation-state housing all members of the ethnic nation.23 Against the backdrop of such clear-cut typological distinctions, researchers of Eastern and Southeastern European nationalisms have questioned the usefulness of the civic-ethnic dichotomy and the exclusively ethnic conceptualization of nationhood altogether.24 In light of these reflections, the classic medium-range theories and historiographical master narratives explaining nationalism appear to be rather underdeveloped. They are almost exclusively focused on the period since 1780 and inseparably tied to concepts of modernity and modernization. Eric Hobsbawm states in his widely received Nations and Nationalism since 1780 that the “basic characteristic of the modern nation and everything connected with it is its modernity,” while Liah Greenfeld sees investigations into the history of nationalism paving “roads to modernity.”25 This modernity was essentially seen to be a product of the Atlantic Revolutions of the last quarter of the eighteenth and the first decades of the nineteenth century. In his seminal text The Age of Democratic Revolution, Robert R. Palmer saw “Western Civilization as a whole” swept up “by a single revolutionary movement”

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that showed “similar objectives and principles.” This movement was essentially democratic insofar as it sought to destroy the feudal order and replace absolute monarchy with constitutionally regulated rule in whichever shape and form.26 Palmer’s Atlantic Revolution embraced natural rights liberalism in order to put the organization of state and society on a new footing, and it witnessed societies constituting themselves as nations claiming to be the sole source of all legitimate political power and wanting to determine themselves as a nation-state. Wim Klooster convincingly qualified this narrative of a single and unidirectional revolutionary movement pushing the “triumphal march of democracy” in his comparison of four revolutions in the Atlantic World that widened the frame to include Haiti and Spanish America. In the light of these comparisons, democracy appears as “hardly more than a temporary by-product of some insurrections.”27 Still, the connection between the Atlantic Revolutions and the emergence of nations, nationalism, and the nation-state dominates much of the more recent nationalism scholarship.28 “The primary meaning of ‘nation,’” writes Hobsbawm, “was political,” insofar as it “equated ‘the people’ and the state” so that the nation-state “was indeed a necessary consequence of popular self-determination.”29 This assessment is in line with Ernest Gellner’s reflections on nations and nationalism, in which he argues that the term nationalism meant “primarily a principle which holds that the political and national unit should be congruent.”30 Aware of the many concepts of collective identity circulating in a given society, Greenfeld sees the “specificity of nationalism” deriving “from the fact that nationalism locates the source of individual identity within a ‘people,’ which is seen as the bearer of sovereignty, the central object of loyalty, and the basis of collective solidarity.”31 In these narratives, the idea of nation was a historic novelty created in the late eighteenth century,32 and nationalism was seen as being unique to the Western world, from where it was exported to other parts of the globe.33 The nationalism scholarship introduced so far was not only Eurocentric; it was also carried by a concept of modernity that let nationalism, the nation-state, and democratic self-government become markers of modernity, suggesting that the nation-state was the basic model for the modern state and the somehow “normal” form of political existence.34 In this context, the term modernization described the processes through which polities reached this normative goal, it served to classify societies and states along the lines of traditional and modern, and it provided a tool to assess the direction of historical change in categories of reactionary or progressive and reformist or revolutionary.35 In the wake of Helmuth Plessner’s famous 1934 dictum, Germany and Italy were thus discussed as latecoming nations.3637Following Hans Kohn’s classical work on nationalism (1944), Eastern and Southeastern Europe was treated too as an extreme latecomer to the nationalist scene.38

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One effect of linking nationalism and nation-building to modernization theories was that it allowed historians to frame the histories of nationalism in teleological narratives of rise-and-fall, which produced the idea of a post-national age in the first place. Accordingly, the eighteenth century was widely identified as an ideological incubation period that culminated in the Atlantic Revolutions. The nineteenth century figured as the age of nationalism and nation-states, and the 1920s and 1930s as the period in which the principle of nationality triumphed in the aftermath of the Treaty of Versailles,39 when new nations and nationalisms proliferated on the territory of the former Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian empires.40 Hobsbawm’s influential periodization of the years from 1914 to 1945 as an “Age of Catastrophe,” embraced by the German social historian Hans-Ulrich Wehler, saw excessive nationalisms producing histories of violence, war, and genocide culminating in the Holocaust.41 Nationalism was thus seen as paving direct paths into the death camps, which is why it was widely treated as a thoroughly discredited historical force by left-wing historians dealing with post-1945 Western Europe and North America. This view saw a post-national world emerging after 1945, characterized by supranational forms of organization and identification.42 Prior to the mid-1980s, much of nationalism theory was developed on the basis of Western history and reflected this phenomenon in connection with Western notions of modernity and modernization. Furthermore, nationalism research treated ethnic communities forming nations as givens, and suggested that their striving for a territorialized nation-state was somehow the normal thing to do. In all, the theories and concepts of nationalism, as they had developed by the mid-1980s, showed little sensitivity for nationhood outside of nation-state structures, and had little to offer regarding multiple nations within a nation-state, or nationalism in multiethnic societies. It was so closely linked to linear modernization theories that it was blind to the presence of nationalism in supposedly pre- or post-national eras, and it could not explain nationalism in imperial contexts or non-industrialized regions of the world. Then, however, two developments changed the whole field. First, the anthropological turn in nationalism studies, and second, the renaissance of nationalism in Eastern Europe after the collapse of communism. Hans-Ulrich Wehler identified the year 1983 as a turning point for anthropological nationalism studies insofar as it witnessed the publication of three seminal works: Ernest Gellner’s Nations and Nationalism, Eric Hobsbawm and Terrence Ranger’s The Invention of Tradition, and, last but certainly not least, Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities.43 These works took the notion of nations as “imagined political communities” as a point of analytical departure, identified nations and nationalisms as the result of meaning-making activities that created the idea of the nation in the first place, and, thereby, problematized

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all essentializing concepts of ethnicity, nation, and nationhood.44 This brought to view the multiple shapes, forms, and functions of nations, nationalisms, and nation-statehood in the different temporal and spatial contexts of history, and it widened the scope to include regions outside of North America and Western Europe into the study of nationalism. Anderson’s work, especially, anchored in the analysis of nationalisms in Asia, can be seen as a theorization of nationalism from the periphery. The second factor influencing the research on nations, nationalism, and the nation-state was the new nationalism that emerged in Eastern Europe during the 1990s. While this development was important in and of itself, it gained additional significance through the fact that nationalism and the nation-state had seemingly—as some researchers claimed—lost significance in Western Europe due to the process of European integration. This constellation gave investigations into Eastern European nationalism the character of studies into the variations of the simultaneity of the unsimultaneous.45 Coinciding with the resurgence of the national in Eastern Europe was an expansion of the supranational structures in Western Europe, where in the 1990s the Schengen Accords were signed, and the Euro was introduced as the new common currency. This constellation triggered a new interest in intra-European comparative nationalism studies that focused on Eastern European nationalisms in order to question and critically test the existing typologies and theories of nationalism research.46 The anthropological turn in nationalism studies—especially Anderson’s concept of the nation as a “cultural artefact” that was “conceived in language”47—in combination with the rise of nationalisms after the breakdown of the USSR had the potential to pave the path for major revisions in the study of nationalism. Before this debate could really get underway, however, it got sidetracked by the transnational turn in the humanities. THE NATION, THE NATION-STATE, AND THE TRANSNATIONAL TURN The end of the Cold War and the experience of a new round of accelerating globalization, as much as efforts to think differently about European and North American history, triggered a multifaceted debate on transnational approaches to the past. It developed rather independently in several historiographical subdisciplines, followed a variety of trajectories, and had a different relevance in a number of historiographical traditions and national academic contexts. In several fields such as the history of migration, trade, international relations, and the circulation of knowledge, transnational conceptualizations frequently followed empirical findings that challenged national and

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state-centered perspectives on past phenomena. In some cases, historians were working empirically on the premises of transnational history without calling it such.48 Within migration studies Linda Basch, Nina Glick Schiller, and Christina Szanton Blanc developed a transnational analytical framework from their empirical work with migrants to the United States from Central America and the Philippines.49 They observed that the migrants developed and maintained multiple and multistranded relationships linking together their societies of origin and settlement. Basch, Glick, and Schiller suggested that the concept of transnationalism could help to conceptualize all processes through which migrants build social relations that crossed geographic, cultural, and political borders and that connected their societies of origin with their country of settlement.50 A few years later, Dirk Hoerder provided his longue durée global history of migration, which highlighted the interconnectedness of global, statewide, and family economies wrought by migration processes and the agency of migrants that operated in transnational migration systems creating border-crossing zones of mobility.51 The concept of transnationalism developed in the field of migration studies, thus, featured processes of circulation, interconnection, and entanglements beyond and below national boundaries, and connected one or more societies of regional, statewide, or continental extension with one another over a longer period of time. In this context, Ludger Pries developed the concept of transnational social spaces, which suggests that twenty-first century migrants actually live in social spaces that transgress national borders. Differentiating between geographic and social space, and investigating changing combinations of both, the concept of transnational social space let the once common “mutual embeddedness of geographic space and social space” erode. Challenging the supposed identity of the one geographic space (the state) and the one social space (the nation), the idea of transnational social spaces implies that nation-states can “consist of patchworks of very different ethnic groups and social spaces” of very different scale and scope.52 Another field fueling the debate on transnationalism was the development of diplomatic history into a new international history over the last forty years or so.53 This transformation was to a very large extent driven by the critique of the state as an autonomous actor in the conduct of foreign relations, and the narrow perspective on statesmen, diplomats, and the interest-driven interaction between states as bounded territorial entities in the power-driven context of international relations. Conceptualizing international relations as an interactive process, in which the agendas and actions of one state are heavily influenced by what other states do, put the national approach, as Marc Tractenberg argues, “at odds with what the field should be about.”54 The new international history not only focused on the interactive nature of international relations

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but also discovered the role and significance of non-state actors such as merchants, travelers, students, and nongovernmental organizations in the relationship between states. There was a new focus on the politically relevant international circulation of goods, peoples, and ideas that unfolded largely outside and beyond the control of states and governments.55 The themes of expansion, circulation, and penetration also loom large in the history of consumption, the unfolding of a consumer capitalism, and the formation of consumer societies in the twentieth century. In 2005, Victoria de Grazia published her Irresistible Empire, in which she characterized the twentieth-century United States as a “Market Empire” with global reach, created by “the insatiable ambitions” of the United States’ “leading corporations for global markets.” This was an “empire without frontiers” structured by “ever vaster sales territories,” and integrated by business networks spanning the globe, the ubiquity of American brands, and the persuasiveness of the American way of life.56 In that vein, Akira Iriye, Mary Nolan, and others traced the processes of America’s economic penetration of the world that led to an American presence around the globe. Societies in other parts of the world encountered the United States either in the form of consumer goods (cars, washing machines, dishwashers, and other household appliances), or in that of pop-cultural artifacts such as Hollywood movies, Blues, Jazz, and Rock and Roll music, or artwork created by Andy Warhol, Nelson Lichtenstein, or Keith Haring.57 These and other studies suggested that American economic expansion into the world was driven by both state agencies and private enterprise that entered into a rather uneasy alliance to pursue their political and economic interests without the one ever falling into the other. Business networks and the increasingly global presence of American businesses and products shed new light on the problem of state sovereignty and did its share in questioning notions of states as bounded territorial entities and closed political systems. Another field fueling the debate on transnationalism was global and world history that received far-reaching new impulses from scholars such as Peter Bender, Akira Iriye, Jürgen Osterhammel, Sebastian Conrad, and Andreas Eckert.58 Rejuvenating the older tradition of world history and putting it on a new conceptual footing, global historians were interested in global developments and interconnections beyond the nation-states. In studying phenomena such as migrations, trade, transportation systems, the circulation of capital, and the global division of labor, global historians analyze lateral, non-hierarchical, and non-national networks and factors in history that enabled and structured interactions between and across regions, societies, and states.59 While these publications lead to a questioning of the powers of nations and the nation-state and contributed to overcoming the methodological

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nationalism so deeply entrenched in historiography, they had different relevance in various national academic contexts and traditions. In Europe, the debate on transnationalism unfolded to a very large degree as a critique of the classic historical comparison that, in comparing developments in different nation states with a focus on national differences and specificities, had the effect of reifying the nation-state as a container.60 In this context, French and German historians started re-thinking the history of eighteenth-century France and Germany as a history of intercultural transfers, and as transcultural and transnational history, thus, conceptualizing the two national histories as intertwined and shaped by mutual influences. The two emerging national cultures came across as the dynamic product of entanglements, exchanges, and a histoire croisée.61 This brand of transcultural and transnational history was less about comparing national histories than about the common relations and transfers between cultures, nations, and states. In the United States, the debate on global and transnational history was inextricably tied to a critique of American exceptionalism,that is, the “notion that the United States was created differently, developed differently, and thus has to be understood differently—essentially on its own terms and within its own context.”62 In his A Nation Among Nations, Thomas H. Bender argued that the national history paradigm had exhausted itself, and that one needed a “history that understands national history as itself being made in and by histories that are both larger and smaller than the nation’s.”63 American history, therefore, could not be adequately understood “unless it is incorporated into that global context.”64 Other historians cultivating global or transnational perspectives on American history stressed that historical developments in the United States had always been driven and structured by the country’s multiple, multidimensional, and multidirectional entanglements with the world.65 In this context, Ian Tyrell called for depicting American history as “a variation on transnational themes.”66 The debate among American historians inside and outside of the United States was part of a much larger debate on transnationalizing American history and American studies.67 Transnational American studies focused on the non-English and non-European origins and foundations of the United States, positioned the country at a “crossroads of cultures,”68 and put an emphasis on entanglements, circulations, and interconnections that resulted from the encounter of Native American, European, African, and Asian cultures on the territory of the American nation-state. Concepts such as borderlands,69 contact zones,70 and cultural mobility71 were used to analyze multidirectional and complex links, flows, interactions, and entanglements of people, ideas, products, and institutions moving “above, below, through, and around, as well as within, the nation-state.”72 As a consequence, American history was reflected and positioned in new frameworks, continental,73 hemispheric,74 oceanic,75 or

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global76 in nature, that all offered plausible ways to transnationalize American studies in general, and the writing of American history in particular. Since these developments occurred simultaneously in fields that were not in contact, transnational history as a consequence became an umbrella term under which a host of different approaches were united without there being a precise definition as to what transnational history actually was.77 Methodologically, all approaches discussed above unfolded as the critique of the methodological nationalism so deeply entrenched in the history profession—but not everyone who criticizes methodological nationalism can also be considered a transnational historian or see themselves as such. It is also a matter of research topics and how to conceptualize history. For a further sharpening of the terminology, it makes sense to distinguish between transnational history and global history. While global historians, who study the emergence of an interdependent world, show themselves interested in some of the key topics that transnational historians are also interested in—the circulation of people and goods in lateral, non-hierarchical, and non-national networks transcending state borders—they work on different spatial scales. The circulations, networks, and entanglements that global historians study tend to be planetary in scope to the effect that global history can be, as Jürgen Osterhammel argues, largely identical with the history of globalization.78 In contrast to global history, transnational history operates on scales smaller than the whole world, is generally interested in the links and flows of “people, ideas, products, processes, and patterns that operate over, across, through beyond, above, under, or in-between polities and societies,”79,80 and is more interested in complicating the perspectives on states, nations, and national histories than in reconstructing the history of globalization. Yet, the exact place of nations and nation-states in the new framework of transnational history is not really clear. Few scholars in the field see transnational history as a post- or a-national history that is diametrically opposed to national history.81 Other approaches zeroing in on the transnational circulation of people, institutions, ideas, and goods take nations and nation-states as some sort of a backdrop against which transnational interaction and entanglement happens in the in-between of “middle grounds.”82 Most scholars, however, embrace the idea that transnational history “should not be written against or without nations” but as “a history with nations that is not a history of nations.”83 David Thelen, thus, explores the transnational movement of people, ideas, and institutions “to investigate how well national borders contained or explained how people experienced history.”84 Matthias Middell argues that transnational history could neither ignore nor negate the deep effects that processes of nationalization had on past developments.85 “However Transnationalism is approached,” Ian Tyrell writes, “the question of its relationship to the history of the nation

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cannot be avoided.”86 Yet, the problem remains of how exactly nation, nationalism, and the nation-state can be systematically factored into the transnational historical equation. The problem already starts with the fact that transnational approaches all too often do not conscientiously distinguish enough between nations and nation-states, refusing to theorize the relationship between these two dimensions of the National that do not always fall into one.87 Ironically enough, although most transnational approaches strive to de-essentialize nations and nation-states, understanding them as open, interconnected, and constantly changing systems, the idea of them being givens silently returns through the backdoor. We see three different ways of relating the Transnational to the National. On the most basic level transnational approaches can add a dimension to the writing of national histories that sees outside influences and connections as integral parts of national histories, striving to unearth them in order to discover new features of national societies at a given time.88 The transnational contexts of national history, thus, serve to get a deeper and fuller understanding of nations and nation-states. A second way to conceptualize the relationship between the National and the Transnational is to use transnational approaches to critically assess when, where, why, and in which respects nations and nation-states actually did become relevant as historical factors. This statement is premised on the idea that national identity is always one among several concepts of collective identity from which individuals and groups can choose. Furthermore, identity is always dynamically intersectional. Instead of being a monolithic and single-source driven concept, identity is more of a layering phenomenon created by multiple identity categories including gender, class, race, ethnicity, region, profession, generation, and so forth.89 Individuals and groups, therefore, are never only, always, and just national, and the questions that transnational approaches can help answer are the ones of: When, where, how, why, and for how long did individuals and groups think and act national? In terms of conceptualizing the nation-state, transnational approaches invite us to see it not so much as a bounded territorial container but rather as a “particular, and constantly changing, expression of complex forces.”90 Not all of these forces are national in character; they can also be subnational or transnational, and so the questions transnational approaches invite us to ask are again: When, where, why, and how exactly did the nation-state trigger, shape, and determine historical developments? How exactly was the nation-state shaped by sub- and transnational constellation forces? The third way of conceptualizing the relationship between the National and the Transnational has the farthest-reaching implications. It does not only ask for the transnational dimensions of national histories and it goes

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beyond assessing the relevance of the nation and the nation-state for historical developments. Instead of conceiving of the National and the Transnational as opposites, it sees them as mutually enabling each other—thereby asking for the transnational base of national developments and vice versa. It further builds on an approach developed by German and French historians who produced out of entangled national histories, histoire croisée, and, from transnational and transcultural histories, a historiography that conceives of nations and nation-states as open systems, which were formed in and through the multiple, multidirectional, and complex interconnections with the world without ever being sealed off against it. The Transnational and the National thus become relational categories in a complex web of interconnections and entanglements.91 Such a conceptualization raises, however, the question to which periods transnational approaches can be meaningfully applied. Is transnationalism— as Basch, Schiller, and Blanc suggest—a phenomenon of the late twentieth and early twentieth-first centuries, or can we, as David Gerber maintains, observe transnational phenomena in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century migrations?92 Does “the term transnational,” as Steffi Marung and Matthias Middell argue, only make sense “in a world of nation-states and is therefore substantially bound to the emergence of nations or at least the model of the nation-state and nationalized cultures?” Or should we, following Bartolomé Yun Casalilla’s position, include “premodern and non-Western experiences” to better understand the relationship between the Transnational and the National?93 The premise that transnational approaches develop their full analytical potential for the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries only anchors the proclaimed identity of nations and nation-states, the identity of the political decision space (state), and the identity space of the nation.94 If, however, we divorce states and nations, seeing them as separate but related variables that come in different constellations in different spatial and historical contexts of regional, national, continental, and global histories, then we have to reckon with the phenomenon of nations before nation-states. Then, there can be states without a nation or with multiple nations within their borders, and if the political decision spaces of states and the identificational spaces of nations can be different, then we need to investigate the relationship between the national and the Transnational from a longue durée perspective that encompasses the early modern and modern periods.

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THE PREMODERN NATION AND PREMODERN NATIONALISM One way to turn away from normative, modernist notions of nations and nationalism to better understand the varieties of the phenomenon is to critically consider how nations, states, and the transnational related in other temporal and spatial contexts. In this section, we will offer a “test-run” and revisit the literature on nations and nationalism in a premodern European and Atlantic perspective. Researchers such as Richard Helgerson and Cathy Shrank have argued that the nation and its claims to being a universal category of belonging are located in the history of European expansion95—which started, at the latest, around 1400. Why then—as some specialists of the early modern period would ask—do most classic studies on the emergence of nationalism and the nation-state not systematically study the premodern period? Why would they not look into early modern imaginations, inventions, and constructions of the nation—especially if, as historians such as G. R. Elton already put it in the 1950s—the sixteenth century “saw the creation of the modern sovereign state” with an increasingly standardized, centralized, and, in some instances, national administration?96 Over the last three decades several specialists of premodern periods, in literary studies in particular, have called for taking seriously premodern concepts of the nation and nationalism if we want to explain imaginations of the nation, nationhood, nationalism, and the nation-state—and how they relate to each other, then and now. Under the auspices of the cultural turns in the humanities, scholars became involved in the discussion on premodern imaginations of the nation, nationalism, and their relation to state-formation. They make clear that there was not just one variety of the National. Already in 1992, literary studies specialist Richard Helgerson was able to show how from late sixteenth century, in the context of European expansion and empire-building at home and abroad, writers and political figures such as William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, Richard Hakluyt, Walter Raleigh, Christopher Marlowe, and many others imagined and promoted the English nation as a cultural community conceived in a common origin and history, language and cultural artefacts, and imagined through chivalric romance, historical narrative, topographical description, travel narratives, theatre, and so on.97 Helgerson argues that it was the social uprootedness of these writers as much as the mobility of people of the Elizabethan era in general—not the least caused by empire-building, wars, and the competition of states and empires—that created the need for a new English identity, which claimed mobility as being specifically English. Helgerson describes this imagined

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English identity as unstable and insecure, with the categories of identity being both multiple and unclear regarding the question of who or what represented or embodied this English nation. Was it the monarchy, the people (or some parts of the people defined as the ones having inhabited the territory since times immemorial, sharing a common history and language and being the original sovereign of the territory)? Or a cultural system defined by language, law, religion, history, economy, and social order? Or was the nation a combination of all those factors? Furthermore, who was supposed to define and control the state: the monarch, the people, the law, the economy? All these possible (and to some extent related) foundations and categories of national identity—the monarch, the nobility, the law, the land, the economy, the common people, the church—rivaled each other for hegemony within the national project (mostly the project of social elites) and at the same time thickened the lines that separated one nation from another.98 For the British Empire or state-system this meant both, competition within—between the English, the Irish, the Scottish, and the Welsh nations99—and between dynasties, states, empires, and nations. In Writing the Nation in Reformation England, Cathy Shrank shows that Anderson and many other theorists of modern nationalism overlooked “the undeniable linguistic colonialism” of England.100 Studies on early-sixteenthcentury England, Ireland, and Wales101 make evident how much language in the British Isles was a strategy used for unification within England and its growing empire. According to Shrank, sixteenth-century England possessed at least seven of the ten categories that Craig Calhoun had established for the modern nation:102 (1) boundaries, of territory, population, or both; (2) the notion that the nation is an integral unit; (3) sovereignty, or aspiration to sovereignty; 4) a common culture; (5) a notion of the nation existing through time and having a history; (6) common descent; and (7) historical or even sacred relations to a certain territory.103 In addition, Shrank’s book demonstrates how political scientists and historians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries constantly misread early modern monarchies as monolithic polities, underestimating degrees of political participation of more common people.104 In opposition to Anderson’s timeline, with regard to the effects of print capitalism that sees European languages taking their modern shape in the seventeenth century to function as carriers of nationalism,105 the printing press, already in the sixteenth century, contributed not only to the spread of Protestantism but also of premodern nationalist ideas—as, next to Shrank, other experts of premodern reading and print cultures confirm.106 Furthermore, political scientists and historians of the modern age tend to overlook to what extent oral cultures could be a medium for collective self-imagining and constructing imagined communities.107

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In their edited volume on John Milton’s nationalism in Oliver Cromwell’s republican Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, David Loewenstein and Paul Stevens suggested that the early modern period saw emerge two interdependent, but distinct concepts of the nation: On the one hand, the nation as the republican state which recognizes its subjects as citizens and governs their daily life through various forms of law and administration. On the other, the nation as an ‘imagined community’ which informs the identity of those citizens through a wide variety of cultural representations and forms, including poems and plays, patriotic festivals and religious rituals, sermons and ecclesiastical polemics, histories and chronicles, maps and travel writings, paintings and other virtual artefacts.108

While these works could suggest that England is a case of its own, a prototype,109 and as such an exception to classic models of modern nation-building and the emergence of nationalism, Caspar Hirschi shows in his Wettkampf der Nationen for the Holy Roman Empire how imaginations of the German nation in the late medieval and early modern periods underlay political decision-making—not merely in times of war—next to religion, dynastic concerns, and economic interests. Without any reference to early modern England and the publications cited above, Hirschi develops yet another variety of the relationship of premodern state- and empire-building, territoriality, dynasties, religion, imaginations of the nation, and premodern nationalism. His study shows how German-language humanists blended existing discourses on patria and natio to develop a concept of the nation as a universal and autonomous category, which defined peoples as equal and competing nations: competing for territory, other economic resources, honor, and might. The nation, thus, turns into a parallel and entangled concept of late medieval and early modern estate-based societies of imaginations of a God-given social hierarchy of people, and of a universal religious community (Catholicism). Humanists in sixteenth-century Europe developed ideas of the nation that united people of all orders as equals on the basis of a stunning variety of identity categories. Hirschi shows, in the example of the Holy Roman Empire, what Helgerson, Shrank, Loewenstein, and Stevens, and others have explored for premodern England, namely that imaginations of the nation and nationalism were by no means an invention of the modern period. These studies suggest that modern varieties of nationhood and nationalism are anchored in dis/continuities or fractured continuities110—that is, in re-inscriptions or re-inventions of antique, medieval, and early modern imaginations of nations, narratives, and practices of nationhood. These fractured continuities include the following: (1) ideas of the one common origin of the people “forming” the nation; (2) sovereignty rights of the nation having inhabited the ancestral

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territory since times immemorial; (3) a common, vernacular language; (4) national and international law; (5) a national religion; (6) ideas about the nation being contained within state boundaries; (7) the presentation of the sovereign body of the nation in institutions such as parliament or the crown; (8) the equality of all nations; and (9) the competition of nations. Only with the Atlantic Revolutions came the prevalent idea that the nation and the state necessarily fall into one and that they must be based on freedom and democracy. The Atlantic Revolutions thus started promoting an ideal relationship of the nation and the state and its governing principles—which are, however, not met by most nineteenth- to twenty-first-century nation-states. Meanwhile, studying early modern imaginations of the nation and nationalism as well as state- and empire-building reinforces some important structural features of classic studies on modern nationalism. While national sentiment and nationalism intend to produce unity, they also produce diversity, a plurality of nationalist discourses within several discursive communities. Early modern varieties of the nation-state form as an “unstable and precariously balanced union” of “the unified state” and “multiple nations” developed in the sixteenth century (if not earlier): Set in motion a nationalist Discordia concors that remains an object of desire for peoples throughout the world: a seemingly unique basis of freedom, of social and economic progress, of reintegrated identity. To study the early modern construction of the nation-state is to understand more fully the strength and appeal of this complex cultural formation, but it is also to unmask the nation’s claim to a “natural” or “immemorial” origin, its claims to having always been there waiting to join the state in a marriage of love rather than convenience. Neither the nation nor the state has always been there. Both were constituted and have been continually reconstituted in an ongoing exchange between individual needs, communal interests, and discursive forms.111

Few of the specialists of early modern nationhood and nationalism, though, have enquired into the transnational dimensions of the National in that period—that is, into the transnational frameworks in which early modern ideas of the nation and nationalisms evolved. For John Milton’s nationalism during the Interregnum period—the only time in history England was a republic (1649–1660)—Loewenstein and Stevens (and the contributors in their volume) were able to show that Milton integrated into an international and universalist European community bound by principles of civility and law, to which he owed much of his English nationalism and exceptionalism.112 Cathy Shrank draws on the transnational imagination of England as a nation; she shows how sixteenth-century nationalist English writers borrowed from the European republic of letters to foster the vernacular language as

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the nation’s language. Next to England, sixteenth-century France, some of the Italian republics such as Venice, or intellectuals within the Holy Roman Empire promoted their respective vernacular language—and simultaneously used Latin as Europe’s lingua franca.113 Bartolomé Yun Casalilla has emphasized how much a transnational approach to both early modern and modern societies could enhance our understanding of “imagined communities” at large. He holds that we need to study “the ideological, cultural, economic, and social entanglements between different people belonging to or located in different imagined communities in the widest and original sense of the term.” A transnational approach would help us understand nations but also other “imagined communities” of the early modern period as “a result of cross-fertilization and processes of rivalry,” as constantly redesigned by “cross-boundary relationship.”114 Susanne Lachenicht’s and other diaspora specialists’ work strengthens this line of argument.115 Taking historical source languages seriously, these studies find in early modern diasporas such as the Sephardi or Ashkenazi Jews, the Armenians, or the Huguenots “nations in exile.” The latter are intriguing examples for the varieties of how imaginations of the nation, nation-building, nationalism, territory, state- and empire-building can relate to each other. Based on these studies, the nation-state comes across as just one option that needs to be historicized and reflected in its specificities. Some nations in exile are aiming for their own state, others are divided between a diaspora and a state, other nations ignore state barriers or are averse to the idea of the (nation-)state, some are nations within multinational or federal states, and still others come as Pan-African or Pan-Indian movements. Furthermore, diaspora studies make evident that nations need both, national and transnational networks, which create tension for identifications and claims toward homogeneity. Transnational in the case of diasporas refers to different but often interrelated phenomena including the crossing of boundaries of cultural and social constructions or imaginations of belonging through origin, blood, lineage or genealogy, religion, race, ethnic origin or (resulting) legal borders, and relations between nations in their territorialized and non-territorialized forms. Diasporas or nations in exile can be hotbeds for nationalism—and for transnationalism and cosmopolitanism at the same time. To put it differently: the transnational contexts of exile and diasporas can create and promote various forms of nationalism, while simultaneously producing new transnationalisms.116 These findings invite us to revisit and rethink how much these features also apply for territorialized nations and nation-state-people in past and present, and how much the latter depend on or are enabled by transnational relations.117

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CONCLUSION Within this chapter, we have suggested revisiting the relationship of the national and the transnational through the lens of three literatures: (1) on modern nations and nationalism, (2) the transnational turn and its consequences for nationalism studies, and (3) premodern European and Atlantic perspectives on nations, nationalism, and the state. Our analysis has shown that nationalism research so far discusses nationalism for two distinct periods of history, the premodern and the modern one, and in doing so, scholars in the field are largely standing back-to-back. Although the reference to there being premodern concepts of nation, nationhood, and also the nationstate is found every once in a while in studies dealing with nineteenth- and twentieth-century nationalism, it is usually treated as some sort of backdrop against which the modernity of modern nationalism is measured.118 Medievalists and early modernists, in contrast, frequently insist on the history of nationalism starting much earlier, i.e., in their own period of expertise, but they are all too often satisfied with the mere statement and investigation of it, sometimes attempting to make a point of the modernity of their own epoch. Generally, though, with all but a few exceptions, experts on early modern nationalism refuse to reflect what their findings mean for our understanding on nations, nationalism, and the nation-state of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In all, therefore, we hold that the largely disconnected debates on premodern and modern nations, nationalism, and the nation-state need to be much more thoroughly and systematically related to each other than has been the case so far, in order to get a fuller and deeper understanding of both historical and present-day phenomena. In consequence this means to disconnect the debate on nation, nationalism, and the nation-state from modernization discourses and the normative models of modernity linked to it, making it essential for researchers on premodern and modern imaginations of the nation and nationalism to talk to each other. This further develops Benedict Anderson’s view that “nationalism has undergone a process of modulation and adaption, according to different eras, political regimes, economies and social structures.” While still holding on to the end of the eighteenth century as the beginning of nationalism and to one model that came to be altered, Anderson’s thesis is something to start with to develop a new, more flexible approach to the history of nations, nationalism, and the nation-state. Disconnecting nationalism research from modernization theories would also entail widening the spatial horizons to include regions outside of Western Europe and North America into a systematic investigation of nations, nationalism, and the nation-state from a longue durée historical perspective that

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encompasses premodern, modern, and postmodern periods—which we have not discussed in this chapter, as our expertise lies with early modern and modern Europe and North America—but which would be a vital extension of our analysis here. Disconnecting nationalism research from linear modernization theories means to question conventional chronology. Many studies on premodern imaginations of the nation, nationhood, state-building, and nationalism, as well as studies on nationalism in non-Western regions of the world, raise the question about what comes first: imaginations of the nation or state-building? Is national sentiment the prerequisite for state-building or is it generated in the process? Is state-building possible without national sentiment? To what extent is the state a nation-builder? Can the history of nations, nationalism, and the nation-state be written in the form of linear chronologies in the first place, or does it follow other, maybe even cyclical, temporal patterns? These questions are crucial to understand varieties of today’s nationalism—be it in post-socialist Eastern Europe, the United States, in postcolonial Africa, or in contemporary Western Europe, where some conflicts escape analytical master narratives that see the nation preceding the nation-state, or that equate the people and the state. Instead of opting for one normative model of the relationship of imaginations of the nation and state-building as much classical scholarship on nationalism and the nation-state does, we should strive to develop more flexible models and concepts that help explain the National through space and time. This suggested new approach would open up the view for the varieties of the National and its multiple, sometimes contradictory functions in the temporal and spatial contexts of the past and present. To investigate these complex phenomena, we suggest taking the historical method seriously. We think we should start with the language of the sources, premodern, modern, and contemporary ones. From the variety of the spatial and temporal contexts in which the nation is imagined, evoked, propagated, and (ab)used, we should analyze the discourses in which it appears and the images, symbols, themes, narratives, and trajectories that are being used. This should be connected to the functions that imaginations of the nation, nationalism, and the nation-state fulfilled, and the political, social, economic, and cultural developments they produced and the effects they had on the latter. Multiplying the models, chronologies, and spatial contexts of nation, nationalism, and the nation-state also invites us to look into how notions of the nation combine with other categories of collective identity such as race, religion, blood, gender, age, or ethnicity—with which they are more often than not semi-congruent. The National needs to be understood as one but not the only category of collective identity. We need to carefully disentangle the connections between them and analyze the dynamics of inclusion and

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exclusion resulting from complex identificational constellations and their inherent paradoxes. This brings us, finally, to redefining the relationship between the National and the Transnational. Instead of being mutually exclusive and antagonistically related to each other, they are often complementary and, in some cases, they even seem to be mutually enabling each other in at least three respects. First, imaginations of the nation as well as nationalism more often than not develop in transnational and transcultural contexts—of exile, of diasporas, in multiethnic or multinational societies, at the periphery of empires, or within supranational organizations and institutions. Second, imaginations of the nation are dynamic processes of defining the self and the other. Individuals, groups, and their imaginations of what they are, who they want to be, who belongs to them, and who does not are all too often borrowed from what is defined as the Other—be it with regard to ideas, goods, institutions, constitutions, cultural artefacts, memorial cultures, stereotypes, or symbols of the national such as flags or national anthems. Imaginations of the nation and nationalism are, therefore, dynamic products and processes of transcultural and transnational exchange, borrowing, integration, and transformation. Finally, the Transnational also questions the ubiquity of the nation and the nation-state, as it shows how people, societies, and institutions can relate to each other beyond and in ignorance of national and nation-state frameworks—based on a variety of social constructions of the other and the self. Pursuing the study of nationalism from a longue durée perspective, widening the scope to include non-Western regions of the world, and integrating some of the premises and trajectories of transnational history, means challenging all normative and singular models of nation, nationalism, and the nation-state. It suggests that nation-building and nationalism do not necessarily result in the formation of nation-states and that states can either exist and be legitimate without a nation, or that they can create the nation they need. In addition, neither the nation-state nor the post-national state are end points in the history of mankind. Fractured continuities, reinscriptions, and transformations produce ever new varieties of how imaginations of the nation can structure societies and shape institutions, be it state, empire, diaspora, or something else. Finally, it encourages us to think more about the transnational foundations, dimensions, and dynamics of the National. Instead of reflecting on them only in antagonistic terms, one could and should also look for the many and multiple interconnections between them and see how they can mutually enable each other.

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NOTES 1. On the discussion see, for example, Smriti Mallapaty, Amy Maxmen, and Ewen Callaway, “‘Major Stones Unturned’: COVID Origin Search Must Continue after WHO Report, Say Scientists,” Nature, February 10, 2021, https://www.nature.com/ articles/d41586-021-00375-7 (accessed February 28, 2021). 2. Eric J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 186–92. 3. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed. (London and New York: Verso, 1991), 3. 4. Volker Depkat and Susanne Lachenicht, “Rückkehr des Nationalismus?” Geschichte der Gegenwart, May 2017, https://geschichtedergegenwart.ch/rueckkehrdes-nationalismus/ (accessed April 23, 2019). 5. Richard Helgerson, Forms of Nationhood: the Elizabethan Writing of England (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992); David Loewenstein and Paul Stevens, “Introduction: Milton’s Nationalism: Challenges and Questions,” in David Loewenstein and Paul Stevens (eds.), Early Modern Nationalism and Milton’s England (Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press, 2008), 3–21; Caspar Hirschi, Wettkampf der Nationen: Konstruktionen einer deutschen Ehrgemeinschaft an der Wende vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2005). 6. Achim Landwehr, Die anwesende Abwesenheit der Vergangenheit: Essay zur Geschichtstheorie (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 2016), 118–48. 7. Susanne Lachenicht, “Learning from Past Displacements? The History of Migrations between Historical Specificity, Presentism and Fractured Continuities,” Humanities 7, no. 2 (2018): 6. 8. Hugh Seton-Watson, Nations and States: An Enquiry into the Origins of Nations and the Politics of Nationalism (London: Methuen, 1977), 5. 9. Anderson, Imagined Communities, 3. 10. Michael Billig, Banal Nationalism (London: Sage, 1995), 6–7. 11. Jörn Leonhard, Bellizismus und Nation: Kriegsdeutung und Nationsbestimmung in Europa und den Vereinigten Staaten 1750–1914 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2008); Ulrike von Hirschhausen and Jörn Leonhard, “Europäische Nationalismen im Ost-West-Vergleich: Von der Typologie zur Differenzbestimmung,” in Ulrike von Hirschhausen and Jörn Leonhard (eds.), Nationalismen in Europa: West- und Osteuropa im Vergleich (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2001), 14; Dieter Langewiesche, Der Gewaltsame Lehrer: Europas Kriege in der Moderne (Munich: Beck, 2019), 20. 12. Richard J. W. Evans and Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann (eds.), The Revolutions in Europe 1848–1849: From Reform to Reaction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); Manfred Botzenhart, 1848/1849: Europa Im Umbruch (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh Verlag, 1998); Dieter Dowe, Heinz-Gerhard Haupt, and Dieter Langewiesche, Europa 1848: Revolution und Reform (Bonn: J. H. W. Dietz, 1998); Dieter Langewiesche, Nation, Nationalismus, Nationalstaat in Deutschland und Europa (Munich: Beck, 2000); Eric J. Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution: Europe, 1789–1848 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962); HansUlrich Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte, vol. 2: Von der Reformära bis zur

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industriellen und politischen Deutschen Doppelrevolution 1815–1845/1849 (Munich: Beck, 1987). 13. James S. Coleman, “Nationalism in Tropical Africa,” American Political Science Review 48, no. 2 (1954): 404–26; Thomas Hodgkin, Nationalism in Colonial Africa (London: F. Muller, 1956); John Londsdale, “The Emergence of African Nations: A Historiographical Analysis,” African Affairs 67, no. 266 (1968): 11–28; John Londsdale, “Some Origins of Nationalism in East Africa,” Journal of African History 9, no. 1 (1968): 119–46. 14. Elizabeth Schmidt, “Top Down or Bottom Up? Nationalist Mobilization Reconsidered, with Special Reference to Guinea (French West Africa),” American Historical Review 110, no. 4 (2005): 975–1014; Paul Nugent, “Do Nations have Stomachs? Food, Drink, and Imagined Community in Africa,” Africa Spectrum 45, no. 3 (2010): 87–113; Paul Nugent, “African Independence and its Others: Decolonization and the Margins,” Nations and Nationalism 19, no. 3 (2013): 442–49; Carola Lentz and David Lowe, Remembering Independence (New York: Routledge, 2018). 15. Paul Quigley, Shifting Grounds: Nationalism and the American South, 1848–1865 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012); Coleman Hutchison, Apples and Ashes: Literature, Nationalism, and the Confederate States of America (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2012). 16. Heinrich August Winkler, “Einleitende Bemerkungen,” in Heinrich August Winkler and Hartmut Kaelble (eds.), Nationalismus—Nationalitäten— Supranationalität, Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta 1993, 10; Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism, 101–30; Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983), 57. An exemplary early work investigating into nationalism as a form of negative integration to halt processes of democratization in the German Empire: HansUlrich Wehler, Das Deutsche Kaiserreich, 1871–1918 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1973), 105–10. 17. Miroslav Hroch, Die Vorkämpfer der nationalen Bewegung bei den kleinen Völkern Europas: Eine vergleichende Analyse zur gesellschaftlichen Schichtung der patriotischen Gruppen (Prague: Universita Karlova, 1968). 18. Paschalis M. Kitromilides, “‘Imagined Communities’ and the Origins of the National Question in the Balkans,” European History Quarterly 19, no. 2 (1989): 149–94. 19. Terry Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001). 20. For the Bosnian case: Iva Lučić, Im Namen der Nation: Der politische Aufwertungsprozess der Muslime im sozialistischen Jugoslawien 1956–1971 (Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz, 2018). 21. Wolfgang Reinhard, Geschichte der Staatsgewalt: Eine vergleichende Verfassungsgeschichte Europas von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart (Munich: Beck, 1999), 406; Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism, 85; Langewiesche, Der Gewaltsame Lehrer, 19–24. 22. For Germany: Mario Rainer Lepsius, “Nation und Nationalismus in Deutschland,” in Mario Rainer Lepsius, Interessen, Ideen und Institutionen (Opladen:

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Westdeutscher Verlag, 1990), 232–46; Thomas Nipperdey, “Auf der Suche nach Identität: Romantischer Nationalismus,” in Thomas Nipperdey, Nachdenken über die deutsche Geschichte: Essays (Munich: DTV, 1990), 132–50; Jörg Echternkamp, Der Aufstieg des deutschen Nationalismus (1770–1840) (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 1998); Dieter Gosewinkel, Einbürgern und Ausschließen: Die Nationalisierung der Staatsangehörigkeit vom Deutschen Bund bis zur Bundesrepublik (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003). For Italy: Gian Enrico Rusconi, Cavour und Bismarck: Zwei Staatsmänner im Spannungsfeld von Liberalismus und Cäsarismus (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2013); Denis Mack Smith, Il Risorgimento Italiano: Storia e testi (Bari: Laterza, 1999); Jörn Leonhard, “Initial oder Modell? Die Perzeption des italienischen Risorgimento in Deutschland seit 1850,” in Jahrbuch zur LiberalismusForschung 17 (2005): 199–214. 23. Krzysztof Jaskułowski, “Western (Civic) ‘versus’ Eastern (Ethnic) Nationalism: The Origins and Critique of the Dichotomy,” in Polish Sociological Review 171, 3 (2010): 289–303. For Poland Hungary and Croatia: Fernando Veliz, The Politics of Croatia-Slavonia, 1903–1918: Nationalism, State Allegiance and the Changing International Order, Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz 2012; Joachim von Puttkamer, Schulalltag und Nationale Integration in Ungarn: Slowaken, Rumänen und Siebenbürger Sachsen in der Auseinandersetzung mit der ungarischen Staatsidee 1867–1914, Munich: Oldenbourg 2003; Timothy Snyder, The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569–1999 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003). 24. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism, 14; Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992). 25. R. R. Palmer, The Age of Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760–1800: Volume I: The Challenge (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959), 4. 26. Wim Klooster, Revolutions in the Atlantic World: A Comparative History (New York: New York University Press, 2009), 2. 27. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism; Gellner, Nations and Nationalism; Greenfeld, Nationalism; Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Nationalismus: Geschichte, Formen, Folgen (Munich: Beck, 2001); Otto Dann, Nation und Nationalismus in Deutschland, 1770–1990, 3rd ed. (Munich: Beck, 1996); Langewiesche, Nation, Nationalismus, Nationalstaat; Langewiesche, Der Gewaltsame Lehrer, 19–24. 28. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism, 18, 19. 29. Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, 1. 30. Greenfeld, Nationalism, 3. 31. Hobsbawm’s first chapter is entitled “The Nation as Novelty.” Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism, 14–45. 32. Wehler, Nationalismus, 15. 33. Dann, Nation und Nationalismus, 17. Bernhard Giesen, Einleitung,” in Bernhard Giesen (ed.), Nationale und kulturelle Identität: Studien zur Entwicklung des kollektiven Bewußtseins in der Neuzeit (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1991), 10. 34. Thomas Mergel, “Modernization,” in European History Online (EGO), published by the Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG), Mainz, June 21,

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2012, http://www.ieg-ego.eu/mergelt-2011-en, URN: urn:nbn:de:0159-2011050927 (February 26, 2020-02-26). 35. Michael Stolleis, “Italien und Deutschland als ‘Verspätete Nationen,’” Vigonianae 1, no. 2 (2010): 77–83. 36. Maria Todorova, “The Trap of Backwardness: Modernity, Temporality, and the Study of Eastern European Nationalism,” Slavic Review 64, no. 1 (2005): 140–64. 37. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism, 131. 38. Allen Lynch, “Woodrow Wilson and the Principle of ‘National SelfDetermination’: A Reconsideration,” Review of International Studies 28, no. 2 (2002): 419–36. 39. Eric J. Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914–1991 (London: Michael Joseph, 1994); Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte, vol. 4: Vom Beginn des Ersten Weltkrieges bis zur Gründung der beiden deutschen Staaten, 1914–1949 (Munich: Beck, 2003). 40. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism, 163–92; Wehler, Nationalismus, 110–15; Heinrich August Winkler and Hartmut Kaelble (eds.), Nationalismus— Nationalitäten—Supranationalität (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1993). 41. Wehler, Nationalismus, 8. 42. Anderson, Imagined Communities, 6; Gellner, Thought and Change, 168. 43. Winkler, “Einleitende Bemerkungen,” 10; Hirschausen and Leonhard, “Europäische Nationalismen,” 11. 44. Hirschausen and Leonhard, “Europäische Nationalismen,” 21. 45. Anderson, Imagined Communities, 4, 145. 46. For an overview over attempts to write history beyond the national scope before the arrival of transnational history, see Pierre-Yves Saunier, Transnational History (Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 22–26. 47. Linda Basch, Nina Glick Schiller, and Christina Szanton Blanc, Nations Unbound: Transnational Projects, Postcolonial Predicaments, and Deterritorialized Nation-States (Amsterdam: OPA, 1994). 48. Basch, Glick Schiller, and Szanton Blanc, Nations Unbound, 7. 49. Dirk Hoerder, Cultures in Contact: World Migrations in the Second Millenium (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2002); see also Mark Choate, Emigrant Nation: The Making of Italy Abroad (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008), and Donna Gabaccia, Italy’s Many Diasporas (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000). 50. Ludger Pries, “The Approach of Transnational Social Spaces: Responding to New Configurations of the Social and the Spatial,” in Ludger Pries (ed.), New Transnational Social Spaces: International Migration and Transnational Companies in the Early Twenty-First Century (London: Routledge, 2001), 4. 51. Jessica C. E. Gienow-Hecht and Frank Schumacher (eds.) Culture and International History (New York: Berghahn Books, 2004); Eckart Conze, Ulrich Lappenküper, and Guido Müller (eds.), Geschichte der internationalen Beziehungen: Erneuerung und Erweiterung einer Historischen Disziplin (Cologne: Böhlau, 2004); Jost Dülffer and Wilfried Loth (eds.), Dimensionen Internationaler Geschichte (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2012).

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52. Marc Tractenberg, “The State of International History: Where We’ve Been, Where We Are, and Where We’re Going,” Diane N. Labrosse. H-Diplo State of the Field Essays, https://networks.h-net.org/node/28443/pages/33862/h-diplo-state-fieldessays (accessed February 10, 2020). 53. Akira Iriye, Global Community: The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World (Oakland: University of California Press, 2002). 54. Victoria de Grazia, Irresistible Empire: America’s Advance through TwentiethCentury Europe (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005), 3. 55. Mary Nolan, The Transatlantic Century: Europe and America, 1890–2010 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Akira Iriye, The New Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations, vol. 3: The Globalizing of America, 1913– 1945 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015). 56. Thomas H. Bender, A Nation among Nations: America’s Place in World History (New York: Hill & Wang, 2006); Iriye, The New Cambridge History; Jürgen Osterhammel, The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015); Sebastian Conrad, Globalgeschichte: Eine Einführung (Munich: Beck, 2013); Sebastian Conrad and Andreas Eckert, “Globalgeschichte, Globalisierung, Multiple Modernen: Zur Geschichtsschreibung der modernen Welt,” in: Sebastian Conrad, Andreas Eckert, and Ulrike Freitag (eds.), Globalgeschichte: Theorien, Ansätze, Themen (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2007), 7–49. 57. Akira Iriye and Jürgen Osterhammel (eds.), A History of the World, 6 vols. (Cambridge and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012– 2020); Sebastian Conrad, What is Global History (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2016). 58. Harmut Kaelble, Der historische Vergleich: Eine Einführung zum 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 1999); Hartmut Kaelble and Jürgen Schriewer (eds.), Vergleich und Transfer: Komparatistik in den Sozial-, Geschichtsund Kulturwissenschaften (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2003); Heinz-Gerhard Haupt and Jürgen Kocka (eds.), Comparative and Transnational History: Central European Approaches and New Perspectives (New York: Berghahn Books, 2009); Matthias Middell, “Kulturtransfer und Historische Komparatistik—Thesen zu ihrem Verhältnis,” Comparativ 10 (2000): 7–41. 59. See Michel Espagne and Michael Werner, Transferts: Les relations interculturelles dans l’espace franco-allemand (XVIIIe et XIXe siècle) (Paris: Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1988). On histoire croisée, see Michael Werner and Bénédicte Zimmermann (eds.), De la comparaison à l’histoire croisée (Paris: Seuil, 2004). 60. Byron Shafer (ed.), Is America Different? A New Look at American Exceptionalism (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991), v. 61. Bender, Nation among Nations, 3. 62. Bender, Nation among Nations, 6. 63. Ian Tyrrell, “American Exceptionalism in an Age of International History,” American Historical Review 96, no. 4 (1991): 1031–55; Ian Tyrrell, Transnational Nation: United States History in Global Perspective since 1789 (Houndsmills:

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Palgrave Macmillan, 2007); David Thelen, “The Nation and Beyond: Transnational Perspectives on United States History,” Journal of American History 86, no. 3 (1999): 965–75; Thomas H. Bender (ed.), Rethinking American History in a Global Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002). 64. Tyrrell, “American Exceptionalism,” 1038. 65. Shelley Fisher Fishkin, “Crossroads of Cultures: The Transnational Turn in American Studies: Presidential Address to the American Studies Association, November 12, 2004,” American Quarterly 57, no. 1 (2005): 17–57; Udo J. Hebel (ed.), Transnational American Studies (Heidelberg: Winter, 2012). 66. Fisher Fishkin, “Crossroads of Cultures.” 67. Ramón A. Gutiérrez and Elliot Young, “Transnationalizing Borderlands History,” The Western Historical Quarterly 41, no. 1 (2010): 26–53; Herbert E. Bolton, “The Epic of Greater America,” American Historical Review 38 (1933): 448– 74; Gloria E. Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera (San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1987); Samuel Truett and Elliott Young (eds.), Continental Crossroads: Remapping US–Mexico Borderlands History (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004). 68. Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (London: Routledge, 1992); Mary Louise Pratt, “Arts of the Contact Zone,” Profession 91 (1991): 33–40. 69. Stephen Greenblatt et al., Cultural Mobility: A Manifesto (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 70. Thelen, “The Nation and Beyond,” 967. 71. Volker Depkat, Geschichte Nordamerikas: Eine Einführung (Cologne: Böhlau, 2008); Alan Taylor, The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, and Indian Allies (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011); Alan Taylor, American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750–1804 (New York: Norton, 2017). 72. Volker Depkat and Britta Waldschmidt-Nelson (eds.), Cultural Mobility and Knowledge Formation in the Americas (Heidelberg: Winter, 2019); Caroline F. Levander and Robert S. Levine (eds.), Hemispheric American Studies (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2008); Anna Brickhouse, Transamerican Literary Relations and Nineteenth-Century Public Sphere (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). 73. Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993); Jack P. Greene and Philip D. Morgan (eds.), Atlantic History: A Critical Appraisal (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); Isabel Hofmeyr, “The Black Atlantic Meets the Indian Ocean: Forging New Paradigms of Transnationalism for the Global South: Literary and Cultural Perspectives,” Social Dynamics 33, no. 2 (2007): 3–32; Jean Wu, Jean Yu-wen Shen, and Min Song (eds.), Asian American Studies: A Reader (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2000); Kent A. Ono (ed.), A Companion to Asian American Studies (Malden: Blackwell, 2005); Brian Russell Roberts and Michelle Ann Stephens (eds.), Archipelagic American Studies (Durham: Duke University Press, 2017); Charlotte Lerg, Susanne Lachenicht, and Michael Kimmage (eds.), The TransAtlantic Reconsidered (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2018). 74. Bender, Nation Among Nations.

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75. Saunier, Transnational History, 14–15; Françoise Lionnet and Shu-mei Shih (eds.), Minor Transnationalism (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2005); Klaus Kiran Patel, Transnational History, http://www.ieg-ego.eu/patelk-2010-en (accessed March 15, 2019); Matthias Middell, Transnationale Geschichte als transnationales Projekt? Zur Einführung in die Diskussion, https://nbn-resolving.org/ urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-30013 (accessed March 15, 2019); Cornelia Budde, Sebastian Conrad, and Oliver Janz (eds.), Transnationale Geschichte: Themen, Tendenzen, Theorien, 2nd ed. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2010). 76. Jürgen Osterhammel, “Globalgeschichte,” in Hans-Jürgen Goertz (ed.), Geschichte: Ein Grundkurs, 3rd ed. (Reinbek near Hamburg, 2007), 596. 77. Akira Iriye and Pierre-Yves Saunier (eds.), The Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), xviii. 78. Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 20; John Carlos Rowe (ed.), Post-Nationalist American Studies (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000); Thomas Adam, “Transnational History: A Program for Research, Publishing, and Teaching,” Yearbook of Transnational History 1 (2018): 1–10. 79. Multiple references to studies on brokerage and the flow of ideas, goods, and people in Saunier, Transnational History, 33–57. The concept of the “middle ground” as a site of intercultural encounter where connections were refused, made or unmade between polities and societies was introduced by Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991). 80. Saunier, Transnational History, 11, 8. 81. Thelen, “The Nation and Beyond,” 967. 82. Middell, Transnationale Geschichte als transnationales Projekt? 83. Tyrrell, “American Exceptionalism,” 1053. 84. Katherine Verdery, “Beyond the Nation in Eastern Europe,” Social Text 38 (1994): 1–19. 85. Sebastian Conrad and Jürgen Osterhammel (eds.), Das Kaiserreich Transnational: Deutschland in der Welt, 1871–1914 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006). 86. Jürgen Martschukat and Olaf Stieglitz, Geschichte der Männlichkeiten, 2nd ed. (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2018), 30–31, 52–77; Paul Du Gay, Jessica Evans, and Peter Redeman (eds.), Identity: A Reader (London: Sage, 2000); Klaus P. Hansen, “Versuch einer Systematisierung der Kollektivwissenschaft,” Zeitschrift für Kollektivwissenschaft 1, no. 1 (2015): 89–110; Bartolomé Yun Casalilla, “Transnational History: What Lies Behind the Label? Some Reflections from the Early Modernist’s Point of View,” Culture and History Digital Journal 3, no. 2 (2014): 3. 87. Tyrrell, “American Exceptionalism,” 1055. 88. For this approach, see Yun Casalilla, “Transnational History.” 89. David A. Gerber, “Theories and Lives: Transnationalism and the Conceptualization of International Migrations to the United States,” IMIS Beiträge 15 (2000): 31–53.

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90. Steffi Marung and Matthias Middell, “From Transnational Action to Collective Actors of Transnationalism?” in Steffi Marung and Matthias Middell (eds.), Transnational Actors—Crossing Borders: Studies in Transnational History (Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2014), 9; Yun Casalilla, “Transnational History.” 91. Charles S. Maier, Once Within Borders Territories of Power, Wealth, and Belonging since 1500 (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2016). 92. Peter van der Veer and Hartmut Lehmann, “Introduction,” in Peter van der Veer and Hartmut Lehmann (eds.), Nation and Religion. Perspectives on Europe and Asia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 4; Helgerson, Forms of Nationhood; Cathy Shrank, Writing the Nation in Reformation England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). 93. G. R. Elton, The Tudor Revolution in Government: Administrative Changes in the Reign of Henry VIII (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953), 3. 94. Helgerson, Forms of Nationhood, 2, 152. 95. Helgerson, Forms of Nationhood, 8–10, 14, 299–300. 96. Brendan Bradshaw and Peter Roberts, “Introduction,” in Brendan Bradshaw and Peter Roberts (eds.), British consciousness and identity. The making of Britain, 1533–1707, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2000, 1–7. 97. Shrank, Writing the Nation, 3. 98. For medieval England and notions of the nation as well as nationalism see: Adrian Hastings, The Constructions of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1997, and the literature cited there. 99. In his Nationalism, Craig Calhoun established ten features of modern nationalism. Craig Calhoun, Nationalism, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1997. 100. Shrank, Writing the Nation, 3–4, 15–17. 101. Shrank, Writing the Nation, 5. 102. Anderson, Imagined Communities, 37–40. 103. Herbert Grabes, “Introduction. ‘Writing the Nation’ in a Literal sense,” in Herbert Grabes (ed.), Writing the Early Modern English Nation. The Transformation of National Identity in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England (Amsterdam, Atlanta: Rodopi, 2001), x–xi. 104. Grabes, “Introduction,” x–xi. For oral literature and imagined communities see Ruth Finnegan, Oral Literature in Africa (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970). 105. Loewenstein and Stevens, “Introduction,” 5. 106. Hastings, Constructions of Nationhood, 4–6, 8, claims as much as Leah Greenfeld (see note 10) that England was the first European nation to be, a prototype, a “model.” 107. Lachenicht, “Learning from Past Displacements?” 108. Helgerson, Forms of Nationhood, 300–301. 109. Loewenstein and Stevens, “Introduction,” 13–14. 110. Shrank, Writing the Nation, 13–14. 111. Yun Casalilla, “Transnational History,” 1–7. 112. For a discussion of this, see chapter 2 of this volume.

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113. Susanne Lachenicht and Kirsten Heinsohn, “Diaspora Identities: Exile, Nationalism, and Cosmopolitanism in Past and Present—An introduction,” in Susanne Lachenicht and Kirsten Heinsohn (eds.), Diaspora Identities: Exile, Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism in Past and Present (Frankfurt am Main and New York: Campus, 2009), 8–9. 114. See chapter 2 of this volume. 115. Dann, Nation und Nationalismus in Deutschland, 1770–1990. 116. Anderson, Imagined Communities, 157. 117. Bradshaw and Roberts, British Consciousness, 2–3. 118. Volker Depkat, “Remembering War the Transnational Way: The US-American Memory of World War I,” in Udo J. Hebel (ed.), Transnational American Memory (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009), 185–213; Susanne Lachenicht, “Das Hambacher Fest (1832): Ein nationales Ereignis in transnationaler Perspektive,” in Horst Carl and Joachim Eibach (eds.), Europäische Wahrnehmungen 1650–1850: Interkulturelle Kommunikation und Medienereignisse (Hanover: Wehrhahn, 2008), 319–37; Susanne Lachenicht, “Wagner en het negentiende-eeuwse nationalisme,” in Conflict en Compassie. 200 jaar Richard Wagner. Internationaal Wagner Congres, Amsterdam, November 28—December 1, 2013 (Amsterdam: De Nationale Opera, 2014), 133–40.

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Evans, Richard J. W., and Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann, eds. The Revolutions in Europe 1848–1849: From Reform to Reaction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Finnegan, Ruth. Oral Literature in Africa. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970. Fisher Fishkin, Shelley. “Crossroads of Cultures: The Transnational Turn in American Studies: Presidential Address to the American Studies Association, November 12, 2004.” American Quarterly 57, no. 1 (2005): 17–57. Gabaccia, Donna. Italy’s many Diasporas. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000. Gellner, Ernest. Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell, 1983. Gerber, David A. “Theories and Lives: Transnationalism and the Conceptualization of International Migrations to the United States.” IMIS Beiträge 15 (2000): 31–53. Gienow-Hecht, Jessica C. E., and Frank Schumacher, eds. Culture and International History. New York: Berghahn Books, 2004. Giesen, Bernhard. “Einleitung.” In Nationale und kulturelle Identität: Studien zur Entwicklung des kollektiven Bewußtseins in der Neuzeit, edited by Bernhard Giesen, 9–18. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1991. Gilroy, Paul. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993. Gosewinkel, Dieter. Einbürgern und Ausschließen: Die Nationalisierung der Staatsangehörigkeit vom Deutschen Bund bis zur Bundesrepublik. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003. Grabes, Herbert. “Introduction. ‘Writing the Nation’ in a Literal Sense.” In: Writing the Early Modern English Nation: The Transformation of National Identity in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England, edited by Herbert Grabes, x–xi. Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 2001. Grazia, Victoria de. Irresistible Empire: America’s Advance through TwentiethCentury Europe. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005. Greenblatt, Stephen, et al. Cultural Mobility: A Manifesto. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Greene, Jack P., and Philip D. Morgan, eds. Atlantic History: A Critical Appraisal. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Greenfeld, Leah. Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992. Gutiérrez, Ramón A., and Elliot Young. “Transnationalizing Borderlands History.” The Western Historical Quarterly 41, no. 1 (2010): 26–53. Hansen, Klaus P. “Versuch einer Systematisierung der Kollektivwissenschaft.” Zeitschrift für Kollektivwissenschaft 1, no. 1 (2015): 89–110. Hastings, Adrian. The Constructions of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Haupt, Heinz-Gerhard, and Jürgen Kocka, eds. Comparative and Transnational History: Central European Approaches and New Perspectives. New York: Berghahn Books, 2009. Hebel, Udo J., ed. Transnational American Studies. Heidelberg: Winter, 2012.

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Helgerson, Richard. Forms of Nationhood: The Elizabethan Writing of England. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992. Hirschhausen, Ulrike von, and Jörn Leonhard. “Europäische Nationalismen im OstWest-Vergleich: Von der Typologie zur Differenzbestimmung.” In Nationalismen in Europa: West- und Osteuropa im Vergleich, edited by Ulrike von Hirschhausen and Jörn Leonhard. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2001, 11–45. Hirschi, Caspar. Wettkampf der Nationen: Konstruktionen einer deutschen Ehrgemeinschaft an der Wende vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2005. Hobsbawm, Eric J. Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914–1991. London: Michael Joseph, 1994. ———. The Age of Revolution: Europe, 1789–1848. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1962. ———. Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality. Second edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Hodgkin, Thomas. Nationalism in Colonial Africa. London: F. Muller, 1956. Hoerder, Dirk. Cultures in Contact: World Migrations in the Second Millenium, Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2002. Hofmeyr, Isabel. “The Black Atlantic Meets the Indian Ocean: Forging New Paradigms of Transnationalism for the Global South: Literary and Cultural Perspectives.” Social Dynamics 33, no. 2 (2007): 3–32. Hroch, Miroslav. Die Vorkämpfer der nationalen Bewegung bei den kleinen Völkern Europas: Eine vergleichende Analyse zur gesellschaftlichen Schichtung der patriotischen Gruppen. Prague: Universita Karlova, 1968. Hutchison, Coleman. Apples and Ashes: Literature, Nationalism, and the Confederate States of America. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2012. Iriye, Akira. Global Community: The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World. Oakland: University of California Press, 2002. ———. The New Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations: Volume 3: The Globalizing of America, 1913–1945. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Iriye, Akira, and Jürgen Osterhammel, eds., A History of the World. 6 volumes. Cambridge and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012–2020. Iriye, Akira, and Pierre–Yves Saunier, eds. The Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Jaskułowski, Krzysztof. “Western (Civic) ‘versus’ Eastern (Ethnic) Nationalism. The Origins and Critique of the Dichotomy.” Polish Sociological Review 171, no. 3 (2010): 289–303. Kaelble, Hartmut. Der historische Vergleich: Eine Einführung zum 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 1999. Kaelble, Hartmut, and Jürgen Schriewer, eds. Vergleich und Transfer: Komparatistik in den Sozial-, Geschichts- und Kulturwissenschaften. Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2003.

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Kitromilides, Paschalis M. “‘Imagined Communities’ and the Origins of the National Question in the Balkans.” European History Quarterly 19, no. 2 (1989): 149–94. Klooster, Wim. Revolutions in the Atlantic World: A Comparative History. New York: New York University Press, 2009. Lachenicht, Susanne. “Das Hambacher Fest (1832). Ein nationales Ereignis in transnationaler Perspektive.” In Europäische Wahrnehmungen 1650–1850: Interkulturelle Kommunikation und Medienereignisse, edited by Horst Carl and Joachim Eibach, 319–37. Hanover: Wehrhahn, 2008. ———. “Learning from Past Displacements? The History of Migrations between Historical Specificity, Presentism and Fractured Continuities.” Humanities 7, no. 2 (2018): 1–11. ———. “Wagner en het negentiende-eeuwse nationalisme.” In Conflict en Compassie. 200 jaar Richard Wagner. Internationaal Wagner Congres, Amsterdam, November 28–December 1, 2013, Amsterdam: De Nationale Opera, 2014, 133–40. Lachenicht, Susanne, and Kirsten Heinsohn. “Diaspora Identities: Exile, Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism in Past and Present—An introduction.” In Diaspora Identities: Exile, Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism in Past and Present, edited by Susanne Lachenicht and Kirsten Heinsohn, 7–15. Frankfurt am Main and New York: Campus, 2009. Landwehr, Achim. Die anwesende Abwesenheit der Vergangenheit. Essay zur Geschichtstheorie. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 2016. Langewiesche, Dieter. Der Gewaltsame Lehrer: Europas Kriege in der Moderne. Munich: Beck, 2019. ———. Nation, Nationalismus, Nationalstaat in Deutschland und Europa. Munich: Beck, 2000. Lentz, Carola and David Lowe. Remembering Independence. New York: Routledge, 2018. Leonhard, Jörn. Bellizismus und Nation: Kriegsdeutung und Nationsbestimmung in Europa und den Vereinigten Staaten 1750–1914. Munich: Oldenbourg, 2008. ———. “Initial oder Modell? Die Perzeption des italienischen Risorgimento in Deutschland seit 1850.” Jahrbuch zur Liberalismus-Forschung 17 (2005): 199–214. Lepsius Mario Rainer. “Nation und Nationalismus in Deutschland.” In Interessen, Ideen und Institutionen, edited by Mario Rainer Lepsius, 232–46. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1990. Lerg, Charlotte, Susanne Lachenicht, and Michael Kimmage, eds. The TransAtlantic Reconsidered. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2018. Levander, Caroline F., and Robert S. Levine, eds. Hemispheric American Studies. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2008. Lionnet, Françoise, and Shu-mei Shih, eds. Minor Transnationalism. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2005. Loewenstein, David, and Paul Stevens. “Introduction: Milton’s Nationalism: Challenges and Questions.” In Early Modern Nationalism and Milton’s England, edited by David Loewenstein and Paul Stevens. Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press, 2008.

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Londsdale, John. “The Emergence of African Nations: A Historiographical Analysis.” African Affairs 67, no. 266 (1968): 11–28. ———. “Some Origins of Nationalism in East Africa.” Journal of African History 9, no. 1 (1968): 119–46. Lučić, Iva. Im Namen der Nation: Der politische Aufwertungsprozess der Muslime im sozialistischen Jugoslawien 1956–1971. Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz, 2018. Lynch, Allen. “Woodrow Wilson and the Principle of ‘National Self-Determination’ A Reconsideration.” Review of International Studies 28, no. 2 (2002): 419–36. Maier, Charles S. Once within Borders: Territories of Power, Wealth, and Belonging Since 1500. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2016. Martin, Terry. The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001. Martschukat, Jürgen, and Olaf Stieglitz. Geschichte der Männlichkeiten. Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2018. Marung, Steffi, and Matthias Middell. “From Transnational Action to Collective Actors of Transnationalism?” In Transnational Actors—Crossing Borders: Studies in Transnational History, edited by Steffi Marung and Matthias Middell, 9–16. Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2014. Mergel, Thomas, “Modernization.” European History Online (EGO), published by the Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG), Mainz June 21, 2012, http://www. ieg-ego.eu/mergelt-2011-en (accessed January 1, 2021). Middell, Matthias. “Kulturtransfer und Historische Komparatistik—Thesen zu ihrem Verhältnis.” Comparativ 10 (2000): 7–41. ———. Transnationale Geschichte als transnationales Projekt? Zur Einführung in die Diskussion, https://nbn–resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168–ssoar–30013 (accessed March 15, 2019). Nipperdey, Thomas. “Auf der Suche nach Identität. Romantischer Nationalismus.” In Nachdenken über die deutsche Geschichte: Essays, edited by Thomas Nipperdey, 132–50. Munich: DTV 1990. Nolan, Mary. The Transatlantic Century: Europe and America, 1890–2010. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Nugent, Paul. “African Independence and its Others: Decolonization and the Margins.” Nations and Nationalism 19, no. 3 (2013): 442–49. ———. “Do Nations have Stomachs? Food, Drink and Imagined Community in Africa.” Africa Spectrum 45, no. 3 (2010): 87–113. Ono, Kent A., ed. A Companion to Asian American Studies. Malden: Blackwell, 2005. Osterhammel, Jürgen. “Globalgeschichte.” In Geschichte: Ein Grundkurs, edited by Hans-Jürgen Goertz, 592–610. Third edition. Reinbek near Hamburg, 2007. ———. The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015. Palmer, R. R. The Age of Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760–1800. Volume I: The Challenge. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959. Patel, Klaus Kiran. Transnational History, http://www.ieg–ego.eu/patelk–2010–en (accessed March 15, 2019).

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Pratt, Mary Louise. “Arts of the Contact Zone.” Profession 91 (1991): 33–40. ———. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. London: Routledge, 1992. Pries, Ludger. “The Approach of Transnational Social Spaces: Responding to New Configurations of the Social and the Spatial.” In New Transnational Social Spaces: International Migration and Transnational Companies in the Early Twenty-First Century, edited by Ludger Pries. London: Routledge, 2001, 3–33. Puttkamer, Joachim von. Schulalltag und Nationale Integration in Ungarn: Slowaken, Rumänen und Siebenbürger Sachsen in der Auseinandersetzung mit der ungarischen Staatsidee 1867–1914. Munich: Oldenbourg, 2003. Quigley, Paul. Shifting Grounds: Nationalism and the American South, 1848–1865. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Reinhard, Wolfgang. Geschichte der Staatsgewalt: Eine vergleichende Verfassungsgeschichte Europas von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart. Munich: Beck, 1999. Roberts, Brian Russell, and Michelle Ann Stephens, eds. Archipelagic American Studies. Durham: Duke University Press, 2017. Rowe, John Carlos, ed. Post–Nationalist American Studies. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. Rusconi, Gian Enrico. Cavour und Bismarck: Zwei Staatsmänner im Spannungsfeld von Liberalismus und Cäsarismus. Munich: Oldenbourg, 2013. Saunier, Pierre-Yves. Transnational History. Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Schmidt, Elizabeth. “Top Down or Bottom Up? Nationalist Mobilization Reconsidered, with Special Reference to Guinea (French West Africa).” American Historical Review 110, no. 4 (2005): 975–1014. Seton-Watson, Hugh. Nations and States: An Enquiry into the Origins of Nations and the Politics of Nationalism. Boulder: Westview Press, 1977. Shafer, Byron, ed. Is America Different? A New Look at American Exceptionalism. Oxford: Clarendon, 1991. Shrank, Cathy. Writing the Nation in Reformation England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Smith, Denis Mack. Il Risorgimento Italiano: Storia e testi. Bari: Laterza, 1999. Snyder, Timothy. The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569–1999. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003. Stolleis, Michael. “Italien und Deutschland als ‘Verspätete Nationen.’” Vigonianae 1, no. 2 (2010): 77–83. Taylor, Alan. American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750–1804. New York: Norton, 2017. ———. The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, and Indian Allies. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011. Thelen, David. “The Nation and Beyond: Transnational Perspectives on United States History.” The Journal of American History 86, no. 3 (1999): 965–75. Todorova, Maria. “The Trap of Backwardness: Modernity, Temporality, and the Study of Eastern European Nationalism.” Slavic Review 64, no. 1 (2005): 140–64.

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Tractenberg, Marc. “The State of International History: Where We’ve Been, Where We Are, and Where We’re Going.” Diane N. Labrosse: H-Diplo State of the Field Essays, March 7, 2014, https://networks.h-net.org/node/28443/pages/33862/hdiplo-state-field-essays (accessed February 10, 2020). Truett, Samuel, and Young, Elliott, eds. Continental Crossroads: Remapping US– Mexico Borderlands History. Durham: Duke University Press, 2004. Tyrrell, Ian. “American Exceptionalism in an Age of International History.” American Historical Review 96, no. 4 (1991): 1031–55. ———. Transnational Nation: United States History in Global Perspective since 1789. Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Van der Veer, Peter, and Lehmann, Hartmut. “Introduction.” In Nation and Religion: Perspectives on Europe and Asia, edited by Peter van der Veer and Hartmut Lehmann, 3–14. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. Veliz, Fernando. The Politics of Croatia-Slavonia, 1903–1918: Nationalism, State Allegiance and the Changing International Order. Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz, 2012. Verdery, Katherine. “Beyond the Nation in Eastern Europe.” Social Text 38 (1994): 1–19. Wehler, Hans-Ulrich. Das Deutsche Kaiserreich, 1871–1918. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1973. ———. Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte. Volume 2: Von der Reformära bis zur industriellen und politischen Deutschen Doppelrevolution 1815–1845/1849. Munich: Beck, 1987. ———. Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte. Volume 4: Vom Beginn des Ersten Weltkrieges bis zur Gründung der beiden deutschen Staaten, 1914–1949. Munich: Beck, 2003. ———, ed. Imperialismus. Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1970. ———. Nationalismus: Geschichte, Formen, Folgen. Munich: Beck 2001. Werner, Michael and Bénédicte Zimmermann, eds. De la comparaison à l’histoire croisée. Paris: Seuil, 2004. White, Richard. The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991. Winkler, Heinrich August. “Einleitende Bemerkungen.” Nationalismus— Nationalitäten—Supranationalität, edited by Heinrich August Winkler and Hartmut Kaelble. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1993, 9–11. Winkler, Heinrich August, and Hartmut Kaelble , eds. Nationalismus—Nationalitäten— Supranationalität. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1993. Wintle, Michael. “Cultural Diversity and Identity in Europe.” Cultural Identity in Europe: Perceptions of Divergence and Unity in Past and Present, edited by Michael Wintle. Aldershot, Brookfield, Hongkong, Singapore, and Sidney: Avebury, 1996. Wu, Jean, Jean Yu–wen Shen, and Min Song, eds. Asian American Studies: A Reader. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2000. Yun Casalilla, Bartolomé. “Transnational History: What Lies Behind the Label? Some Reflections from the Early Modernist’s Point of View.” Culture and History Digital Journal 3, no. 2 (2014): 1–7.

Chapter 2

Early Modern Diasporas as Transnational Nations‌‌ The Examples of Sephardi Jews and Huguenots Susanne Lachenicht

In 1997, British sociologist Robin Cohen wrote in his Global Diasporas that by the end of the twentieth century the United Nations would comprise some two hundred states,1 while at least another two thousand “nation-peoples” would claim recognition as nations and would “imperfectly, and sometimes only violently, [be] held within the confines of the existing nation-states—as the multiplicity of secessionist movements, civil wars and the fragmentation of the former Soviet Union and several of its allies testify.”2 Today, more than twenty years later, people are still sharing narratives of origin and belonging, languages, cultural and social practices, and defining themselves as nations. Some are nations in exile, diasporas, or claim their own (nation-)state, others see themselves as nations within multinational states, demanding specific sovereignty rights within a federal and/or multinational state such as American Indians in the United States or the First Nations in Canada.3 Nationhood, nation-building, and nationalism can take diverse forms—in synchronic and diachronic perspectives. To understand practices (including narratives) of national belonging, nationalisms, and conflicts arising from them, it is vital for nationalism studies to look into the varieties of the National, that is imaginations of the nation, nation-building, and nationalism, and how they relate to territory and state—without a prefixed or normative understanding of the concept of the nation and the related term transnational. In this chapter, I would like to do this for nations in exile in a period that is 41

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considered as premodern and pre-nation-state, the period between the fifteenth and the late eighteenth centuries. People who are today described as diasporas, such as the Sephardi or Ashkenazy Jews, the Armenians, or the Huguenots, were, in the early modern period, referred to as nations in exile, refugee nations, nations abroad, or, simply, nations—among other terms with shared semantics. In the sources of the sixteenth to the late eighteenth centuries, the second Sephardi Jewish diaspora is called the Portuguese nation,4 and the Huguenot diaspora the French nation, the French Protestant nation, or the French Reformed nation.5 This chapter will discuss what we can gain from taking this emic perspective6 of the early modern period (the sources’ perspective) as a starting point and whether we understand early modern diasporas as nations. How would such an approach change concepts of the nation, nation-building, and nationalism for the early modern period and for today? How would it change our understanding of the construction of categories of belonging, inclusion, and exclusion, and of key concepts about the Transnational and the National?7 Through the lens of early modern diasporas, I would like to zoom into the varieties of notions of the nation, transnational foundations of nations, and the question of how much nations need to be territorialized—meaning legally, politically, economically, socially, and culturally attached or bound to a place, territory, or state—and in which ways. Based on my own research on primary sources of the sixteenth to late eighteenth centuries on Huguenots, and the work of scholars who have intensely worked on primary sources relating to Sephardi Jews for the same period, I will begin this chapter with a discussion of nations and nationhood in the early modern period. Then, I will inquire into early modern diasporas as nations and the transnational character of early modern diasporas before I discuss the implications of this reconsideration of our understanding of nations and nationalism today. NATIONS IN THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD Theorists of nation-building, nationalism, and the nation-state have often claimed that during premodern periods the nation was either not important or essentially different from the modern concept of the nation.8 While more and more specialists of the early modern period disagree with these two claims,9 there should be some doubt that there is but one modern concept of the nation. In the early modern period, the nation is one central category of collective belonging. Between the fifteenth and the early nineteenth centuries, we find the term nation in a variety of sources and genres as well as expressions such as the French, the English, the Irish, the Spanish, or the Germans: in peace treaties such as the Treaty of Paris of 1763 (“rules of nations” and



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“law of nations”); colonial charters such as the one for the Carolinas of 1663; in descriptions of indigenous American and European nations in travel narratives and natural histories; in family correspondence; diplomatic correspondence; correspondence between trading partners; in sermons; diaries; theological and scientific treatises; encyclopedias; legal texts; economic literature; in theater plays; chivalric novels; and in epic poems such as John Milton’s Paradise Lost.10 In these sources, nation comes with a variety of meanings: being of the same (mythical) origin, the same territory, language, corporative status, legal rights, and sovereignty—even though in the early modern period sovereignty rights of nations rested with the estates (as privileged representatives of the nation), their elected primus inter pares, or were embodied by a prince by the grace of God. In some instances, though, as in the Puritan Revolution and the Interregnum in seventeenth-century England, political sovereignty, having resided with the king, passed back to the nation, to the people.11 Also, at times, we see nation used interchangeably with state.12 More often than not, the term nation is not clearly separated from other categories of collective belonging such as race, religion, blood, genealogy, territorial origin and belonging, ancestry, and so on.13 As social constructions defining processes of in- and exclusion, these categories are often blurred. The semantic field of the nation at times includes notions of purity, purity in terms of genealogies and religion, which would concern, for instance, Jewish and Muslim Conversos (new converts to Catholicism) and the Marranos and Moriscos on the Iberian Peninsula and in the Spanish and Portuguese empires. The purity of the nation was also tied to notions of “blood” of “mixed people,” when—often, but not always—skin color came into play. This was, for instance, true for mulattoes and mestizos in the Spanish, Portuguese, and French empires.14 Next to Catholic Spanish and the Catholic Portuguese nations in exile, Sephardi Jews also entertained notions of the “purity of blood” with regard to their own diasporic nation.15 Being of the “pure English nation” was at the latest, from the seventeenth century onward, definitely about English origin, ancestry, territorial belonging, speaking English, being Protestant, and specific political and civic features.16 English nationalism and exceptionalism borrowed from God’s-chosen-people narratives as we find them in Hebrew texts from Hebrew antiquity onward.17 From an emic perspective, nation in the Middle Ages and the early modern period is also a legal term. People belonging to one nation, be it the Saxon or Bavarian nation in German universities, the German, Italian, or French nation of merchants in London, Lisbon, Venice, or Antwerp, the Moriscos of the Kingdom of Granada, the Irish Catholic nation in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France or Spain, or the French refugee (Huguenot) nation in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England, North America,

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Brandenburg-Prussia, or the Dutch Republic, meant that these groups enjoyed specific privileges.18 Their legal status could be repealed, renewed, or altered. Nation in this sense meant corporation. The nation established their (often permanent) representatives at a prince’s court or a city council. This nation’s plenipotentiary (re)negotiated the rights of his nation and in some cases represented it in solidum—which could include liability for the entire corporation.19 Next to the concept of the nation we find similar conceptions in the early modern period for communities bound by a shared legal status. In many parts of the Spanish Empire, indigenous people formed a “república de indios,” which were legal communities that retained some of their own customary laws and some of their own authority. Spanish colonizers, including creoles— people of Spanish descent born in the overseas parts of the Spanish Empire— formed a “república de españoles.” Thus, two different corporations within the Spanish Empire with two different legal regimes—responsible before the viceroy and the king of Spain—emerged. In seventeenth-century Lima, and other parts of the Spanish Empire, such formations enabled mulattos, who were able to form a guild with specific rights, and other free people of color to join the more privileged “república de españoles” to gain legal, social, and economic privileges.20 Spanishness in these contexts was not about Iberian origin or ancestry but about legal and social status. Belonging to a specific nation—in this case the Spanish—and their legal, social, and economic privileges could be negotiated. Nation as a legal term could, thus, imply and develop into civic understandings of nationhood.21 Nations in the early modern period could also be tied to territory, though. Nation and territory, nation and state, and nation and empire were important pairs indeed. Be it the English nation, the French, the Spanish, or indigenous nations in the Americas. In early modern texts, in genres belonging to the legal, literary, or religious realm, links are made between territorial belonging, territorial and genealogical ancestry, climate, food, bodies, language, history, and a given nation’s superiority. The latter often included civilization and colonization narratives and practices.22 Territorial ancestry, having inhabited a given space for “times immemorial” meant that the nation united the “natural inhabitants” of a given territory and that they were its owners, which is not only true for Europeans but also for indigenous people in the Americas as well as, for instance, Charles de Rochefort wrote in his 1681 edition of Histoire naturelle and morale des iles Antilles de l’Amérique.23 Ancestry entitled indigenous nations to sovereignty and the governing of their ancestral territory unless they were too “little civilized” and, thus, needed to be governed by “culturally more superior nations.”24 In looking into empire- and state-building and into wars of the early modern period, we can see at least “two interdependent, but distinct conceptions



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of the ‘nation’” emerge, “on the one hand, the nation as the state which recognizes its subjects as citizens and governs their daily life through various forms of law and administration” and, on the other hand, the nation as an “‘imagined community’ which informs the identity of those citizens through a wide variety of cultural representations and forms, including poems and plays, patriotic festivals and religious rituals, sermons and ecclesiastical polemics, histories and chronicles, maps and travel writings, paintings and other virtual artefacts.”25 Furthermore, we witness the Janus-faced character of the nation and nationalism in the early modern period: the “inclusion and violence of the nation’s internal and external enemies” and the idealization and encouragement of “full inclusion and equity for its citizens,” which are two more or less constant sides of the concept of the nation.26 EARLY MODERN DIASPORAS AS NATIONS Diaspora as an analytical or etic term describes groups of dispersed or scattered people. Diasporas, whether we look at them as victim, imperial, trade, or labor diasporas, or a mix of those categories, come with narratives of a lost homeland. They are also often featured as people with the same origin, from the “same climate,” of the same “blood,” “race,” and/or “religion,” sharing common languages, social and cultural practices, and histories and historiographies.27 Some sociologists and anthropologists consider diasporas as emblems of transnationalism and cosmopolitanism and potential subversions of nationality.28 From an emic, early modern perspective, diasporas were nations among other nations that could share the following characteristics: narratives and practices of a common territorial and historical origin; a specific legal framework; being of the same blood, race, and, in many cases, religion; all of which had to be pure. Nations in exile, by contrast, did not share sovereignty rights that indigenous nations in the Americas or the English, French, Portuguese, or Spanish nations shared. Nonetheless, imagining themselves as nations was, for these nations in exile, a powerful cultural, legal, and political construct.29 For one of the largest victim diasporas of the early modern period the notion of the nation was rarely be applied: African slaves. Unfree people, Africans, and plantation slaves, in particular, were in most cases not considered to be a nation.30 With the enslavement of Africans and plantation slavery came the consequent uprooting of slaves where territorial, cultural, social ties, family ties (in particular), and histories were to be broken; ancestry was no longer to exist, slaves became property. And property, in theory, could not enjoy certain group privileges. A closer look at early modern Atlantic slavery reveals, though, that this narrative must be nuanced. In some instances, African slaves

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were addressed as members of the Congolese or Guinean nation or of the “Black nation.”31 More recent studies have shown that narratives of origin, social and cultural practices, and knowledge systems did survive in slavery and reintegrated into new social and cultural systems, in which people of African descent were imagined as (enslaved) nations.32 EARLY MODERN DIASPORAS AS TRANSNATIONAL NATIONS With these reflections on the emic notion of nations in the early modern period in mind: Why and where would early modern diasporas be transnational nations? There has been much debate whether the term transnational can be applied to early modern concepts of the nation.33 Many authors prefer to exclusively use the term transnational in the context of modern Western nation-states and for the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.34 Transnationalism and transnational history, then, is often meant to overcome the dominance and transcend the borders of the modern nation-state, to break free from national paradigms, to draw attention to actors, networks, flows, interconnections, transfers, entanglements beyond or below the nation(-state) that have shaped human histories for centuries. Transnational history, however, can also explain the transnational foundations of nations and states. If we define transnational history as “an approach to the past which privileges the analysis of exchanges and mutual transfers across borders, be they political, religious, ethnic,”35 not the least to analyze how various concepts of the nation try to limit or stop these transfers or how these transfers enable imaginations of the nation, nationalisms, or state-building, it becomes vital to include concepts of the nation beyond the nation-state as well as pre-modern and modern perspectives and describe them as transnational. Against the background of my discussion so far and a necessary critique of restrictions in the usage of the term transnational, I have opted for nation as a category of analysis, as a heuristic term that can, but does not have to come as equivalent to state. Nation is but one category of social belonging that imagines itself as separate from other nations through more or other boundaries than the frontiers of a state: origin, blood, lineage, genealogy, race, religion, and ethnic group. If early modern diasporas were deterritorialized or multiterritorialized nations, which boundaries formed, united, or separated them? Transnational, for early modern diasporas, could mean crossing the states’ and empires’ frontiers in which they lived. Boundaries could also mean borders drawn through cultural and social constructions or imaginations of belonging through origin, blood, lineage or genealogy, religion, race, ethnic origin, or (resulting) legal borders. Transnational, regarding early modern



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nations, therefore, must mean at least: all relations between early modern nations in their territorialized and non-territorialized forms and one specific nation’s internal relations across borders of state and empire. BECOMING A NATION Early modern diasporas often did not imagine themselves (and were not imagined) as a nation prior to persecution, migration, or exile: the transnational contexts of persecution, flight, and exile forged narratives, practices, and status abroad.36 As such, the second Sephardi Jewish diaspora came to understand itself as a decidedly Jewish nation in exile with its members dispersed over England, the Dutch Republic, France, and the English and Dutch colonies in the seventeenth century.37 Arriving in the late sixteenth century as Conversos from different local and regional destinations within the Spanish Empire, or from North Africa and the Ottoman Empire, individuals and congregations slowly developed Jewish religious practices and institutions. In Amsterdam and London, the “Portuguese nation”—as they defined themselves and were called by the city fathers—sought to remain distinct from Dutch and, respectively, English society, Calvinists or Anglicans—and Ashkenazi Jews. The parnassim (the Portuguese nation’s rulers) strove to prohibit marriage between Sephardim and Ashkenazim; furthermore, they assigned to black and mulatto Jews an inferior status within Sephardi communities.38 The Sephardi Jewish nation held that it was distinct from and superior to other nations through origin, language, blood, and specific religious practices and traditions.39 French Protestants developed narratives of national belonging with the French Wars of Religion (1562–1598). They believed themselves to be France’s greatest patriots and, as Calvinists, God’s chosen people.40 Persecution and flight, along with situations of exile, forged narratives and practices of national belonging. Foremost with the Grand Refuge, which was caused by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 and stripped French Protestants of the guarantees of religious freedom, thousands of French Protestants chose permanent exile. Huguenots from Poitou, Lorraine, Provence, Dauphiné, Normandy, and the Cevennes, who spoke different dialects and languages, who engaged in various social and cultural practices and were used to specific legal rights, were forced to suddenly imagine themselves as a nation in exile. This French reformed nation was, as Huguenots held, superior to all other nations and especially to the Catholic French nation at home.41 The “ascribed identity” of being a French Protestant nation abroad made Huguenots in exile more French Protestant than anything else.42 In petitions to the Protestant princes of Europe, Huguenots used the narrative of

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their superiority as the most civilized nation to claim land rights and to successfully deprive “less civilized nations,” such as the Irish or North American indigenous nations, of their land and land rights.43 Huguenot nationalism continually adapted to changing political and cultural contexts and thus survived the building of nation-states in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as it made successful attempts to integrate into nationalist narratives of the hosting societies and states.44 For both diasporas, the Sephardi Jewish and the Huguenot, we find situations of persecution and then the transnational contexts of exile, which included their being perceived as homogenous groups of foreigners. Imagining and promoting the nation in exile produced degrees of integration within the refugee groups, in terms of language, social and cultural practices, administration, and specific legal rights.45 As corporations, groups with specific legal rights, early modern nations in exile at times accommodated people who did not share territorial origin, ancestry, blood, race, or religion. In seventeenth- and particularly eighteenth-century Brandenburg-Prussia, the privileges of the French reformed nation could apply to refugees of other territorial origin, languages, and denominations: Lutherans, Swiss reformed, Dutch reformed, and many others. By the late eighteenth century, these rights could also be transferred to French Émigrés—French Catholics fleeing the persecutions of the French Revolution.46 In Suriname, Sephardi Jewish communities integrated the offspring of slave-owning Jews and female African slaves and raised some of them as Jews—albeit with an inferior legal status. Likewise, African and American Indian slaves and freed slaves were allowed to convert to Judaism and, when freed, enjoyed the privileges of Suriname’s Sephardi Jewish nation.47 Imagining and promoting the nation in diaspora, along with negotiating rights and status, needed new narratives and practices of belonging and narratives and practices of nationalism, which ran counter the heterogeneity and the transnational and transcultural practices of its members. HYBRIDITIES From the beginning, the imagined and legal communities in exile mixed with individuals from other nations within their host societies. Intermarriage might have generally been low for the first one or two generations but was, in some contexts, often depending on the size of the respective community, rather strong from the beginning.48 Transconfessional, transreligious, and transnational practices, which could mean being a member of a number of Christian, Jewish, or Muslim religious and ethnic communities,49 as well as



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multiple conversions in one individual’s life, produced hybridity or contextualized identifications with different nations and/or religions, which obviously obstructed narratives and practices of the nation-building of early modern diasporas. Nation-building and the simultaneous, progressive disintegration of the “homogenous nation to be” went, thus, hand in hand. In Amsterdam the Mahamad (the governing body) of the Portuguese nation (naçao ebrea or naçao portuguesa) sought to establish homogeneity and cohesion through synagogues, schools, public bath houses, kosher meat shops, and social control that should have guaranteed endogamy, among other things.50 While Jewish boys were educated in Hebrew and Spanish, some families hired Dutch tutors so their children would better integrate into professions as pharmacists, merchants, physicians, and booksellers, and into related institutions of Amsterdam’s city life such as academies and secret societies.51 Some Conversos arriving in Amsterdam did not wish to become members of the Mahamad at all. While, with their official legal status, they were part of the naçao Portuguesa of Amsterdam, they refused to become members of Jewish congregations on religious and social terms.52 Indifference seems to have been a major problem for the gatekeepers53 of the Sephardi Jewish nation in exile. Attempts to put the “unwilling” under the government of the parnassim in jurisdictional, social, and cultural matters, along with threats to deny the right of burial or to make the reluctant suffer anathema did not always have the desired effects.54 Equally problematic from the Sephardi Jewish nation’s perspective were frequent returnees—members of the naçao ebrea who moved between Iberian and Protestant worlds where they re-converted from Judaism to Catholicism and vice versa.55 In London, the Sephardi diaspora met with similar, if not worse, challenges as many members of the Portuguese nation integrated Converso and Jewish social and cultural practices.56 These phenomena are not only present in the Sephardi Jewish context but also in other refugee nations such as the Huguenots.57 This diaspora’s gatekeepers, in particular pastors, together with the elders and deacons of the congregation, made attempts to establish and uphold what some might dub a Huguenot identity, that is Calvinist beliefs, the French language, and French cultural practices. The institutions they created—churches, schools, orphanages, and in some territories, such as Brandenburg-Prussia, their own administration and courts for internal affairs—started, however, to admit non-Huguenot subjects through French reformed congregations and increasing intermarriage with English, German, Swiss, Irish, Swedish, and Dutch women and men. Attempts to prohibit intermarriage failed abysmally, as well as sanctions against the use of languages other than French in French reformed churches, schools, and orphanages. In Huguenot schools, the vanishing of French as the pupils’ everyday language and, finally, as the teaching

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language, came with intermarriage but also the admittance of non-French pupils.58 Huguenot elites, such as the pastor Jean Henri Samuel Formey, secretary of the Berlin Academy of Sciences, entertained private boarding schools in their households, which made German children learn the French language and accustomed them to the reformed faith and French cultural practices. Such institutions went hand in hand with the Formey children learning German and German cultural practices.59 In a letter to Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London, the French church of the Savoye described the lingering processes of the diaspora and the hosting nations’ acculturation and hybridization: We may impute the diminishing of the contributions of the Church of the Savoye [a French Huguenot church founded after the Restoration] particularly to its situation; as this side of the town has increased, the French Refugees have retired to the Extremities of it, where there are Churches new established, and where the houses are cheaper than in the Strand or there about. And as for the income of the other Churches, t’is easy to imagine, that it being now 45 years since the beginning of the Refuge, the number of those, that come out of France, are considerably diminished: their children brought young or born in England are very much dispersed in several places, and having professions, which oblige them to be incorporated to the Nation [the English], are become as English as themselves; in so much that those, who are not in a condition to contribute towards our churches have left them, and the number that frequent them must of course decrease every day.60

Nations in exile were, thus, hybrid and transnational. Individuals at times chose to be associated with different national belongings. Huguenots in early modern England and British North America adopted in some contexts a Protestant English identity61 and claimed in others to be French Protestant of “pure” French descent. Alternatively, nations in exile were often ascribed a transnational, hybrid identity: in British North America and later in the United States, Huguenots come across as French Puritans (in the North) or as French Southern planters (in the South).62 Irish Catholics in France, who strived for Irish nationalism throughout the nineteenth century, “had no difficulty in expressing a form of French identity or ‘attachment’ when this was required” or in identifying with the British whenever necessary.63 Transnational identifications can also be found with members of the Sephardi Jewish Portuguese nation who in some contexts identified as Sephardi Jews, New Christians, English or Dutch Protestants, or as French or Spanish Catholics. The famous different names (aliases) of Sephardi merchants crossing the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, or the Indian Ocean made Sephardi Jews (as well as other nations in exile) suspect of high treason for their hosting societies.64



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TRANSNATIONAL INTERNAL TIES For the purpose of nation-building, the “purity of the nation,” the orthodoxy of the faith and other related interests, imagined communities in exile sought to establish connections with the scattered members of their nation in other parts of the world—mostly through correspondence but also through mobility. The Sephardi Jewish nation in Amsterdam, for instance, entertained bonds with other communities of their nation throughout the Atlantic and Mediterranean worlds. As internal networks, they served the development and preservation of specific Sephardi Jewish religious practices, endogamous marriage, commerce, and trade and were meant to foster the nation’s distinctness from other nations.65 While we need to distinguish between Sephardi Jewish and Conversos networks, many Sephardim and Conversos were linked through social and commercial ties—that is, Sephardi Jews in Amsterdam, London, Bordeaux, Suriname, Jamaica, or Barbados with Conversos in the Iberian worlds.66 Important internal networks can also be found for the Huguenot diaspora. Their churches, as well as families, entertained vast correspondence networks establishing bonds among families and Huguenot communities scattered all over Europa and the Atlantic world. Family correspondence spread gossip about the local Huguenot community, made enquiries into the lives and fortunes of other family members and acquaintances, exchanged cooking recipes, arranged marriages for the younger generations, resolved financial problems, and helped find positions for the youth as pastors, tutors, soldiers, or in the local administration.67 Letters exchanged between Huguenot churches of the refuge in Europe and North America were meant to forge a homogenous religious and social diaspora through establishing a certain orthodoxy of the Calvinist faith and social control.68 Through the diasporas’ internal ties with other communities belonging to their nation in other states, cities, or empires, nations in exile—not only the Sephardim and Huguenots but also the Armenians, the Greeks, the Irish Catholics, and others—transcended city, state, and imperial boundaries; they linked through their networks their own nation and also the societies hosting them with other nations, territories, and empires. EARLY MODERN DIASPORAS AND TERRITORY Early modern nations in exile were deterritorialized—due to their flight or emigration from their ancestral homes. However, as we have seen, some sustained ties with the original and/or mythical homeland, with the “terre

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sainte” or “terre promise,” through mobility, networks, memories, and historiographies, which served imaginations of territoriality but could also produce frequent returns to the lost homeland and to family members remaining there.69 To some extent, nations in exile became reterritorialized through privileges tying them to their new destinations. Foreign nations were taking roots—via their privileges, rights and duties, land assignments, administrative and religious institutions, property and inheritance rights, intermarriage, and other forms of reterritorialization. In some contexts, such as in Suriname, Brazil, and Curacao, Sephardi Jews, who are often described as highly deterritorialized, were entitled to buy land and establish plantations based on African slavery. This process turned the Sephardim for some period into the largest European landowning and state-building class of these colonies.70 In seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Ireland, Huguenot exiles worked, through their petitions, toward the dispossession of Irish Catholics and served the British empire as new Protestant colonists—as land-owning and, thus, reterritorializing elements.71 With regards to some early modern diasporas, there were at times efforts to reterritorialize the entire nation abroad and to end the dispersal of the nation: in the sixteenth century, Huguenots planned to settle, in their entirety, in today’s Brazil or Florida. In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, there were also plans to establish the entire French reformed nation on islands such as La Réunion or Mauritius.72 Similar ideas were entertained toward the end of the eighteenth and at the beginning of the nineteenth centuries for Sephardi Jews who, in the seventeenth century, had come rather close to building their own state in Dutch Brazil and later in Suriname.73 In the context of late-eighteenth-century debates on the abolition of slavery and ideas of the Black Nation and Black Nationalism, we find related cases with British and American endeavors to establish former slave colonies in Sierra Leone and Liberia.74 EXTERNAL NETWORKS Early modern nations in exile forged ties with members of other nations outside the hosting societies for trade and commerce, the exchange of ideas, knowledge, people, specimens, and much more. In consequence, they connected cultures that would not have been linked if these groups had not been present.75 External networks76 fostered, at times even more so than the diasporas’ internal networks, the crossing of borders and cross-border flows in terms of commodities, services, capital, people, and knowledge. Some of these diasporas’ networks were integrated into state and national networks (such as the Sephardi Jewish networks in the Dutch and French East and West



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India companies) and at the same time transcended the latter.77 Diasporas thus established perennial instances if not zones of contact, mobility, and exchange. They constantly crossed lines of inclusion and exclusion, created bridges, and their practices formed contested and liminal spheres where the national (or other, related categories of belonging such as ethnicity, religion, or “race” for whose “purity” and “safety” borders were supposed to serve) was constantly renegotiated, transgressed, or imagined in the first place. French Huguenots in exile, for instance, entertained close relations with European, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and Muslim members of the Republic of Letters and helped link places and states such as Saint Petersburg, Sweden, Denmark, Berlin, Hamburg, France, England, the British and Dutch colonies in the Americas, India, South Africa, and Indonesia. Apart from the exchange of ideas, books, and reviews, these networks served French Protestants to further their nation’s cause, to convince the world of the injustices the Huguenots had suffered in France, and the need to resettle and reterritorialize them as a persecuted nation. With regards to commerce and trade, Huguenots had already established networks before the onset of persecution in the 1550s and then again in the 1660s. They traded wine, silk, manufactured goods, grains, and salt within Europe and the Mediterranean world and were slowly reaching out into and connecting the worlds of the European and Atlantic with those of the Indian Ocean. Their networks connected, as the papers of Boston Huguenot merchant Peter Faneuil show, places such as Bordeaux, London, Antigua, Barbados, Jamaica, Bilbao, the Canary Islands, Labrador, Newfoundland, the West Coast of Africa, South Africa, the United Provinces, Hamburg, the Baltic Sea, and New York. People of various ethnic and religious origins became partners for Huguenots active in commerce and trade: Quakers, English Puritans, Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews, and French Catholics.78 In the case of the Sephardi Jewish diaspora Jonathan Israel, Wim Klooster, Francesca Trivellato, and others demonstrated how it linked, from the later sixteenth century onward, Christian, Converso, Muslim, and Catholic and Protestant empires through their internal and external networks in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, African, Near and Middle Eastern worlds. The Sephardim were cross-cultural brokers par excellence: transnational societies that enhanced transformation processes on a global scale. From Morocco and Africa’s West Coast to Brazil they were important in the Atlantic slave trade, they promoted the rise of sugar plantations and slave societies and contributed to changing consumer behavior back in Europe through tobacco, sugar, molasses, indigo, rice, and, later, tea and coffee.79 The Armenians between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries were equally important in establishing and maintaining transnational trade networks between Italian city-states and republics, the Safavid and Ottoman

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empires, Russia, Mongolia, and other parts of East and Southeast Asia—especially for the silk trade but also for European goods in Eastern parts of the world. The Armenian diaspora in the Safavid empire’s New Julfa—a suburb or Isfahan—competed with the Dutch and British East India companies and, at the same time, established networks with the latter. Thus, they connected Western and Northern European worlds with the Middle and Far East.80 While the external, transnational networks of early modern diasporas could turn the latter into powerful, de- or multiterritorialized nations abroad, especially as they fostered higher degrees of exogamous intermarriage, new cultural and social practices lead to their disintegration—as their gatekeepers might have put it.81 PROMOTING THE NATION, PROMOTING THE STATE Transnational ties of early modern nations in exile could serve the political and economic integration of states and empires and, as such, their economic, military, and geopolitical might—as was the case with New Christians in the Spanish and Portuguese empires, Sephardi Jews and Huguenots in Protestant Europe and its overseas empires, or Armenians in the Safavid Empire.82 In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Moriscos, as a persecuted and dislocated nation within the realms of the King of Spain, served in some parts of the composite monarchy as the economic and political integration of the Spanish crown’s dominions—especially through their transnational networks with Muslims in North Africa and other parts of the Ottoman Empire.83 The Sephardi Jewish nation helped, as a “stateless diaspora” and as a “state-linked diaspora,”84 in state-building through the profits of their global and globalizing networks. While Sephardi Jews were perceived as transnational suspects in the British and Dutch empires and their ruling nations within, these empires profited from the Sephardi transnational economic networks. In addition, some Sephardi Jews financed much of the military campaigns of William of Orange in the late seventeenth-century Jacobite wars.85 They thereby served not only the building of their own nations within Europe’s Protestant empires but also of “national identities” in relation to the state- and empire-building of their hosting nations.86 Studies on the Huguenot diaspora have revealed similar practices and effects: during the Jacobite wars Huguenots functioned as a military bulwark in Ireland, served as regiments that were part of William of Orange’s international troops, co-financed military campaigns, and acted as spies in the service of Europe’s Protestant powers. Likewise, their economic networks served, to some extent, in the rising and highly competitive power struggle of the early modern states and empires, as well as in the colonization of



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Protestant colonies. Promoting their hosting nation’s prowess and superiority did not stop Huguenots from insisting on their own nation’s superiority. As the case of Huguenots in Brandenburg-Prussia and later Germany as well as the United Kingdom and the United States shows, national identifications could be perfectly blended and integrated—even in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.87 For the Safavid Empire, Armenians played a crucial role in gaining more control over trade between Europe and East and South-East Asia, especially regarding the silk trade by diverting it from the Ottoman Empire. They also served the Shahs as financiers, administrators, and advisers in imperial politics. At the same time, however, their political and economic power was meant to better establish the Armenians as a privileged nation within the Safavid and, later, Ottoman empires.88 TRANSNATIONAL BORROWING Lastly, narratives of the nation in exile, especially if they included discourses about the “chosen people” or “God’s select nation,” often borrowed from other nations in exile. Huguenots absorbed much of exile and God’s-chosen-people narratives from the Hebrews while at the same time rejecting Jews (“those who had murdered Christ”) for their unworthiness. In Huguenot sermons and historiographical writings from the sixteenth to the late eighteenth centuries, the French Reformed nation built its exclusiveness on transnational borrowing from the Jewish nation: thus, to the French Reformed nation, it succeeded the Hebrews as “God’s chosen people.” These narratives were also cherished by nations at home, such as the English or inner-imperial migrants such as the Puritans in British North America.89 Similar borrowing from the Jewish diaspora, from concepts of the portative homeland, of persecution, deportation, and being God’s chosen can be found in Pan-African and Black Nationalism debates of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.90 CONCLUSION What can we learn from early modern diasporas as nations in exile about the dynamics of nation-building and of nationalisms then and today? Early modern nations in exile before the rise of the nation-state and modern notions of the nation can draw our attention to several issues, which can be vital for reflecting on and better understanding imaginations of the nation, nation-building, and nationalisms today.

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First and foremost, the analysis of early modern diasporas as nations draws our attention to the varieties of the National. Second, nationhood and nationalisms are means to negotiate and achieve legal rights for a given group, which, territorialized or not, serves access to financial, social, economic, and cultural resources, as well as, in some cases, to territory. Nationalisms, whether territory-related or not, are ideologies of in- and exclusion. If deprived of notions of blood, ancestry, lineage, race, ethnic origin, religion, and so on, these nations are bound through a set of privileges, laws, and customs out of which can be extracted notions of the civic nation. Third, early modern diasporas understood as nations also reveal the often-forgotten reality that nations are not only imagined communities but also communities whose members are, to some extent, tied to other members through social, cultural, economic,91 internal and external, and national and transnational networks. There is some evidence that nations need both, national and transnational networks. However, this creates a tension-field for identifications and claims towards homogeneity. Fourth, early modern nations in exile, which are deterritorialized, can be “socially interdependent, but spatially dispersed”92—which is how many “nation-peoples”93 today would define themselves. Early modern nations in exile illustrate that nation and territoriality can relate to each other in a variety of ways. Some nations (or parts of nations) then and today define themselves as deterritorialized. Daniel and Jonathan Boyarin have even suggested that “despite all dangers of antagonizing the host societies in which they find themselves, the Jewish Diaspora tradition must continue to insist on the respect for difference within a world grown thoroughly and inextricably interdependent.” Daniel and Jonathan Boyarin also argued that “Jewish identity can never anchor itself in a self-satisfied resting place, or manifest itself as a form of nativism; it has to find expression through a perpetual, creative diasporic tension.”94 In this deterritorialized notion of the Jewish nation Daniel and Jonathan Boyarin hold that “peoples and homelands are not necessarily and originally linked,”95 and that some people are and intend to be transnational groups.96 Other nations in exile foster the desire that the entire nation should find or go back to its original homeland—as the case of Irish Catholics97 in early modern Europe illustrates; as well as Polish and Italian exiles in nineteenth-century London, Paris, and Brussels; or Jewish Zionism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Some nations in exile are aiming for a (nation-)state, others are divided between a diaspora and a (nation-)state, while other nations ignore state barriers or are averse to the idea of the (nation-)state, and some are nations within multinational or federal states—still others come as Pan-African or Pan-Indian movements.



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Fifth, among many others, the examples of the Huguenots and Sephardi Jews show that nation-building and various forms of nationalism promoting exclusiveness, exceptionalism, ancestry, religion, blood, and purity were not specific of territorialized early modern nations such as the English but also common among de- or reterritorialized nations in exile. With regards to many features of nationalism, diasporas are, therefore, not as fundamentally different from the nation-state as some sociologists would argue.98 Diasporas or nations in exile can be hotbeds for nationalism—and at the same time for transnationalism and cosmopolitanism. The transnational contexts of exile and diasporas can create and promote various forms of nationalism—and produce new transnationalisms at the same time.99 How much this is also true for territorialized nations and nation-state-people should be subject of enquiry in nationalism studies. Research on nineteenth-century nationalism and nation-state building shows that patriots of diverse European nations were organized in both national and transnational associations and entertained close contacts with their countries of origin from their places of exile.100 More remarkable for the transnational national is that these cosmopolitan contexts of exile and diaspora furthered transnational borrowing among exiles of different national origins. Not only in the early modern period but also in the nineteenth century, there was an “intimate connection between the various patriotisms . . . and for the existence of shared values, principles and discursive patterns among patriots of different national origins.”101 While nations and nationalisms need to be studied in their specificities and varieties, the question of transnational borrowing for other nations’ nationalist ideologies is a pertinent one. Sixth, contextualizing early modern nations in exile in a transnational framework has shown for many early modern diasporas that they are as much victim diasporas as they are trade, imperial, and labor diasporas. In some cases, their transnational worlds not only served nation-building, with regards to their own nation, but also the building of empires and nation-states. Nation-building, nationalism, and at the same time transnational practices of nations in exile can, thus, serve nation-building and nationalisms of more than one’s own nation—they can be used by other nations, states, and empires. How much this informs understandings of nationalisms in nationstates should be subject to enquiries in nationalism studies. Seventh, from the example of early modern nations in exile we have reason to suggest that nations need and are subject to dynamic, perpetual tensions and negotiations between imaginations and practices of the national and the transnational. Neither the national nor the transnational can exist without its opposite. They produce and transform each other in their imaginations, narratives, and practices, and, thereby, serve individual and group social, political, economic, and cultural needs which are satisfied and dissatisfied by

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both the national and the transnational. While narratives about the specific character of a nation (in exile) seems to remain stable and firm, zooming into the narratives and practices of nations in exile makes clear that they are the product and the motor of a dynamic process of transnational exchange and mobility, which makes the project of the nation in exile, and, perhaps, also of the nation-state, a rather fluid, constructed, relational, and contextualized one. Reducing notions of the nation to the idealized (and in most historical cases not truly existing), merging of nations and the nation-state thus obscures our understanding of the varieties of nation-building, nationalism, state-building today, multinational states, the shared sovereignty of nations within one state, and of deterritorialized or multiterritorialized nations. (Early modern) diasporas understood as transnational nations can draw our attention to diasporas as competing, in some ways typical and at the same time complementary, varieties of imagining the nation, of nation-building, and nationalism, and claims towards belonging, processes of inclusion and exclusion based on social construction, and effects of the category the nation. NOTES 1. The current number is 192 states. 2. Robin Cohen, Global Diasporas.: An Introduction (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997), ix–x. 3. For example, Thomas Biolsi, “Imagined Geographies: Sovereignty, Indigenous Space, and American Indian Struggle,” American Ethnologist 32, no. 2 (2005): 239–59. 4. See, for example, the intense work on primary sources of the time in Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert, “La Nación among the Nations. Portuguese and Other Maritime Trading Diasporas in the Atlantic, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries,” in Richard L. Kagan and Philip D. Morgan (eds.), Atlantic Diasporas. Jews, Conversos, and Crypto-Jews in the Age of Mercantilism, 1500–1800 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009), 75; Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert, A Nation upon the Ocean Sea: Portugal’s Atlantic Diaspora and the Crisis of the Spanish Empire, 1492–1640 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), Daniel M. Swetschinski, Reluctant Cosmopolitans: The Portuguese Jews of Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam (Oxford and Portland: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2004), 166; Susanne Lachenicht, “Sephardi Jews: Cosmopolitans in the Atlantic World,” in Susanne Lachenicht and Kirsten Heinsohn (eds.), Diaspora Identities: Exile, Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism in Past and Present (Frankfurt am Main, New York, Chicago: Campus Press and the University of Chicago Press, 2009), 31–51. 5. Among the many primary sources where Huguenots are being addressed as a “nation,” the “French nation” or the “French Reformed Nation,” for example, Copy of a letter of M. de Mirmand to M. d’Herwarth, September 1698, Bibliothèque de la Société de l’histoire du protestantisme, Papiers Court, Cote 618 AA, no. 18, 174–81



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(for all Huguenots). For the usage of the term “nation” for Huguenots in England and Ireland see A guide for Protestant strangers, thro’ the dark labyrinth of the perversness of the French refuge . . . (London and Westminster, 1710), or A Letter to the French Refugees . . . (London: Waters, 1711), 4. For Brandenburg-Prussia see the official collection of Prussian laws of which volume 6 contains all regulations regarding the French refugees. In its German version, the term “französische Nation” for the Huguenots in Brandenburg-Prussia can be found almost on each page: Christian Otto Mylius, Corporis Constitutionem Marchicarum, vol. 6 (Berlin and Halle: Waisenhaus, 1737–1755). For the daily usage of the term “French nations” for Huguenots in Brandenburg-Prussia, see the conflicts between Huguenot and German subjects of the Elector of Brandenburg/King of Prussia: Geheimes Staatsarchiv preußischer Kulturbesitz, IHA Rep. 122–24 c no. I, vol. 1, 111–12. For the usage of the term “French nation” for the Huguenots in the Huguenots’ memoirs and historiographies of the eighteenth century see Jean Pierre Erman, Mémoire historique sur la fondation de l’église françoise de Potsdam: Publié à l’occasion du jubilé du refuge dans les états du roi qui sera célébré le 19 octobre 1785 (Berlin: Starcke, 1785), 7–8, 11; Frédéric Reclam, Sermon sur la Paix de Teschen, prononcé dans le Temple de la Fridrichstadt le Diman­che de la Pentecôte 23 mai 1779, par Frederic Reclam, Ministre du Saint Evangile and Pasteur de l’Église Françoise de Berlin (Berlin: Jasperd, 1779), 7, 20. For discussions in the secondary sources see : Etienne François, “La mémoire huguenote dans le pays du Refuge,” in Frédéric Hartweg and Stefi Jersch-Wenzel (eds.), Die Hugenotten und das Refuge. Deutschland und Europa. Beiträge zu einer Tagung (Berlin: Colloquium, 1990), 233–39; Myriam Yardeni, Le Refuge huguenot: Assimilation et culture (Paris: Champion, 2002), 118; and Susanne Lachenicht, Hugenotten in Europa und Nordamerika. Migration und Integration in der Frühen Neuzeit (Frankfurt am Main and New York: Campus, 2010), 168–93. 6. With an emic perspective I mean the perspectives of the sources of the time, concepts and semantics as used by the authors of the historical sources, reflecting the time and person’s norms, its power structures, or typical discourse of the time. With etic, I mean the analytical perspective of the researcher of today with today’s concepts and semantics, definitions, norms, or discoursive settings. 7. For an earlier claim for this discussion see: Susanne Lachenicht and Kirsten Heinsohn, “Diaspora Identities: Exile, Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism in Past and Present—An introduction,” in Lachenicht and Heinsohn, Diaspora Identities, 8. 8. Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983); Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991); Eric J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Peter van der Veer and Hartmut Lehmann, “Introduction,” in Peter van der Veer and Hartmut Lehmann (eds.), Nation and Religion. Perspectives on Europe and Asia (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), 4–5; Colin Kidd, British Identities before Nationalism: Ethnicity and Nationhood in the Atlantic World, 1600–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). 9. Richard Helgerson, Forms of Nationhood: The Elizabethan Writing of England (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992); David Loewenstein and Paul

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Stevens, “Introduction: Milton’s Nationalism: Challenges and Questions,” in David Loewenstein and Paul Stevens (eds.), Early Modern Nationalism and Milton’s England (Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press, 2008), 3–21; Caspar Hirschi, Wettkampf der Nationen: Konstruktionen einer deutschen Ehrgemeinschaft an der Wende vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2005). 10. Loewenstein and Stevens, “Introduction,” 7. 11. Loewenstein and Stevens, “Introduction,” 10. 12. Loewenstein and Stevens, “Introduction,” 10. 13. Richard L. Kagan and Philip D. Morgan, “Preface,” in Kagan and Morgan, Atlantic Diasporas, x; Adam Sutcliffe, “Jewish History in an Age of Atlanticisim,” in Kagan and Morgan, Atlantic Diasporas, 27–28. 14. For the French Empire see: Guillaume Aubert, “‘The Blood of France’: Race and Purity of Blood in the French Atlantic World,” in The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series 61, no. 3 (2004): 439–78; for the Iberian world, see: Jorge Cañizares Esguerra, “New World, New Stars: Patriotic Astrology and the Invention of Indian and Creole Bodies in Colonial Spanish America, 1600–1650,” The American Historical Review 104, no. 1 (1999): 33–68. 15. Sutcliffe, “Jewish History,” 17–18. 16. Loewenstein and Stevens, “Introduction,” 3–21. 17. Loewenstein and Stevens, “Introduction,” 3–4. 18. On the nations of merchants, see Studnicki-Gizbert, “La Nación,” 76; for the Moriscos of Granada, see Manuel F. Fernández Chaves and Rafael M. Pérez García, “The Nation of Naturales del Reino de Granada: Transforming Identities in the Morisco Castilian Diaspora, 1502–1614,” in Dagmar Freist and Susanne Lachenicht (eds.), Connecting Worlds and People. Early Modern Diasporas (London: Routledge, 2016), 10–30. 19. For Huguenots in Brandenburg-Prussia, see Mylius, Corporis Constitutionum Marchicarum, vol. 6. 20. Marcella Hayes, “The Color of Political Authority in Seventeenth-Century Lima,” PhD project presented at the Fifth Summer Academy of Atlantic History, Seville, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Spain, September 28–October 1, 2017. 21. Loewenstein and Stevens, “Introduction,” 10. 22. For the Huguenots, see Lachenicht, Hugenotten, 230–40. 23. Charles de Rochefort, Histoire naturelle & morale des iles Antilles de l’Amérique (Rotterdam: Reinier Leers, 1681), 6. 24. See sources quoted (i.e., Charles de Rochefort, Histoire naturelle, 6) in Susanne Lachenicht, “Contested Land (and Knowledge About Land) in the Natural Histories of the Atlantic World,” Paper presented at the Contested Knowledges Network’s Workshop Space and Knowledge in the Western Hemisphere, Växjö, Linnaeus University, September 13–14, 2018. 25. Loewenstein and Stevens, “Introduction,” 5. 26. Loewenstein and Stevens, “Introduction,” 9. 27. Cohen, Global Diasporas, ix–xi. 28. James Clifford, Routes. Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 9; Kachig Tölölyan, “Rethinking



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Diaspora(s): Stateless Power in the Transnational Moment,” Diaspora 5, no. 1 (1996): 3–36. 29. Susanne Lachenicht, “Étude comparée de la création et de la survie d’une identité huguenote en Angleterre et dans le Brandebourg au XVIIIe siècle,” in Philip Benedict, Hugues Daussy, and Pierre-Olivier Lechot (eds.), L’Identité huguenote: Faire mémoire et écrire l’histoire (XVIe-XXIe siècle) (Geneva: Droz, 2014), 279–94. 30. See Herman L. Bennett, African Kings and Black Slaves. Sovereignty and Dispossession in the Early Modern Atlantic (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018). 31. Douglas B. Chambers, “‘My Own Nation’: Igbo Exiles in the Diaspora,” Slavery and Abolition 18, no. 1 (1997): 72–97. 32. Chambers, “My Own Nation”; John Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1680 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). 33. Bartolomé Yun Casalilla, “Transnational History: What Lies Behind the Label? Some Reflections from the Early Modernist’s Point of View,” Culture and History Digital Journal 3, no. 2 (2014): 1–7. 34. Christopher Bayly, “AHR Conversation: On Transnational history,” The American Historical Review 111, no. 5 (2006): 1441–64; Akira Iriye, Global and Transnational History: The Past, Present, and Future (Basingstoke, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2012). 35. Yun Casalilla, “Transnational History,” 3. 36. Cohen, Global Diasporas, ix, 26; Lachenicht, “Sephardi Jews,” 40–48; Susanne Lachenicht, “Memento Patriae: Religiöse Diasporen in der Frühen Neuzeit,” in Sünne Juterczenka and Kai-Marcel Sicks (eds.), Figurationen der Heimkehr: Die Passage vom Fremden zum Eigenen in Geschichte und Literatur der Neuzeit (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2011), 179–93; Susanne Lachenicht, “Wenn nur noch die Erinnerung bleibt”: Diaspora-Identitäten zwischen Vormoderne und Postmoderne,” Jahrbuch des Bundesinstituts für Kultur und Geschichte der Deutschen im östlichen Europa (BKGE) 23 (2015): 194–96. 37. Frances Malino, The Sephardic Jews of Bordeaux: Assimilation and Emancipation in Revolutionary and Napoleonic France (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1978); Yosef Kaplan, “The Jewish Profile of the Spanish– Portuguese Community of London,” Judaism 41 (1992): 229–40, Miriam Bodian, Hebrews of the Portuguese Nation: Conversos and Community in Early Modern Amsterdam (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999); Swetschinski, Reluctant Cosmopolitans; Natalia Muchnik, “Du judaïsme au catholicisme: Les aléas de la foi au XVIIIe siècle,” Revue historique 623 (2002/2003): 572–609. 38. Swetschinski, Reluctant Cosmopolitans, 188–89, 194–95, 251; Jonathan Schorsch, “Portmanteau Jews: Sephardim and Race in the Early Modern Atlantic World,” in David Cesarini (ed.), Port Jews: Jewish Communities in Cosmopolitan Maritime Trading Centres, 1550–1950 (London and Portland: Frank Cass, 2002), 59; Jonathan Schorsch, Jews and Blacks in the Early Modern World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

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39. Bodian, Hebrews, 85–95; Sutcliffe, “Jewish History,” 28; Malino, The Sephardic Jews, 9–10; Swetschinski, Reluctant Cosmopolitans, 4–6, 167, 176. 40. See, for example, Pierre Jurieu, La politique du clergé de France (Amsterdam: Daniel du Fresne, 1680); Dianne Ressinger (ed.), Memoirs of the Reverend Jaques Fontaine (London: The Huguenot Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 1992), 113, and the primary sources as analysed and quoted in Myriam Yardeni, “Refuge et encadrement religieux de 1685 à 1715,” in Myriam Yaredni (ed.), Idéologie et propagande en France: Colloque organisé par l´institut d´Histoire et de Civilisation Française de l´Universitè de Haifa (Paris: Picard, 1987), 113–24; Hubert Bost, Ces Messieurs de la R. P. R. Histoires et écritures de Huguenots, XVIIe–XVIIIe siècles (Paris: Champion, 2001), 281–82; Myriam Yardeni, Enquêtes sur l’Identité de la“Nation France”: De la Renaissance aux Lumières (Seyssel: Champ Vallon, 2004), 20–21; see also my discussion of primary sources in Susanne Lachenicht, “Huguenot Immigrants and the Formation of National Identities,” The Historical Journal 50, no. 2 (2007): 309–31. 41. Address from Protestants in France to Charles II, praying for liberty to remove into Ireland, seventeenth ce3ntury, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Rawl. A. 478 (11,352); Lachenicht, “Huguenot Immigrants”: 309–31; Lachenicht, Hugenotten, 290–40. 42. Bertrand van Ruymbeke, “From France to le Refuge. The Huguenots’ Multiple Identities,” in Lachenicht and Heinsohn, Diaspora Identities, 59–60. 43. Address from Protestants in France to Charles II or Mémoire pour encourager les Protestants à venir habiter en Irlande, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Fonds Français Ms. 21, 622, no. 551. 44. For the slow process, see Lachenicht, Hugenotten, 72–73, 231–32, 483–504. 45. For the Sephardim in Amsterdam, see Arend H. Huusen, “The Legal Position of the Jews in the Dutch Republic,” in Jonathan I. Israel and Reinier Salvierda (eds.), Dutch Jewry, Its History and Secular Cultures (1500–2000) (Leiden, Boston, Cologne: Brill, 2002), 34–35, 39; Swetschinski, Reluctant Cosmopolitans, 15–19, 197. 46. Lachenicht, Hugenotten, 168–74. 47. Aviva Ben Ur, “A Matriachal Matter: Slavery, Conversion, and Upward Mobility in Suriname’s Jewish Community,” in Kagan and Morgan, Atlantic Diasporas, 152, 154–64. 48. See the analysis of church registers, in particular marriage registers in Lachenicht, Hugenotten, 363–84. 49. For Sephardi Jews, Afro-American diasporas, and American Indian encounters and transreligious practices, see Jonathan Schorsch, Swimming the Christian Atlantic: Judeoconverts, Afroiberians and Amerindians in the Seventeenth Century (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2009); for the Huguenots, see Susanne Lachenicht, “Religious Orthodoxy and Trans-Confessional Practices in the Provinces of New York and South Carolina,” Revue Française d’Etudes Américaines 141 (2015): 21–31. 50. Studnicki-Gizbert, “La Nación,” 84–86, 91–92. 51. Bodian, Hebrews, 63–68; Jonathan I. Israel, Diasporas Within a Diaspora: Jews, Crypto-Jews, and the World Maritime Empires (1540–1740) (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 185; Swetschinski, Reluctant Cosmopolitans, 199, 210–11, 213, 216–17, 226–27, 278–80, 284.



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52. Bodian, Hebrews, 112–13; Israel, Diasporas, 197; Swetschinski, Reluctant Cosmopolitans, 166–67, 175, 185. 53. Gatekeepers are political, spiritual, military, intellectual, or economic elites of nations, religions and/or that foster narratives and practices serving group identifications through institutions such as laws, administration, families, churches, temples, synagogues, mosques, schools, media, and others. 54. Bodian, Hebrews, 113–14. 55. David Graizbord, Souls in Dispute. Converso Identities in Iberia and the Jewish Diaspora, 1580–1700 (Philadelphia: W.W. Norton and Company, 2003); Muchnik, “Du judaïsme au catholicisme”; Michael Studemund-Halévy, “Les aléas de la foi: Parcours d’un jeune Portugais entre église et synagogue,” in Birgit E. Klein and Christiane E. Müller (eds.), Memoria—Wege jüdischen Erinnerns. Festschrift für Michael Brocke zum 65: Geburtstag (Berlin: Metropol 2005), 363–82. 56. Yosef Kaplan, “Wayward New Christians and Stubborn New Jews: The Shaping of Jewish Identity,” Jewish History 8 (1994): 27–41. 57. Lachenicht, Hugenotten, 254–482. 58. For England, Ireland, and North America, see Lachenicht, Hugenotten, 418–27, for Brandenburg-Prussia, see Lachenicht, Hugenotten, 427–33, Manuela Böhm, “Akkulturation und Mehrsprachigkeit am Waisenhaus der Französischen Kolonie in Berlin um 1800,” in Ute Tintemann, Jürgen Trabant (eds.), Sprache und Spra­ chen in Berlin um 1800 (Hannover-Laatzen: Wehrhahn, 2004), 33–54, Franziska Roosen, “Erziehung und Bildung von Hugenotten in Berlin. Das Lehrerseminar,” in Guido Braun and Susanne Lachenicht (eds.), Les États allemands et les huguenots : Politique d’immigration et processus d’intégration (Munich: Oldenburg, 2007), 193– 208, Franziska Roosen, “Soutenir notre Église”: Hugenottische Erziehungskonzepte und Bildungseinrichtungen im Berlin des 18. Jahrhunderts (Bad Karlshafen: Verlag der Deutschen Hugenottengesellschaft, 2008). 59. Lachenicht, Hugenotten, 431–32. 60. Letter to Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London, London, Lambeth Palace Library, Fulham Papers, Papers of Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London, Ref. FP Gibson 2, 1713–1748, fol. 153. 61. Van Ruymbeke, “From France to le Refuge.” 62. Van Ruymbeke, “From France to le Refuge,” 64. 63. Liam Chambers, “‘Une Seconde Patrie’: The Irish Colleges, Paris, in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” in Lachenicht and Heinsohn, Diaspora Identities, 22–23. 64. Swetschinski, Reluctant Cosmopolitans, 228, 252–53, 280; Kagan and Morgan, “Preface,” xi; Studnicki-Gizbert, “La Nación,” 75. 65. Swetschinski, Reluctant Cosmopolitans, 203; Kagan and Morgan, “Preface,” vii–viii. 66. Lois Dubin, “Researching Port Jews and Port Jewries: Trieste and Beyond,” in David Cesarini (ed.), Port Jews: Jewish Communities in Cosmopolitan Maritime Trading Centres, 1550–1950 (London and Portland: Frank Cass, 2002), 52; Schorsch, “Portmanteau Jews,” 59; Schorsch, Jews and Blacks; Israel, “Jews and CryptoJews,” 3–4.

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67. Lachenicht, “The Huguenots’ Maritime Networks,” 34. 68. Lachenicht, Hugenotten, 254–336; Lachenicht, “The Huguenots’ Maritime Networks,” 34–35. 69. Lachenicht, “Memento Patriae.” 70. Ben-Ur, “A Matriarchal Matter,” 153. 71. Lachenicht, Hugenotten, 69–85. 72. Owen Stanwood, “Between Eden and Empire: Huguenot Refugees and the Promise of New Worlds,” The American Historical Review 118, no. 5 (2013): 1319–44. 73. Willem Klooster, “Networks of Colonial Entrepreneurs. The Founders of the Jewish Settlements in Dutch America, 1650s and 1660s,” in Kagan and Morgan, Atlantic Diasporas, 33–4; Ben-Ur, “A Matriarchal Matter,” 153. 74. Floyd Miller, The Search of Black Nationality: Black Emigration and Colonization, 1787–1863 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975). 75. Cohen, Global Diasporas, ix, 26. 76. Francesca Trivellato, The Familiarity of Strangers: The Sephardic Diaspora, Livorno, and Cross-cultural Trade in the Early Modern Period (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012); Dagmar Freist and Susanne Lachenicht, “Introduction,” in Freist and Lachenicht, Connecting Worlds and People, 1–3. 77. Ina Baghdiantz McCabe, Gelina Harlaftis, and Ioanna Pepelasis Minoglou, “Introduction,” in Ina Baghdiantz McCabe, Gelina Harlaftis, and Ioanna Pepelasis Minoglou (eds.), Diaspora Entrepreneurial Networks. Four Centuries of History (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2005), xix. 78. See the analysis of the Massachusetts Historical Society Faneuil papers in Susanne Lachenicht, “Diasporic Networks and Immigration Policies,” in Raymond A. Mentzer and Bertrand van Ruymbeke (eds.), A Companion to the Huguenots (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 249–72, and in Susanne Lachenicht, “The Huguenots’ Maritime Networks, 16th–18th Centuries,” in Freist and Lachenicht, Connecting Worlds and People, 31–44. 79. Kagan and Morgan, “Preface,” viii; Jonathan I. Israel, “Jews and Crypto-Jews in the Atlantic World Systems, 1500–1800,” in Kagan and Morgan, Atlantic Diasporas, 4–5, 9; Peter Mark and José Da Silva Horta, “Catholics, Jews, and Muslims in Early Seventeenth-Century Guiné,” in Kagan and Morgan, Atlantic Diasporas, 170–94; Trivellato, The Familiarity of Strangers. 80. Ina Baghdiantz Mc Cabe, “Global Trading Ambitions in Diaspora: The Armenians and their Eurasian Silk Trade, 1530–1750,” in Baghdiantz McCabe, Harlaftis, and Pepelasis Minoglou, Diaspora Entrepreneurial Networks, 27–49. 81. Lachenicht, “The Huguenots’ Maritime Networks,” 41. 82. Baghdiantz McCabe, Harlaftis, and Pepelasis Minoglou, “Introduction,” xix; Israel, “Diasporas Jewish and non-Jewish,” 6–7. 83. Chaves and García, “The Nation of Naturales del Reino,” 11–13, 18–19. 84. Israel, “Jews and Crypto-Jews,” 3. 85. Israel, Diasporas within a Diaspora, 1; Kagan and Morgan, “Preface,” ix; Baghdiantz McCabe, Harlaftis, and Pepelasis Minoglou, “Introduction,” xx; Swetschinski 2000: 108; Swetschinski, Reluctant Cosmopolitans, 139. 86. Kagan and Morgan, “Preface,” ix.



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87. Matthew Glozier and David Onnekink (eds.), War, Religion and Service: Huguenot Soldiering, 1685–1713 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006); Lachenicht, “Huguenot Immigrants,” 9–10, 12, 18–23; Lachenicht, Hugenotten, 483–506. 88. Baghdiantz McCabe, “Global Trading Ambitions,” 28–29, 31–35. 89. Loewenstein and Stevens, “Introduction,” 12. 90. Mayer, Diaspora, 73–74, 90–91. 91. Freist and Lachenicht, “Introduction,” 1–9. 92. Abner Cohen, “Cultural Strategies in the Organization of Trading Diasporas,” in C. Mésailloux (ed.), L’evolution du commerce en Afrique de l’Ouest (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), 266–81. 93. Cohen, Global Diasporas, ix. 94. Daniel Boyarin and Jonathan Boyarin, “Diaspora: Generation and the Ground of Jewish Identity,” Critical Enquiry 19, no. 4 (1993): 723. 95. Cohen, Global Diasporas, 127. 96. For the notion of Jews being a transnational group, see also Dan Diner, Synchrone Welten. Zeitenräume jüdischer Geschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005); Sutcliffe, “Jewish History,” 28. 97. Ian McBride, “Memory and National Identity in Modern Ireland,” in Ian McBride (ed.), History and Memory in Modern Ireland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 1–42; Pronsias Mac Cana, Collège des Irlandais Paris and Irish Studies (Dundalk: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 2001). 98. Matthias Krings, “Diaspora: historische Erfahrung oder wissenschaftliches Konzept? Zur Konjunktur eines Begriffs in den Sozialwissenschaften,” in Paideuma. Mitteilungen zur Kulturkunde 49 (2003): 137–52. 99. Lachenicht and Heinsohn, “Diaspora Identities,” 8–9. 100. Maurizio Isabella, “Apostles of the Nation and Pilgrims of Freedom: Religious Representations of Exile in Nineteenth-Century Europe,” in Lachenicht and Heinsohn, Diaspora Identities, 68, Sabine Freitag (ed.), Exiles from European Revolutions. Refugees in Mid-Victorian England, New York: Berghahn Books 2003. 101. Isabella, “Apostles of the Nation,” 68.

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Diner, Dan. Synchrone Welten: Zeitenräume jüdischer Geschichte. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005. Dubin, Lois. “Researching Port Jews and Port Jewries: Trieste and Beyond.” In Port Jews: Jewish Communities in Cosmopolitan Maritime Trading Centres, 1550– 1950, edited by David Cesarini, 47–58. London and Portland: Frank Cass, 2002. Fernández Chaves, Manuel F., and Rafael M. Pérez García. “The Nation of Naturales del Reino de Granada: Transforming Identities in the Morisco Castilian Diaspora, 1502–1614.” In Connecting Worlds and People. Early Modern Diasporas, edited by Dagmar Freist and Susanne Lachenicht, 10–30. London: Routledge, 2016. François, Etienne. “La mémoire huguenote dans le pays du Refuge.” In Die Hugenotten und das Refuge: Deutschland und Europa: Beiträge zu einer Tagung, edited by Frédéric Hartweg and Stefi Jersch-Wenzel, 233–39. Berlin: Colloquium, 1990. Freist, Dagmar, and Susanne Lachenicht. “Introduction.” In Connecting Worlds and People. Early Modern Diasporas, edited by Dagmar Freist and Susanne Lachenicht, 1–9. London: Routledge, 2016. Freitag, Sabine, ed. Exiles from European Revolutions: Refugees in Mid-Victorian England. New York: Berghahn Books, 2003. Gellner, Ernest. Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983. Glozier, Matthew and David Onnekink, eds. War, Religion and Service: Huguenot Soldiering, 1685–1713, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006. Graizbord, David. Souls in Dispute: Converso Identities in Iberia and the Jewish Diaspora, 1580–1700, Philadelphia: W.W. Norton and Company, 2003. Hayes, Marcella. “The Color of Political Authority in Seventeenth-Century Lima.” PhD project presented at the Fifth Summer Academy of Atlantic History. Seville, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Spain, September 28–1 October 1, 2017. Helgerson, Richard. Forms of Nationhood: The Elizabethan Writing of England. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992. Hirschi, Caspar. Wettkampf der Nationen: Konstruktionen einer deutschen Ehrgemeinschaft an der Wende vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2005. Hobsbawm, Eric J. Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality. Second edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Huusen, Arend H. “The Legal Position of the Jews in the Dutch Republic.” In Dutch Jewry, Its History and Secular Cultures (1500–2000), edited by Jonathan I. Israel and Reinier Salvierda, 25–42. Leiden, Boston, and Cologne: Brill, 2002. Iriye, Akira. Global and Transnational History: The Past, Present, and Future. Basingstoke, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2012. Isabella, Maurizio. “Apostles of the Nation and Pilgrims of Freedom: Religious Representations of Exile in Nineteenth-Century Europe.” In Diaspora Identities: Exile, Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism in Past and Present, edited by Susanne Lachenicht and Kirsten Heinsohn, 68–92. Frankfurt am Main, New York, Chicago: Campus Press and the University of Chicago Press, 2009. Israel, Jonathan I. Diasporas Within a Diaspora: Jews, Crypto-Jews, and the World Maritime Empires (1540–1740). Leiden: Brill, 2002.



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———. “Jews and Crypto-Jews in the Atlantic World Systems, 1500–1800.” In Atlantic Diasporas: Jews, Conversos and Crypto-Jews in the Age of Mercantilism, 1500–1800, edited by Richard L. Kagan and Philip D. Morgan, 3–17. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009. Kagan, Richard L., and Philip D. Morgan. “Preface.” In Atlantic Diasporas: Jews, Conversos and Crypto-Jews in the Age of Mercantilism, 1500–1800, edited by Richard L. Kagan and Philip D. Morgan, vii–xvii. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009. Kaplan, Yosef. “The Jewish Profile of the Spanish–Portuguese Community of London.” Judaism 41 (1992): 229–40. ———. “Wayward New Christians and Stubborn New Jews: The Shaping of Jewish Identity.” Jewish History 8 (1994): 27–41. Kidd, Colin. British Identities before Nationalism: Ethnicity and Nationhood in the Atlantic World, 1600–1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Klooster, Willem. “Networks of Colonial Entrepreneurs: The Founders of the Jewish Settlements in Dutch America, 1650s and 1660s.” In Atlantic Diasporas: Jews, Conversos and Crypto-Jews in the Age of Mercantilism, 1500–1800, edited by Richard L. Kagan and Philip D. Morgan, 33–49. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press 2009. Krings, Matthias. “Diaspora: Historische Erfahrung oder wissenschaftliches Konzept? Zur Konjunktur eines Begriffs in den Sozialwissenschaften.” Paideuma: Mitteilungen zur Kulturkunde 49 (2003): 137–52. Lachenicht, Susanne. “Contested Land (and Knowledge About Land) in the Natural Histories of the Atlantic World.” Paper presented at the Contested Knowledges Network’s Workshop Space and Knowledge in the Western Hemisphere. Växjö, Linnaeus University, 13–14 September 2018. ———. “Diasporic Networks and Immigration Policies.” In A Companion to the Huguenots, edited by Raymond A. Mentzer and Bertrand van Ruymbeke, 249–72. Leiden: Brill, 2016. ———. “Étude comparée de la création et de la survie d’une identité huguenote en Angleterre et dans le Brandebourg au XVIIIe siècle.” In L’Identité huguenote: Faire mémoire et écrire l’histoire (XVIe-XXIe siècle), edited by Philip Benedict, Hugues Daussy, and Pierre-Olivier Lechot, 279–94. Geneva: Droz, 2014. ———. “Huguenot Immigrants and the Formation of National Identities.” The Historical Journal 50, no. 2 (2007): 309–31. ———. Hugenotten in Europa und Nordamerika: Migration und Integration in der Frühen Neuzeit. Frankfurt am Main and New York: Campus, 2010. ———. “The Huguenots’ Maritime Networks, 16th–18th Centuries.” In Connecting Worlds and People: Early Modern Diasporas, edited by Dagmar Freist and Susanne Lachenicht. London: Routledge, 2016, 31–44. ———. “Memento Patriae: Religiöse Diasporen in der Frühen Neuzeit.” In Figurationen der Heimkehr: Die Passage vom Fremden zum Eigenen in Geschichte und Literatur der Neuzeit, edited by Sünne Juterczenka and Kai-Marcel Sicks. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2011, 179–93.

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———. “Religious Orthodoxy and Trans-Confessional Practices in the Provinces of New York and South Carolina.” Revue Française d’Etudes Américaines 141 (2015): 21–31. ———. “Sephardi Jews: Cosmopolitans in the Atlantic World.” In Diaspora Identities: Exile, Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism in Past and Present, edited by Susanne Lachenicht and Kirsten Heinsohn, 31–51. Frankfurt am Main, New York, Chicago: Campus Press and the University of Chicago Press. 2009. ———. “Wenn nur noch die Erinnerung bleibt”: Diaspora-Identitäten zwischen Vormoderne und Postmoderne.” Jahrbuch des Bundesinstituts für Kultur und Geschichte der Deutschen im östlichen Europa (BKGE) 23 (2015): 191–200. Lachenicht, Susanne, and Kirsten Heinsohn. “Diaspora Identities: Exile, Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism in Past and Present: An Introduction.” In Diaspora Identities: Exile, Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism in Past and Present, edited by Susanne Lachenicht and Kirsten Heinsohn, 7–15. Frankfurt am Main, New York, Chicago: Campus Press and the University of Chicago Press, 2009. Loewenstein, David, and Paul Stevens. “Introduction: Milton’s Nationalism: Challenges and Questions.” In Early Modern Nationalism and Milton’s England, edited by David Loewenstein and Paul Stevens, 3–21. Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press, 2008. Malino, Frances. The Sephardic Jews of Bordeaux: Assimilation and Emancipation in Revolutionary and Napoleonic France. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1978. Mark, Peter, and José Da Silva Horta. “Catholics, Jews, and Muslims in Early Seventeenth-Century Guiné.” In Atlantic Diasporas: Jews, Conversos and Crypto-Jews in the Age of Mercantilism, 1500–1800, edited by Richard L. Kagan and Philip D. Morgan, 170–94. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009. Mayer, Ruth. Diaspora: Eine kritische Begriffsbestimmung. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2005. McBride, Ian. “Memory and National Identity in Modern Ireland.” In History and memory in modern Ireland, edited by Ian McBride, 1–42. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Miller, Floyd. The Search of Black Nationality: Black Emigration and Colonization, 1787–1863. Urbana : University of Illinois Press, 1975. Muchnik, Natalia. “Du judaïsme au catholicisme: Les aléas de la foi au XVIIIe siècle.” Revue historique 623 (2002): 572–609. Roosen, Franziska. “Erziehung und Bildung von Hugenotten in Berlin. Das Lehrerseminar.” In Les États allemands et les huguenots: Politique d’immigration et processus d’intégration, edited by Guido Braun and Susanne Lachenicht, 193– 208. Munich: Oldenburg, 2007. Roosen, Franziska. “Soutenir notre Église”: Hugenottische Erziehungskonzepte und Bildungseinrichtungen im Berlin des 18. Jahrhunderts. Bad Karlshafen: Verlag der Hugenottengesellschaft, 2008. Ruymbeke, Bertrand van. “From France to le Refuge: The Huguenots’ Multiple Identities.” In Diaspora Identities: Exile, Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism in



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Past and Present, edited by Susanne Lachenicht and Kirsten Heinsohn, 52–67. Frankfurt am Main, New York, Chicago: Campus Press and the University of Chicago Press, 2009. Schorsch, Jonathan. Jews and Blacks in the Early Modern World. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Schorsch, Jonathan. “Portmanteau Jews: Sephardim and Race in the Early Modern Atlantic World.” In Port Jews: Jewish Communities in Cosmopolitan Maritime Trading Centres, 1550–1950, edited by David Cesarini, 59–74. London and Portland: Frank Cass, 2002. Schorsch, Jonathan. Swimming the Christian Atlantic: Judeoconverts, Afroiberians and Amerindians in the Seventeenth Century. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2009. Stanwood, Owen. “Between Eden and Empire: Huguenot Refugees and the Promise of New Worlds.” The American Historical Review 118, no. 5 (2013): 1319–44. Studemund-Halévy, Michael. “Les aléas de la foi: Parcours d’un jeune Portugais entre église et synagogue.” In Memoria: Wege jüdischen Erinnerns: Festschrift für Michael Brocke zum 65. Geburtstag, edited by Birgit E. Klein and Christiane E. Müller, 363–82. Berlin: Metropol, 2005. Studnicki-Gizbert, Daviken. “La Nación among the Nations: Portuguese and Other Maritime Trading Diasporas in the Atlantic, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries.” In Atlantic Diasporas: Jews, Conversos, and Crypto-Jews in the Age of Mercantilism, 1500–1800, edited by Richard L. Kagan and Philip D. Morgan, 75–98. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009. Studnicki-Gizbert, Daviken. A Nation upon the Ocean Sea: Portugal’s Atlantic Diaspora and the Crisis of the Spanish Empire, 1492–1640. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Sutcliffe, Adam. “Jewish History in an Age of Atlanticisim.” In Atlantic Diasporas: Jews, Conversos and Crypto-Jews in the Age of Mercantilism, 1500–1800, edited by Richard L. Kagan and Philip D. Morgan, 18–32. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press 2009. Swetschinski, Daniel M. Reluctant Cosmopolitans: The Portuguese Jews of Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam. Oxford and Portland: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2004. Thornton, John. Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1680. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Tölölyan, Kachig. “Rethinking Diaspora(s): Stateless Power in the Transnational Moment.” Diaspora 5, no. 1 (1996): 3–36. Trivellato, Francesca. The Familiarity of Strangers: The Sephardic Diaspora, Livorno, and Cross-cultural Trade in the Early Modern Period. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012. Veer, Peter van der and Hartmut Lehmann. “Introduction.” In Nation and Religion. Perspectives on Europe and Asia, edited by Peter van der Veer and Hartmut Lehmann, 3–14. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. Yardeni, Myriam. Enquêtes sur l’Identité de la “Nation France”: De la Renaissance aux Lumières. Seyssel: Champ Vallon, 2004.

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Yardeni, Myriam. Le Refuge huguenot: Assimilation et Culture. Paris: Champion, 2002. Yardeni, Myriam. “Refuge et encadrement religieux de 1685 à 1715.” In Idéologie et propagande en France: Colloque organisé par l´institut d´Histoire et de Civilisation Française de l´Universitè de Haifa, edited by Myriam Yaredni, 113– 24. Paris: Picard, 1987. Yun Casalilla, Bartolomé. “Transnational History. What Lies Behind the Label? Some Reflections from the Early Modernist’s Point of View,” Culture and History Digital Journal 3, no. 2 (2014): 1–7.

Chapter 3

Intercultural Transfer and the Transatlantic Construction of Cannabis Knowledge‌ Cultures in the United States Bradley J. Borougerdi

Knowledge cultures derive meaning out of social existence.1 They are the cultural accumulations of understanding that societies develop about things based on the combined lived experiences of their members and the collective memories established by those who came before them. Sometimes, knowledge cultures can become highly contested spaces within a society, such as the one for cannabis that has developed across the United States over the past two centuries. Today, the knowledge culture of cannabis in the United States, for example, includes variations of meaning that one psychologist alluded to when he proclaimed that “[e]ach day, smiling teens buy hemp shirts. Retailers sell snacks made from the seed. Glaucoma patients puff cannabis cigarettes in hopes of saving their sight, and many people worldwide inhale marijuana smoke in an effort to alter consciousness.”2 He could have added that thousands are arrested or incarcerated each day for possession, consumption, and/ or distribution as well, but the point is clear: cannabis means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, and different words for it evoke drastically different perceptions and connotations. Since the plant genus is well suited for cultivation on more surface area across the globe than most others, it has been exposed to a diverse array of cultures throughout history.3 These cultures have used different genetic variations of cannabis for strikingly different purposes, which has invested it with a variety of meanings that have clashed over time. 73

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In this chapter, I argue that the transfer of different cultural uses for cannabis as a commodity into the United States set off a multilayered struggle over its place in society. During the early years of independence, the country and its citizens considered the plant to be an important strategic asset for the state, as well as a common household commodity used to produce a variety of products. Vague descriptions of cannabis as a drug existed at the time, but it was not until the British Empire shifted its imperial focus toward Asia that knowledge of its use as a medicine became widely circulated in the Atlantic world. Transatlantic networks of knowledge exchange between India and the British Empire informed the concept of medical cannabis in the United States, which disseminated negative perceptions of it (and its “degenerate” Eastern users) that influenced how these preparations of the plant were received. The struggle for meaning that took place ultimately resulted in cannabis becoming a banned intoxicant, but cultural undercurrents within American society kept its “foreign” uses in circulation through subcultures and underground economies. A culture war over the consequences of cannabis consumption has been taking place ever since, with a cultural version of Orientalism undergirding the conflicts that have flared up around the plant throughout the twentieth century. A brief discussion of the methodological lens through which I frame this argument is the subject of the first section, which concentrates on the concepts of intercultural transfer, Atlantic Orientalism, and something I refer to as post-commodity studies. The second section focuses on Western imperial perceptions of cannabis and its associations with British colonizing practices in India, which positioned the plant as part of a civilizing mission that imperial agents sought to impose on the subcontinent. In the third and final section of this chapter, the focus shifts to transatlantic exchanges and the subsequent cultural transformations that these exchanges brought to the ways in which cannabis has been perceived and received in the United States since the 1840s. Examining the plant in relation to the unifying thread of Orientalism that connected these perceptional transformations over time highlights one of the driving forces behind the history of intercultural transfers and provides a more nuanced understanding of the ontology of culture. FRAMEWORKS AND METHODOLOGIES The method of analysis that frames this study is a concept that some historians refer to as intercultural transfer. Intercultural transfer is a methodological concept; a tool for investigating the past that pays close attention to the movement of culture and cultural transformations over time. Think of it as a complex historical process that occurs when members of different cultures



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encounter each other and observe ideas, concepts, or commodities they try to take back with them or describe to others in their home society.4 There is a cultural threshold of sorts through which the object of transfer passes as it enters the public sphere of the receiving society.5 The cultural lens through which historical agents of transfer experience these encounters—as well as the societal needs, tastes, wants, perceptions, and circumstances of the society to which the agent belongs—all play important roles in shaping the outcome of these transfers. This is one of the reasons why the transfer never results in a carbon-copy replica of meaning from one society to another, for the cultural conditions that exist within the receiving society invest the object of transfer with new meaning as the movement occurs. Anthropologist Sidney Mintz pointed out that, “when unfamiliar substances are taken up by new users, they enter into pre-existing social and psychological contexts and acquire—or are given—contextual meanings by those who use them.”6 In other words, meaning does not “inhere in substances naturally or inevitably. Rather . . . meaning arises out of use, as people use substances in social relationships.”7 The same applies to the societal relationships that people develop with plants, which derive meaning within societies through the various ways in which cultures use them.8 But what happens to the meaning of a plant in a society when its agents of transfer encounter other people using it for different purposes? What cultural forces shape the way these “new” uses get treated by the receiving society, and what impact does this have on their knowledge culture of the plant? Answers to these types of questions have more to do with examining the relationships that different cultures have developed with plants than they do with the plants themselves. I refer to this type of approach as post-commodity studies because an investigation of meaning is at the core of historical inquiry. Like postmodernism more broadly, it involves deconstructing the meanings that societies embed into “things.”9 Since intercultural transfer histories situate the movement of these things between two or more seemingly separate societies as the vantage point through which to analyze the past, the concept of post-commodity studies helps to pinpoint how and why cultural constructions emerge and transform over time and space. When it comes to a controversial plant like cannabis, this can be a particularly valuable approach because it sheds light on what sociologist Joseph R. Gusfield called “the symbolic aspects of social problem formation.”10 Cannabis is also an interesting plant to study from this perspective because it has so much genetic variation that it can be difficult to discern the difference between psychoactive and non-psychoactive species with just the naked eye, which has caused a great deal of confusion about its taxonomy. Ever since the European Age of Enlightenment ushered in what Michele Foucault referred to as a “taxonomic impulse” to categorize nature in a Eurocentric fashion, this confusion has led to all sorts of theories over why only the

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Eastern version contained the capacity to induce altered states of consciousness.11 These explanations of difference were emblematic of the type of cultural representations that Westerners constructed about the “Orient,” which Edward Said famously unpacked in his seminal work, Orientalism.12 There has been considerable scholarly debate over his use of the concept, however, with many challenging the notion of Orientalism as a timeless dichotomy of otherization that Westerners used to justify exerting power over populations of people in the East. Susan Nance, for example, acknowledged the value of viewing the concept “as a powerful body of knowledge that often operated largely independently from, but to the disadvantage of, the actual lands and people it described,” but cautioned against “determinist presumptions [that] manifest by personifying Said’s term . . . as a civilizing mission.”13 For her, it was also a powerful space of allure and fascination that enthralled public audiences and inspired cultural development—especially in the United States, where Oriental imaginings have always inspired a range of responses that were far less one-dimensional than Said’s use of the term suggested.14 This chapter builds on Nance’s interpretation by employing the concept of Atlantic Orientalism to describe the multilayered transatlantic discourse on cannabis that traveled from the French and British empires to the United States during the nineteenth century. As outlined in the next section, there was, in fact, a Saidian power dynamic at play behind the representation of otherness that fueled the British production of knowledge about Eastern varieties of the plant as a pernicious substance; but as historian Isaac Campos pointed out, the “developing lore” on cannabis and its uses in the Orient also rendered it “into a substance of profound fascination for the ‘Western mind.’”15 Thanks to the rise of the laboratory, for example, the field of medicine became a more reputable and lucrative profession, which ushered in a pharmacological bonanza during the nineteenth century that opened the door for cannabis to become a drug of interest to imperial agents of the (British) East India Company (EIC).16 The cultural lens of imperialism through which they encountered the plant had a tremendous influence on the way Europeans thought about it after medical preparations started making their way around the Atlantic world. After these preparations transferred into American society, cannabis became a legitimate medicine, but the cultural cargo of Orientalism that came with it positioned Eastern uses as deviant and an existential threat to Western Civilization. Since then, the competing cultural forces of revulsion and allure in Orientalism have pulled and tugged at American perceptions of cannabis, developing into a complex fetish that both attracts and repulses different elements of society towards and away from the plant. By the dawn of the twentieth century, this dichotomous discourse on cannabis had become a highly contested cultural space in various regions across the United States. A struggle for meaning ensued, intensifying as the growth



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in subcultural uses transformed the plant once again; this time into a powerful symbol of resistance against the hegemonic position towards drug use within law enforcement institutions of the nation-state.17 The result has been a costly culture war that still has not subsided, even as cannabis has shown signs of becoming a respectable drug of high society in certain affluent areas of the United States over the past few decades.18 Although a disproportionate number of marginalized people continue to face fines and/or remain incarcerated for their involvement with the plant, a cultural shift towards mainstream consumption patterns seems almost inevitable. Historian Emily Dufton’s book, Grass Roots, however, cautions us from placing too much stock in such assertions by chronicling the various ways in which powerful reactionary movements have developed in response to the reassertion of cannabis as a medicine and the ballooning affirmation of it as a legitimate recreational drug.19 Her point speaks to the dynamic nature by which this Orientalist “tug of war” continues to inform the discussion of cannabis as a commodity in the United States, causing some to embrace its consumption and others to contest it. Orientalist assumptions about cannabis consumption in the United States were also tied to an important concept that Richard DeGrandpre called the “cult of pharmacology.” The phrase describes a knowledge culture, or what he called the “networks of understanding, within which drug-related phenomena, both praised and condemned, were interpreted, and how these understandings caused the social and historical determinants of ‘drug effects’ to be overlooked.”20 Campos referred to it as the “psychoactive riddle” because of the subjective nature by which the combination of culture, psychology, and pharmacology combine to produce the effects a drug has on the person who consumes it.21 With the rise of the laboratory and its emphasis on pharmacology, medical practitioners placed all their faith in the chemical structures of drugs, leading them to ignore the various ways in which culture and mindset influenced their effects on the human mind. Cannabis, for example, was thought to have caused madness because of the pharmacological properties that inhere in the plant, not the psychological state of the user or the cultural conditions under which that user came to understand the meaning of drug consumption.22 This cult of pharmacology endowed cannabis with qualities that were constructed around colonial assumptions about the Orient that British imperial agents projected onto medicinal preparations of the plant they encountered in India, which inspired condemnation and praise within different elements of American society. Investigating the historical context of both reveals the nuanced role that Orientalism played in shaping the intercultural transfer and transformations of cannabis in the Atlantic world. Finally, it is important to note that this historical process did not consist of a one-way flow of knowledge produced by imperial agents who taught

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colonized subjects how to use their own resources before taking them back to the imperial metropoles, but rather involved the exchange and production of knowledge through transoceanic networks developed over the course of centuries. In effect, when people move, they bring their culture with them—reshaping the societies they encounter. Even when this movement is involuntary, as in the forced migration of Africans to the Americas during the transatlantic slave trade, those who left their homelands behind carried fragments of it with them to influence the cultural landscape of the places where they ended up living.23 As intercultural transfer histories suggest, though, understanding the nuanced significance behind the movement of culture requires some investigation into the historical context in which it occurs. For cannabis as both a medicinal and recreational drug in the United States, that context begins in colonial British India. CANNABIS AND EMPIRE Prior to the 1830s, most people living within the nascent United States thought about cannabis in ways that reflected strong cultural ties with its use as a multidimensional industrial commodity across Europe. Primarily known as hemp in English, the plant’s fiber was manufactured into various grades of rope and used to produce sailcloth, clothing, and linens. The seeds were used in a variety of industries as well, ranging from bird feed to oil for human consumption, as well as an ingredient in industrial products such as paints, soaps, and fertilizers.24 In fact, they were so commonplace in the United Kingdom that a variety of sources referred to hemp seed as a unit of measure to describe the size of other things.25 This variety of cannabis came to the Americas as part of the Columbian Exchange, with European colonists hoping to cultivate it in the lush environments of the New World for industrial purposes.26 Evidence also suggests that enslaved Africans brought psychoactive varieties of seed with them to cultivate for their own consumption as well, but Europeans seemed to have hardly recognized them.27 For the most part, imperial states and their colonial apparatuses were interested in cannabis during this period primarily as a means for procuring enough fiber to satisfy the growing demand for naval stores. As such, most considered it an important strategic commodity that signified maritime strength and imperial dominance. Indeed, transatlantic voyages during the Age of Exploration consisted of ships that were rigged with tons of high grade, properly processed cordage, which meant the knowledge culture Europeans and Americans developed about cannabis largely reflected its value for such purposes. At the state level, high-quality fiber was difficult to come by, which caused deep-seated



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anxieties within the British Empire about relying so heavily on imports of naval stores from Russia.28 The problem became particularly alarming during the Napoleonic Wars, with imperial botanists such as William Roxburgh declaring it “an object of the first magnitude” for the United Kingdom to establish a location within the realm of its empire to cultivate cannabis as a “substitute for Russian hemp.”29 The Royal Society of the Arts (RSA) tried to incentivize farmers in British North America to produce naval store quality fiber for the empire during this tumultuous period, but their efforts barely scratched the surface of the amount needed to fuel the empire’s transoceanic navigations.30 These same anxieties carried over into the United States after the thirteen colonies peeled away from the British Empire to form a sovereign state, which also reached crisis levels at the turn of the century as Americans struggled to gain access to Russia through the Atlantic Ocean.31 During this period, the British shifted their imperial focus toward the East, where they developed new justifications for imposing more colonial control over India than they had in the Americas.32 Imperial agents claimed that the exotic, spontaneous nature of the environment on the subcontinent had caused the advanced civilizations of ancient India to degenerate “from the purity of their ancestors.”33 Only a British civilizing mission could save Indians from this degeneration, with cannabis serving as a representation of this need. Among the multitude of those who navigated through colonial India, for example, one of the concerns for how to promote the “proper” form of hemp cultivation there had to do with what Charles Taylor described as the “different purpose” for which Indians used the plant. The comment appeared in a travelogue that also repeated the familiar hope that “hemp may be prepared from the plant already cultivated here . . . and [thus] relieve Great Britain from the heavy tribute which her commerce and navy now pay to Russia.”34 Given that India was “a colony to [our] parent state,” the burgeoning morality of empire compelled the British to “receive those natural productions, or native manufactures of India . . . [and] submit [them] to the dexterity of British workmen.”35 However, in a review of this source that described the “different purpose” as “for the preparation of Bang, an intoxicating drug,” the author hinted as to why such hopes for industrial hemp production there were futile: “some tribes of [India] have not yet emerged from the savage state.”36 Another source expressing similar sentiments during this period described the Eastern variety as “an oriental hemp” that “resembles [the common] hemp in its stalk . . . and leaves,” but differed in that it was “used in eastern countries as a narcotic and aphrodisiac.”37 An edited volume by James Anderson containing numerous reprints of his correspondences with EIC employees included a letter from George Sinclair that stated that he was “under the sanction of the [EIC] Court of Directors, by whom I was recommended to the government here [in India] for protection and encouragement in establishing

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the culture of hemp and flax, as a subject of very great importance to the commerce and national strength of Great Britain.”38 According to him, experiments he conducted on cannabis at the botanical gardens in Calcutta suggested that promoting its cultivation there could “render us independent of the articles on foreign nations, so necessary for the support of our royal navy and commerce.”39 In his response, though, Anderson agreed that “there could be no doubt of the practicability of raising it in any quantity under suitable care and encouragement,” but claimed it would not work in India because “the flowers of this plant being one of those narcotics that, like opium and tobacco, are coveted by the natives of Asia.”40 Robert Wissett reinforced this perception as well in his treatise on the cultivation of fibrous plants in India by stating that hemp production would not thrive there because the people were “notoriously wedded to their customs and habits [and are] averse to innovation of any kind.”41 As others have documented, this juxtaposition of an exotic, oriental, and “untamed” variety of cannabis to that of an industrial, Western, and civilized one was a transnational phenomenon in Europe that connected perceptions of the plant that were as “firmly embedded in France’s imperial past” to those of the United Kingdom.42 In both cases, the discourse of Orientalism reinforced a dichotomy of otherness between the Occident and the Orient through representations of cannabis consumption. For the British, though, failure to convince Indians to replace their traditional uses for cannabis with ones that were more friendly to the empire’s needs opened the door for imperial agents to culturally reimagine new uses for this “exotic” variety that, by then, had already become known throughout the Atlantic world as cannabis indica to differentiate it from the more “civilized” variety referred to as cannabis sativa.43 The concept that Londa Schiebinger called “bioprospecting” had already become well established within British imperial imagination by then. For centuries agents of transfer ventured into the so-called periphery to “select particular plants and technologies for transport back to Europe.”44 As a result, when the colonizers of British India started experimenting with indica varieties in the 1830s, they were tapping into a colonial custom with deep historical roots. The first to gain notoriety for doing so was William Brooke O’Shaughnessy, an Irish doctor of relatively humble origins. After joining the EIC and securing a post at the Medical College of Calcutta in 1835 to “connect the science of the West with the products of the East,” he began experimenting with the plant.45 In 1839, he published a pamphlet titled, On the Preparation of Gunjah, which provided a botanical overview that consisted of a variety of descriptions pertaining to its historical uses throughout the Global South but mostly in India. From the outset, he mentioned how “the narcotic effects of Hemp are popularly known in the south of Africa, South America, Turkey,



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Egypt, Asia Minor, India, and the adjacent territories of the Malays, Burmese, and Siamese. In all these countries, Hemp is used in various forms, by the dissipated and the depraved, as the ready agent of a pleasing intoxicant.”46 All of these geographical areas were considered by Westerners as part of the colonized world, which, due to its exotic “climate,” caused cannabis to produce more of the “resinous secretion . . . which seems totally absent in the European kind.”47 He also described how “[m]en clad in leathern dresses run through the Hemp-fields brushing through the plant with all possible violence; the soft resin adheres to the leather, and is subsequently scrapped off and kneaded into balls,” and that “in Nepal, Dr. McKinnon informs me, the leathern attire is dispensed with, and the resin is gathered on the skins of naked coolies.”48 The remark about the environment, his contrast between Eastern and Western uses, and the allusion to some sort of conspicuous desire for intoxication among these “deprived” populations reflected the influence that the discourse of empire had on his perception of cannabis consumption in the colonized world. He mentioned a few “exceptional” native doctors as well, explaining their knowledge of how the plant had been employed as a medicine since ancient times. References to the cultural practices of early Indian societies fit well into the imperial narrative on the degeneration of Indian civilization mentioned above, implying that Western appropriation of exotic Eastern substances that caused “delirium” and “debauchery” in the Orient proved useful when placed in the hands of civilized medical practitioners.49 By experimenting with Eastern varieties of cannabis and helping Indians regain control of the plant’s “resinous secretion” that thrived in exotic climates, O’Shaughnessy had done his part in building the Second British Empire. He had also done a service to Western Civilization by introducing what he called “a powerful and valuable” substance that “seem[s] to me to warrant our anticipating . . . no inconsiderable addition to the resources of the physician.”50 The stage was thus set for the transformation of cannabis into a popular medicine in the Atlantic world. By the early 1840s, word of O’Shaughnessy’s experiments in British India made its way into Europe, where medical knowledge flowed through webs of interconnected networks of knowledge exchange. In 1842, for example, O’Shaughnessy published The Bengal Dispensatory in London, which included more details on experiments he had conducted with this “Oriental” cannabis as a valuable medicine for Western consumption.51 The following year, references appeared in an article for the Pharmaceutical Journal and Transactions, which reported that O’Shaughnessy had brought “a specimen of Cannabis indica, or Indian hemp” back to London.52 He gave some to an associate named Peter Squire, who developed a medicinal tincture, which he called Squire’s Extract.53 That same year, M. Ley gave a presentation to the

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Royal Medico-Botanical Society, in which he repeated many of the Orientalist tropes about Eastern cannabis cultures before describing how O’Shaughnessy came to decide that this plant was worthy of bringing back with him: Ley wrote that O’Shaughnessy had observed “that tens of thousands of persons in the East were constantly producing the most extraordinary effects on themselves by its use in a popular form.” Therefore, he considered “that an article so exceedingly potent must be possessed of medicine virtues.”54 Thomas and Henry Smith of Edinburgh were also inspired by O’Shaughnessy’s work, so they developed a version of their own called “cannabine” that made its way into France as a valuable medicine before becoming “firmly embedded in French popular culture as a marker of Oriental otherness.”55 Several publications referencing the medicine surfaced in the German and Italian states at this time as well.56 Meanwhile, as the British Empire tightened its grip on India, the British began cracking down on the unauthorized production and distribution of cannabis in the colonial territories, where one official listed in the archives as “Dr. Kean” reported to his supervisors at the Indian Office House in London that the preparation of Eastern cannabis was having a “baneful influence on the health and morals of the population.” Writing from Bengal, he took note of the “increasing consumption of deleterious drugs” like the cannabis derivative referred to as “ganja,” which he claimed was “exceedingly prevalent . . . amongst every patient brought into the Insane Hospital.”57 As historian Peter Hynd has recently demonstrated, this fear of moral degradation was widespread, and it combined with a desire for revenue to motivate the British to establish an “interventionist system that . . . stipulated where cannabis plants could be cultivated, monitored production and harvesting, centralized storage, and oversaw the sale of the crop.”58 Such measures were met with varying degrees of success in different colonial provinces, but one constant was an increased association between cannabis and criminality that further bifurcated the plant into both a curse and a blessing. As we will see in the next section, when knowledge of these medicinal preparations transferred across the Atlantic into the United States, this Orientalist bifurcation came with it. TRANSATLANTIC EXCHANGES AND CULTURAL TRANSFORMATIONS To be sure, publications that mentioned Eastern varieties of cannabis were already circulating across the United States before O’Shaughnessy’s experiments. It is not clear how wide ranging these were, but they do reveal a transatlantic discourse on cannabis as a representation of difference between the East and the West.59 Networks of transatlantic exchanges that were



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established before the Age of Revolutions did not just collapse after American independence, so much of the fantastical descriptions of “Oriental” varieties with “leaves narcotic” that circulated in the United Kingdom before O’Shaughnessy were also published in the United States.60 Shortly after his research began circulating in Europe, though, reprints started showing up in medical publications across the Atlantic; and word traveled fast. In his dissertation, historian Adam Rathge noted that “[t]hese reprints demonstrate just how quickly medical knowledge moved around the globe in the mid-nineteenth century, spreading widely and rapidly through networks of medical professionals and their publications.”61 Some of them echoed O’Shaughnessy’s praise for the medicine, whereas others expressed doubt or skepticism. Nearly all, however, included some form of reference to the “naked coolies” or “Oriental intoxication” that, as one source put it, “is indulged in by the inhabitants of certain countries, on account of the pleasurable excitement to which it gives rise.”62 By doing so, they perpetuated the dichotomy of difference between the East and the West through the lens of cannabis use, which helped establish what Rathge described as “a set of foundational impressions for additional research and writing on cannabis as both medicine and intoxicant.”63 Rathge’s research also demonstrates how, despite its initial popularity, medical practitioners quickly began labeling these substances as dangerous and erratic. Part of the problem had to do with how the medicine itself ended up in the United States, which, after being “sent to this country from Calcutta, and not immediately used,” as one contemporary observer noted, tends to become “deteriorated by age.”64,65Another issue concerned the fact that medical researchers still had not isolated the chemical compounds known today as cannabinoids, so they were largely unaware of the ways in which they were working on the molecular level. A variety of other substances were added to these preparations as well, giving them what one scholar noted as a “reputation of untrustworthiness and unreliability, both of preparation and of action.”66 Whatever the cause, though, by 1854—just as it had made its way into the official book of American Pharmacopoeia—the reputation of cannabis among medical professionals was plummeting in the United States.67 At the same time, medical knowledge of the plant had already begun seeping into the discursive practice that Nance referred to as “playing eastern,” which helped establish the foundation upon which the complex culture war on cannabis would later be built. Allusions to this foundation surfaced in an 1859 publication by a group of physicians who called themselves the American Provers’ Union. The pamphlet was titled Provings of Cannabis Indica, and even though it does not mention O’Shaughnessy by name, it seems likely that the authors either knew of his work or were in contact with others who had. After all, many of these

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“Provers” held titles representing the various countries or regions they were responsible for exchanging medical knowledge with, and much of the language in the pamphlet reflects a connection to O’Shaughnessy’s 1839 essay, On the Preparation of Gunjah.68 One name the publication did mention, however, is the author and diplomat Bayard Taylor, whose “experiences with [sic] Haschish have been incorporated.”69 Hashish is an Arabic word for a preparation of cannabis that had already gained popularity in France by then, while Taylor was a literary author and popular public performer of “playing eastern” who described consuming the drug at a hotel in Damascus.70 In 1854, Putnam Magazine published a section of his travel writing titled “Visions of Hasheesh,” which oscillated between vivid depictions of the terrors and pleasures elucidated by the “Oriental” drug. The experience culminated with him proclaiming that all “the mystery of Eastern voice” can be attributed to “the agency of hasheesh.”71 The use of Taylor’s literary narrative by the Provers marks a crucial point in the journey toward transformation that cannabis endured because it blurred the lines between science and literature, thereby positioning the plant, in historian Isaac Campos’ words, as “naturally inclined to reproduce the basic dichotomies at the heart of the Oriental-Occidental divide.”72 Another example in this evolving dichotomy came from Francis Marion Nye’s doctoral thesis produced for the Medical College of Carolina in 1858. Titled A Thesis on Cannabis Indica, this dissertation is an eighteen-page, handwritten document consisting mostly of Orientalist platitudes that provides a window into the divide referred to by Campos. Much of the prose mimics the “Heaven and Hell” rhetoric described by Taylor, which the author claimed “cannot and never will be experienced by any but a Hasheesh-eater.”73 Nye also mentioned that “it is unfortunate that the name Indian Hemp has been attached to the medicinal product, for in this country the same name has long been appropriated to Apocynum Cannabinum, and some confusion there arises.”74 Apocynum Cannabinum is the name of a species that Americans referred to as Indian hemp because, as one source explained, “the North American Indians used its tough bark for making nets.”75 Highlighting the fact that Westerners associated the terms hemp and cannabis with industry and fiber, while “in Arabia it is used instead of wine as an exhilarant by the common people,” served to reproduce the Orientalist dichotomy of difference upon which American perceptions of cannabis were being built. A strikingly similar MD thesis from the same period by James L. Humphrey at the Albany Medical College called Hashish or Indian Hemp regurgitated much of the same content, masquerading vivid depictions of Oriental dangers and reveries as scientific knowledge.76 These sources, along with a variety of others from the second half of the nineteenth century, reflect the cultural intersection between medical and



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recreational cannabis consumption in the United States.77 Descriptions of the former were invariably connected to perceptions of the latter, which were linked to the discourse on Orientalism that circulated in the Atlantic world. Admittedly, though, these were obscure sources with limited circulation. Fitzhugh Ludlow’s The Hasheesh Eater, however, had a much larger audience. The first book-length copy came out in 1857, which included a story in the opening chapter about the author’s first encounter with cannabis as a drug. In his youth, he had frequented a local apothecary shop in his hometown of Poughkeepsie (New York) where he claimed to ingest all types of medicines “for research and not indulgence.”78 One day, this self-described “pharmaceutical Alexander” stumbled upon a bottle of liquid labeled “Cannabis indica.” He tried to consume it, but the owner exclaimed, “Hold on! Do you want to kill yourself? That stuff is deadly poison.”79 Both startled and intrigued, he read as much as he could on the drug, which led him to O’Shaughnessy and through the transatlantic trail of publications that followed his work. Afterwards, Ludlow started referring to this medicine as “Hasheesh.” Apparently, the inspiration for this semantic leap was his discovery that the medicine derived from the same plant as “the hasheesh [that was] the subject of a most graphic chapter from the pen of Bayard Taylor, which months before had moved [him] powerfully to curiosity and admiration.”80 Granted, this discursive practice of Westerners describing a medical preparation of cannabis as hashish did not begin with Ludlow. A range of sources published in France indicate an attempt to “tame” what many considered a dangerous Oriental intoxicant by transforming it into a Western-style medicine.81 In response, a subculture of hashish consumption developed within pockets of French society that had also become part of the transatlantic discourse before Ludlow’s book was published.82 However, references to the French “Hashish-eaters” were not as wide-ranging as The Hasheesh Eater, which went through several editions and became the subject of many reviews on both sides of the Atlantic.83 The book also fed off its similarity to Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions on an English Opium Eater (1821), which signified the emergence of drug autobiography as a literary genre. One scholar described it as a form of writing that “illuminate[d] how the hallucinatory inner space of subjectivity engaged the imperial tropes of travel, exploration, and conquest that governed nineteenth-century conceptualizations of geographic space.84 A key element of Ludlow’s text was how he wove the narrative of his own cannabis consumption into the fashionable form of cultural expression that Nance described as “playing eastern,” with lurid Orientalist tales, fantastical imaginative geographies, and the tantalizing terrors of cannabis intoxication serving as his performative stage. For all the fascination it garnered, though, the book generated more criticism than praise. One anonymous reviewer warned that this drug “of

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enchantment is one of the most fatal of all diabolic illusions,” and that Ludlow’s “juice of the Indian hemp . . . has been used for ages in the east as a narcotic and stimulant, and at this day forms a habitual indulgence with all classes of society in India, Persia, and Turkey.”85 Another anonymous critic referred to him as a foolish “Transatlantic Pythagorean” who seemed willing “to adopt anything, from a creed to a medicine.”86 A review article, written by an anonymous author for The North American Review, titled “Narcotics,” that discussed multiple books alongside Ludlow’s, expressed concern that “increase familiarity is producing its natural effects in the imitation of Oriental habits; the Caucasian races, no longer content with tobacco, coffee, and tea, are beginning to crave and use the stronger narcotics.”87 Several others followed over the years, reflecting how cannabis had become a more culturally contested commodity after Ludlow introduced Eastern versions of it to a much wider audience.88 In effect, the plant’s otherness fed into the burgeoning discourse on Oriental intoxication as a national menace that was metastasizing across the country. Other sources, though, tell a different story. One that hearkens back to Nance’s more complex form of Orientalism inspired a subculture of cannabis consumption in the United States. Several of these sources were produced by an eccentric man named Paschal Beverly Randolph. Orphaned at a young age, he grew up under tremendous hardship on the streets of the Five Points in New York City. At the time of his birth (1825), most African Americans in New York still faced some form of slavery, but Randolph was born free. Nevertheless, race had always been of profound significance throughout his life, even after becoming a prolific author and lecturer on spiritualism and esoteric philosophies of the occult. He often struggled with self-identity and at times exhibited a colonized mindset towards his African ancestry in some of his writings, but he was also a charismatic supporter of early feminist practices, abolitionism, and anti-discrimination. Moreover, at a time when crossing the Atlantic was quite costly and dangerous, Randolph completed three separate transatlantic voyages that included time spent in the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Greece, Egypt, and several regions of Asia Minor.89 He encountered cannabis for the first time while on these trips, which left an indelible impression that inspired him to bring it back to the United States. Like Taylor, Randolph began adopting an Eastern persona in his public lectures after returning from his trip to the “Orient.” Unlike Taylor, though, whose first and only encounter with hashish took place in Damascus, Randolph became one of the largest distributors of the drug in the United States, which for years he practiced using to help reach a mental state referred to as “clairvoyance.”90 He first encountered it in France in 1855 through mesmerists and spiritualist circles with connections to the Hashish-eaters Club, but went on to claim that, “in Egypt I studied it perfectly.”91 It is worth noting



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here that Randolph’s work tapped into a transatlantic wave of reformism that was sweeping across the United States at the time, which nurtured the growth of a variety of utopian ideas and occult practices in nonconformist communities of thought. He was one of the first to describe clairvoyance as a science, or as one biographer put it, “a state that the aspirant himself could be taught to reach through drugs and by magical practice.”92 Randolph developed an entire school of thought around the concept, in which he claimed to have administered hashish to patients in six hundred cases without problems, even helping some reach “the condition wherein the mind, leaping all the barriers of the outer senses and world, sees and knows things altogether beyond their ranges.”93 By then, his use of hashish resulted in at least one public accusation of insanity levied against him, which had already become a well-established transatlantic trope within the Orientalist discourse on cannabis consumption in the Atlantic world.94 Nevertheless, others continued gravitating toward its use, with occultists such as Helena Blavatsky and Albert L. Rawson, along with the Oriental Orders and Theosophical Society to which they belonged, demonstrating a connection to Randolph’s Ex Oriente Lux form of Orientalism described by Nance.95 In fact, it might have even inspired those like Rawson to adopt an Eastern persona as well, by building cultural capital by portraying an intimate relationship with the Orient in his public lectures and secret societies.96 This was not done at the expense of the dominant assumptions within mainstream society that associated cannabis consumption with Oriental degeneracy, of course; but rather in spite of them. Indeed, the more that these cultural forces of hegemony condemned the plant, the more attractive it became to those whose life experiences belonged to the margins of society. By the 1880s, clandestine “hashish houses” and “hemp retreats” were popping up in New York City, Philadelphia, and elsewhere.97 The country’s most famous cannabis consumer, Ludlow, had already died young of what many blamed as habitual drug use, and its largest cannabis distributor, Randolph, was said to have committed suicide.98 The United States was rapidly moving toward a culture of fear and restriction toward cannabis consumption, even as the plant was transforming into a powerful transgressive drug of subcultural use. To be clear, by subculture, I mean the process by which the structures of a society develop norms of a particular fashion that a portion of the population violates through established patterns of defiant behavior. Historian Caroline Acker described subculture in relation to Sociologist Howard Becker’s work on drug use “as a normally functioning social group with its own mores—a group that in part defined itself in opposition to mainstream, conventional culture.”99 Transgressive drug use violates these conventions by transforming the act of consumption into a signifier of anti-establishment identity. As a

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subculture, it represents a systemic affront to norm conformity and a rejection of the bifurcating hardness between licit and illicit drugs that the government systematically began enforcing more rigidly over the course of the twentieth century. Despite the drug’s illegality, for example, Louis Armstrong described his relationship with cannabis “as a sort of medicine, [and] a cheap drunk with much better thoughts than one that’s full of liquor.”100 And jazz clarinetist and saxophonist Milton Mezzrow said that it “puts a musician in a real masterly sphere, and that’s why so many jazzmen have used it.”101 These examples reflect the rise of a subversive cannabis culture by which users could turn a societal norm on its head: “they” say it is a dangerous Oriental intoxicant, so it becomes “our” medicine; “they” claim it induces violent rage, so it becomes a tool for the elevation of “our” minds. The cultural capital that accumulated around cannabis consumption was turning the relationship of the subculture to the dominant culture upside down, investing cannabis with countercultural status and meaning as a transgressive commodity. An analysis of this trend is beyond the scope of this chapter, but the foundation for it was firmly established by the end of the nineteenth century. In other words, the building blocks for such a transformative trend were forged through the imperial networks of transatlantic exchanges that carried Eastern varieties of the plant—and its cultural baggage of Orientalism— across the Atlantic. CONCLUSION Studying the circulation of knowledge about cannabis in the Atlantic world brings me back to the concept of intercultural transfer and its significance for understanding culture. When a society develops a cultural meaning for a plant and then encounters different cultural uses for it taking place in “otherized” societies, it sets off a complex historical process that triggers a struggle for meaning over its role as a commodity in that society. This proves especially true for a receiving society that has difficulties procuring a commodity before encountering its more “exotic” uses. The result is a cultural battle over the use and interpretation of these different practices and a transformation in the place of that commodity within the receiving society. It is important to take note of the fact that, within this historical process, there is something more at play than just the commodity and the society; something that resides at the intersection between anthropology and history—where there exists what Arjun Appadurai described as “a rich storehouse of information on socio-cultural organization.”102 I refer to the presence of this “something” as the ontology of culture because of the way it facilitates the manner by which subjects impose meaning onto objects. This ontology, perhaps, is akin to



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what cultural theorist Michel-Rolph Trouillot hinted at when he once wrote that “history does not belong only to its narrators” but, rather, “the historical process has some autonomy vis-à-vis the narrative.”103 Investigating the social life of things that transfer from one culture to another highlights this “autonomy” by reflecting on the ways in which “information” is transmitted from a cultural “storehouse” into a society, which often happens independently from human intentions. It is almost as if culture can be said to have a mind of its own that helps invest meaning into the things people use. For cannabis in the United States, the metaphorical “mind” behind its myriad of transformations was Orientalism, which was tapped into through transatlantic webs of significance that connected the storehouse of culture there to the imperial imagination of the British Empire. Eastern varieties of cannabis traveled through these networks of meaning at a time when Americans were losing patience with their traditional uses for the plant. They also entered the cultural scene when the professionalization of medicine was on the rise, which helped shift the discourse on its value as a commodity. However, associations between this new value and the cultures from which it came left an indelible impression that influenced the way it was received by the hegemonic forces of mainstream society in the United States. Those who rejected these forces were naturally attracted to the new uses, which provided the foundation upon which the cannabis culture war of the twentieth century was built. Ironically, though, the dominant structures within American society behind this culture war that transformed the plant into a banned intoxicant have also opened the door for clandestine cultivators to produce higher quality harvests with more medicinal content, thereby infusing cannabis with more medical legitimacy and aiding the legalization movement that has waxed and waned in the United States since the 1970s.104 Yet through it all, cannabis has never lost its connection to the thread of Orientalism that has been behind these transformations over time. A few examples include how a prominent legalization activist once referred to himself as a “NORML Nabob,” or when a cannabis consuming hip-hop artist from the popular group N.W.A. adopted the stage name “Arabian Prince.” The rap group Wu-Tang Clan and their transgressive cannabis consumption serves as another example. It seems clear that some form of Orientalism from the cultural storehouse of Western Civilization is behind them all. Sidney Mintz has been credited with once saying that “the single most important truth about humanity is then existence of culture;” the intercultural transfer history of cannabis into American society reflects his point quite well.

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NOTES 1. For more on the use of this term, see Chris Duvall, Cannabis (London: Reaktion Books, 2015), 12–26. 2. Mitch Earleywine, Understanding Marijuana: A New Look at the Scientific Evidence, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 3. 3. Duvall, Cannabis, 7; for more on the difference between cannabis species, see Robert C. Clarke and Mark Merlin, Cannabis: Evolution and Ethnobotany (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013), 311–31. 4. For more on this concept, see Thomas Adam, Intercultural Transfers and the Making of the Modern World: Sources and Contexts (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). 5. For more on the concept of the public sphere, see Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1989); for a philosophical discussion of how the concept influences public perceptions and meaning, see Charles Taylor, Modern Social Imaginaries (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 83–99. 6. Sidney Mintz, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History (New York: Penguin Books, 1985), 6. 7. Mintz, Sweetness and Power, xxix. 8. For a concise overview of people–plant relationships, see Michael Pollan, Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World (New York: Random House, 2001); Michael J. Balick and Paul Alan Cox, Plants, People, and Culture: The Science of Ethnobotany (New York: Scientific American Library, 1996). 9. For more details, see Igor Kopytoff, “The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as Process,” in Arjun Appadurai (ed.), The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 64–91. 10. Joseph R. Gusfield, The Culture of Public Problems: Drinking-Driving and the Symbolic Order (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), xii. 11. Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Science (New York: Vintage Books, 1994); for more on the history of confusion regarding cannabis, see Bradley J. Borougerdi, Commodifying Cannabis: A Cultural History of a Complex Plant in the Atlantic World (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2018), 2–7. 12. Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1979). 13. Susan Nance, How the Arabian Nights Inspired the American Dream, 1790– 1935 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 3–4. 14. For a study on the nuances of Orientalism in the United States, see Richard Francaviglia, Go East, Young Man: Imagining the American West as the Orient (Logan: Utah State University Press, 2011). 15. Isaac Campos, Home Grown: Marijuana and the Origins of Mexico’s War on Drugs (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2012), 10. 16. For more on the rise of the laboratory, see Roy Porter, The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity (New York: Norton & Company, 1997), 348.



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17. For a discussion of the concept of cultural hegemony, see T. J. Jackson Lears, “The Concept of Cultural Hegemony: Problems and Possibilities,” The American Historical Review 90, no. 3 (1985): 567–93. 18. For example, see Ryan Stoa, Craft Weed: Family Farming and the Future of the Marijuana Industry (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2018). 19. Emily Dufton, Grassroot: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Marijuana in America (New York: Basic Books, 2017). 20. Richard DeGrandpre, The Cult of Pharmacology: How America Became the World’s Most Troubled Drug Culture (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), vii. 21. Campos, Home Grown, 8, 26. 22. For an overview of the connection between cannabis and madness, see Camps, Home Grown, 7–23. 23. See, for example, Michael Gomez, Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebellum South (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1998); Judith Carney and R. N. Rosomoff, In the Shadow of Slavery: Africa’s Botanical Legacy in the Atlantic World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009); Duvall, African Roots. 24. Nadra O. Hashim, Hemp and the Global Economy: The Rise of Labor, Innovation, and Trade (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2017). 25. Borougerdi, Commodifying Cannabis, 26. 26. Borougerdi, Commodifying Cannabis, 16; for more on the concept of the Columbian Exchange, see Alfred Crosby, The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1972). 27. Chris S. Duvall, The African Roots of Marijuana (Durham: Duke University Press, 2019), 8, 27. For more on the European desire to cultivate cannabis in colonial territories of the Americas for rope, see Borougerdi, Commodifying Cannabis, 44–52. 28. For a study on the various grades of cannabis fiber sold throughout the Atlantic world, see John Sullivan, Russian Cloth Seals in Britain: Trade, Textiles, and Origins (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2012); for more on the history of British concerns with hemp production, see Nick Mattingly, “Natural Knowledge and Sea Power: The Cultivation of Hemp in the British Imperial World” (PhD thesis Southern Cross University, 2013). 29. “William Roxburgh to Robert Wisset,” February 27, 1801; in William Nicholson (ed.), A Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, and the Arts, vol. 11 (London: Crown Court, 1805), 35. 30. W. Roxburgh, Herman W. Ryland, W. Allan, and G. Ward, “Papers in Colonies and Trade,” in: Transactions of the Society, Instituted at London, for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, vol. 24 (London, 1806), 159; for more on British attempts to cultivate cannabis for hemp production in the Americas, see Borougerdi, Commodifying Cannabis, 49–57. 31. Alfred W. Crosby, America, Russia, Hemp, and Napoleon: American Trade with Russia and the Baltic, 1783–1812 (Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 1965). 32. For more on the rise of what historians call the Second British Empire, see Thomas Bender, A Nation among Nations: America’s Place in World History (New

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York: Hill & Wang, 2006), 92; William Dalrymple, The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019), xxv. 33. Alexander Dow, The History of Hindustan, vol. 3 (London: Becket & De Hondt, 1772), vii; for more on the degeneration of Indian civilization, see Tillman Nechtman, Nabobs: Empire and Identity in Eighteenth Century Britain (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 34. Charles Taylor (ed.), The Literary Panorama, vol. 1 (London: Cox, Son, and Bayles, 1807), 62. 35. Taylor, Literary Panorama, 58, 63. 36. Taylor, Literary Panorama, 62–63. 37. Bartholomew Parr, The London Medical Dictionary (London: J. Johnson & Co., 1809), 58, 230, 336. 38. “George Sinclair to Dr. Anderson,” December 24, 1798, Calcutta; in James Anderson, Recreations in Agriculture, Natural-History, Arts, and Miscellaneous Literature, vol. 3 (London: T. Bentley, 1800), 229. 39. Anderson, Recreations, 230. 40. “James Anderson to George Sinclair,” January 7, 1799; in Anderson, Recreations, 232. 41. Robert Wissett, On the Cultivation and Preparation of Hemp, as Also, of the Article, Produced in Various Parts of India, called Sunn (London: Cox & Son, 1804), 42. 42. David A. Guba Jr., Taming Cannabis: Drugs and Empire in Nineteenth-Century France (London: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020), 26. 43. For a more extensive treatment of the culturally constructed history of the ways in which Europeans have categorized cannabis into Eastern and Western tropes, see Borougerdi, Commodifying Cannabis, 4–7; Guba, Taming Cannabis, 20–48; Duvall, African Roots of Marijuana, 8–12. 44. Londa Schiebinger, Plants and Empire: Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014), 18. 45. John F. Royle, Essays on the Productive Resources on India (London: H. Allen & Co., 1840), 234. 46. William Brooke O’Shaughnessy, On the Preparation of the Indian Hemp, or Gunjah (Cannabis Indica), Their Effects on the Animal System in Health, and Their Utility in the Treatment of Tetanus and Other Convulsive Disorders (Calcutta: Bishop’s College Press, 1839); in the Indian Office Records at the British Library Asian and African Reading room (hereafter cited as IOR), 1, Tracts 25 (f), 1. 47. O’Shaughnessy, On the Preparation of Indian Hemp, 2. 48. O’Shaughnessy, On the Preparation of Indian Hemp, 6. 49. O’Shaughnessy, On the Preparation of Indian Hemp, 7. 50. Quoted in James H. Mills, Cannabis Britannica: Empire, Trade, and Prohibition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 45. 51. William Brooke O’Shaughnessy, The Bengal Dispensatory and Companion to the Pharmacopoeia (London: Allen, 1842). 52. Jacob Bell (ed.), Pharmaceutical Journal and Transactions, vol. 2 (London: John Churchill, 1843), 594.



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53. W. Hughes, “A Report Upon Some Late Statements in Therapeutics,” The Medical Times: A Journal of Medical Science, Literature, Criticism, and News (London: 1844), 89. 54. M. Ley, “Observations on the Cannabis Indica, or Indian Hemp,” in Hennis Green (ed.), Provincial Medical Journal, and Respect of the Medica Sciences, vol. 5 (London: Henry Renshaw, 1843), 437, 487. 55. Guba, Taming Cannabis, 122. 56. Guba, Taming Cannabis, 123–46. 57. “Public Letter No. 21 of 1842 from the Government of Bengal,” July 6, 1842, British Library, Indian Office Records, Asian and African Reading Room, IOR/F/4/2015/90072, 1. 58. Peter Hynd, “Ganja and the Government of India: Cannabis, Excise, and Colonial Administration in the Late Nineteenth Century;” in Lucas Richert and James H. Mills (eds.), Cannabis Global Histories (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2021), 29. 59. Adam Rathge, “Cannabis Cures: American Medicine, Mexican Marijuana, and the Origins of the War on Weed, 1840–1937” (PhD thesis, Boston College, 2017), 30–32. 60. William P. C. Barton, Prodrome of a Work to Aid the Teaching of the Vegetable Materia Medica (Philadelphia: Pupils of the Institute, 1833), 84. 61. Rathge, “Cannabis Cures,” 34. 62. Thomas Blizard Curling, A Practical Treatise on the Diseases of the Testis: And of the Spermatic Cord and Scrotum (Philadelphia: Carey and Hart, 1843), 451; for more details on this source and others that belonged to the transatlantic discourse on medical cannabis, see Rathge, “Cannabis Cures,” 40–44; Borougerdi, Commodifying Cannabis, 82–86. 63. Rathge, “Cannabis Cures,” 36. 64. Isaac Hayes (ed.), The American Journal of Medical Sciences, vol. 23 (Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard, 1852), 189. 65. Eric T. Carson, “Cannabis Indica in 19th Century Psychiatry,” American Journal of Psychiatry 131, no. 9 (1974): 1004; quoted in Stephen Snelders, Charles Kaplan, and Toines Pieters, “On Cannabis, Chloral Hydrate, and Career Cycles of Psychotropic Drugs in Medicine,” in Bulletin of the History of Medicine 80, no. 1 (2006): 95–114. 66. G. B. Wood and F. Bache, The Dispensatory of the United States (Philadelphia: Lippincott, Brambo & Co., 1854), 339. 67. For a list of the various countries and regions that were assigned to members of the Provers’ Union to correspond with to obtain knowledge on medicinal practices, see American Provers’ Union, Suggestions for the Proving of Drugs on the Healthy (Philadelphia: King & Baird Printers, 1853). 68. American Provers’ Union, Provings of Cannabis Indica (Philadelphia: King & Bard, 1859), 1. 69. By “playing eastern,” Susan Nance refers to a popular cultural phenomenon in the United States of performance “in the guise of persons from the East” by those who “claimed special knowledge of an ethnically and religiously diverse spectrum of

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predominantly Muslim lands stretching from Morocco to India.” See Nance, Arabian Nights, 1. 70. Nance, Arabian Nights, 58. 71. Campos, Home Grown, 10. 72. Francis Marion Nye, “On Cannabis Indica” (MD thesis Medical College of the State of Carolina, 1858), 7–8. 73. Nye, “On Cannabis Indica,” 5–6. 74. Willard Ide Pierce, Plain Talks on Materia Medica with Comparison (Philadelphia: Boericke & Tafell, 1911), 263. 75. James L. Humphrey, “Hashish or Indian Hemp” (MD thesis Albany Medical College, 1866). 76. For more details and source citations on the intersection between medical and recreational cannabis consumption, see Rathge, “Cannabis Cures,” 48–65. 77. Fitzhugh Ludlow, The Hasheesh Eater: Being Passages from the Life of a Pythagorean (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1857), 17. 78. Ludlow, Hasheesh Eater, 18. 79. Ludlow, Hasheesh Eater, 18–19. 80. For details on the introduction of drug cannabis as hashish into French society, see Guba, Taming Cannabis, 96–133. 81. Ragthe, “Cannabis Cures,” 43–46. 82. Donald P. Dulchinos, Pioneer of Inner Space: The Life of Fitz Hugh Ludlow, Hasheesh Eater (New York: Autonomedia Press, 1998), 71–111. 83. Susan Zeigar, “Pioneers of Inner Space: Drug Autobiography and Manifest Destiny,” PMLA 122, no. 5 (2007): 1531. 84. Anonymous, “Literary Notices,” in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 15, no. 90 (1857): 834–35. 85. Anonymous, “Hasheesh,” in The Saturday Review 5, no. 120 (1858): 166–67. 86. Anonymous, “Narcotics,” in The North American Review 95, no. 197 (1862): 375. 87. For more examples of the transatlantic discourse on Ludlow’s book, see Borougerdi, Commodifying Cannabis, 100–104. 88. John Patrick Deveney, Paschal Beverly Randolph: A Nineteenth-Century Black American Spiritualist, Rosicrucian, and Sex Magician (New York: State University of New York Press, 1997), 1–62 89. Paschal Beverly Randolph, The Guide to Clairvoyance, and Clairvoyant’s Guide: A Practical Manual for Those Who Aim at Perfect Clear Seeing and Psychometry; Also, A Special Paper Concerning Hashish, its Uses, Abuses, and Dangers, its Extasia, Fantasia, and Illuminatti (Boston: Rockwell & Rollins, 1867), 32–39. 90. Randolph, Guide to Clairvoyance, 32. 91. Deveney, Paschal Beverly Randolph, 72. 92. Deveney, Paschal Beverly Randolph, 416; Randolph, Guide to Clairvoyance, 14. 93. Deveney, Paschal Beverly Randolph, 417; for more on the origins and development of the connection between cannabis consumption and insanity, see Mills, Cannabis Britannica.



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94. Nance, Arabian Nights, 96. 95. For more information on Rawson, Blavatsky, and the Orientalism of their works, see Nance, Arabian Nights, 92–98. 96. Borougerdi, Commodifying Cannabis, 135; Rathge, “Cannabis Cures,” 104–5. 97. For a discussion of Ludlow in connection to the increase in concern over habitual drug use, see Rathge, “Cannabis Cures,” 97–99; for more on Randolph’s death, see Deveney, Paschal Beverly Randolph, 236–40. 98. Caroline Acker, Creating the American Junkie: Addiction Research in the Classic Era of Narcotic Control (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 185. 99. Max Jones and John Chilton (eds), Louis: The Louis Armstrong Story, 1900– 1971 (Boston: Little Brown & Co., 1971). 100. David F. Musto (ed.), Drugs in America: A Documentary History (New York: New York University Press, 2002), 412. 101. Arjun Appadurai, The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), ix. 102. Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), 153, 13. 103. Borougerdi, Commodifying Cannabis, 142–47. 104. Marilyn Tausend and Ricardo Zurita, La Cocina Mexicana: Many Cultures, One Cuisine (Berkeley: University of Californian Press, 2012), ix.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Sources Archival Sources British Library India Office Records, IOR/F/4/2015/90072.

Periodicals Bell, Jacob, ed. Pharmaceutical Journal and Transactions. Volume 2. London: John Churchill, 1843. Hayes, Isaac, ed. The American Journal of Medical Sciences. Volume 23. Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard, 1852. High Times Magazine. Nicholson, William, ed. A Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, and the Arts. Volume 11. London: Crown Court, 1805. The North American Review. Roxburgh, William, Herman W. Ryland, W. Allan, and G. Ward. Transactions of the Society, Instituted at London, for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce. Volume 24. London, 1806. The Saturday Review.

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Taylor, Charles, ed. The Literary Panorama. Volume 1. London: Cox, Son, and Bayles, 1807.

Printed Sources American Provers’ Union. Provings of Cannabis Indica. Philadelphia: King & Bard, 1859. ———. Suggestions for the Proving of Drugs on the Healthy. Philadelphia: King & Baird Printers, 1853., Anderson, James. Recreations in Agriculture, Natural-History, Arts, and Miscellaneous Literature. Volume 3. London: T. Bentley, 1800. Balick, Michael J., and Paul Alan Cox. Plants, People, and Culture: The Science of Ethnobotany. New York: Scientific American Library, 1996. Barton, William P. C. Prodrome of a Work to Aid the Teaching of the Vegetable Materia Medica. Philadelphia: Pupils of the Institute, 1833. Curling, Thomas Blizard. A Practical Treatise on the Diseases of the Testis: And of the Spermatic Cord and Scrotum. Philadelphia: Carey and Hart, 1843. De Quincey, Thomas. Confessions on an English Opium Eater. London: Taylor and Hessey, 1821. Dow, Alexander. The History of Hindustan. Volume 3. London: Becket & De Hondt, 1772. Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. Humphrey, James L. “Hashish or Indian Hemp.” MD thesis Albany Medical College, 1866. Jones, Max, and John Chilton, eds. Louis: The Louis Armstrong Story, 1900–1971. Boston: Little Brown & Co., 1971. Ludlow, Fitzhugh. The Hasheesh Eater: Being Passages from the Life of a Pythagorean. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1857. Musto, David F., ed. Drugs in America: A Documentary History. New York: New York University Press, 2002. Nye, Francis Marion. “On Cannabis Indica.” MD thesis Medical College of the State of Carolina, 1858. Parr, Bartholomew. The London Medical Dictionary. London: J. Johnson & Co., 1809. Pierce, Willard Ide. Plain Talks on Materia Medica with Comparison. Philadelphia: Boericke & Tafell, 1911. Randolph, Paschal Beverly. The Guide to Clairvoyance, and Clairvoyant’s Guide: A Practical Manual for Those Who Aim at Perfect Clear Seeing and Psychometry; Also, A Special Paper Concerning Hashish, its Uses, Abuses, and Dangers, its Extasia, Fantasia, and Illuminatti. Boston: Rockwell & Rollins, 1867. Royle, John Forbe. Essays on the Productive Resources on India. London: H. Allen & Co., 1840. Sullivan, John. Russian Cloth Seals in Britain: Trade, Textiles, and Origins. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2012.



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Wissett, Robert. On the Cultivation and Preparation of Hemp, as Also, of the Article, Produced in Various Parts of India, called Sunn. London: Cox & Son, 1804. Wood, George B., and F. Bache. The Dispensatory of the United States. Philadelphia: Lippincott, Brambo & Co., 1854.

Secondary Sources Acker, Caroline. Creating the American Junkie: Addiction Research in the Classic Era of Narcotic Control. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. Adam, Thomas. Intercultural Transfers and the Making of the Modern World: Sources and Contexts. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Appadurai, Arjun. The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Bender, Thomas. A Nation among Nations: America’s Place in World History. New York: Hill & Wang, 2006. Borougerdi, Bradley J. Commodifying Cannabis: A Cultural History of a Complex Plant in the Atlantic World. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2018. Campos, Isaac. Home Grown: Marijuana and the Origins of Mexico’s War on Drugs. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2012. Carney, Judith, and R. N. Rosomoff. In the Shadow of Slavery: Africa’s Botanical Legacy in the Atlantic World. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. Clarke, Robert C., and Mark Merlin. Cannabis: Evolution and Ethnobotany. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013. Crosby, Alfred. America, Russia, Hemp, and Napoleon: American Trade with Russia and the Baltic, 1783–1812. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 1965. ———. The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1972. DeGrandpre, Richard. The Cult of Pharmacology: How America Became the World’s Most Troubled Drug Culture. Durham: Duke University Press, 2006. Deveney, John Patrick. Paschal Beverly Randolph: A Nineteenth-Century Black American Spiritualist, Rosicrucian, and Sex Magician. New York: State University of New York Press, 1997. Dufton, Emily. Grassroot: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Marijuana in America. New York: Basic Books, 2017. Duvall, Chris S. The African Roots of Marijuana. Durham: Duke University Press, 2019. ———. Cannabis. London: Reaktion Books, 2015. Earleywine, Mitch. Understanding Marijuana: A New Look at the Scientific Evidence. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Francaviglia, Richard. Go East, Young Man: Imagining the American West as the Orient. Logan: Utah State University Press, 2011. Gomez, Michael. Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebellum South. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1998.

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Guba Jr., David A. Taming Cannabis: Drugs and Empire in Nineteenth-Century France. London: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020. Gusfield, Joseph R. The Culture of Public Problems: Drinking-Driving and the Symbolic Order. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981. Habermas, Jürgen. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1989. Hashim, Nadra O. Hemp, and the Global Economy: The Rise of Labor, Innovation, and Trade. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2017. Kopytoff, Igor. “The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as Process.” In The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, edited by Arjun Appadirau, 64–91. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Lears, T. J. Jackson. “The Concept of Cultural Hegemony: Problems and Possibilities.” The American Historical Review 90, no. 3 (1985): 567–93. Mattingly, Nick. “Natural Knowledge and Sea Power: The Cultivation of Hemp in the British Imperial World.” PhD thesis Southern Cross University, 2013. Mills, James H. Cannabis Britannica: Empire, Trade, and Prohibition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Mintz, Sidney. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. New York: Penguin Books, 1985. Nance, Susan. How the Arabian Nights Inspired the American Dream, 1790–1935. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009. Nechtman, Tillman W. Nabobs: Empire and Identity in Eighteenth Century Britain. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Pollan, Michael. Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World. New York: Random House, 2001. Porter, Roy. The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity. New York: Norton & Company, 1997. Rathge, Adam. “Cannabis Cures: American Medicine, Mexican Marijuana, and the Origins of the War on Weed, 1840–1937.” PhD thesis Boston College, 2017. Richert, Lucas and James H. Mills, eds. Cannabis Global Histories. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2021. Schiebinger, Londa. Plants and Empire: Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014. Seth, Vanita. Europe’s Indians: Producing Racial Difference, 1500–1900. London: Duke University Press 2010. Snelders, Stephen, Charles Kaplan, and Toines Pieters. “On Cannabis, Chloral Hydrate, and Career Cycles of Psychotropic Drugs in Medicine.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 80, no. 1 (2006): 95–114. Stoa, Ryan. Craft Weed: Family Farming and the Future of the Marijuana Industry. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2018. Tausend, Marilyn, and Ricardo Zurita. La Cocina Mexicana: Many Cultures, One Cuisine. Berkeley: University of Californian Press, 2012. Taylor, Charles. Modern Social Imaginaries. Durham: Duke University Press, 2004.



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Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Boston: Beacon Press, 1995. Zeigar, Susan. “Pioneers of Inner Space: Drug Autobiography and Manifest Destiny.” PMLA 122, no. 5 (2007): 1531–47.

Chapter 4

Martin Niemöller Visits America The Christian–Totalitarian Dichotomy and Transnational Religious Identity in the West, 1945–1950 Ky Woltering

On June 5, 1945, in Naples, Italy, British and American reporters interviewed the heralded German Protestant Pastor Martin Niemöller. Undoubtedly, Niemöller had endured significant hardship in Nazi Germany. His vocal opposition to Adolf Hitler’s church policy, his efforts in forming the Pastors’ Emergency League, and his lengthy imprisonment in the concentration camps Sachsenhausen and Dachau had left him physically and emotionally drained.1 Indeed, Niemöller experienced a deep and lasting spiritual crisis as Hitler’s “personal prisoner” from 1937 to 1945. Seven years of internment, often in solitary confinement, coupled with the death of one of his sons on the Eastern Front, the internment of another as a POW in the USSR (who would eventually return home to Germany), and the loss of his daughter to diphtheria affected him deeply. Niemöller even (allegedly) considered converting to Catholicism during his imprisonment in Dachau owing to discussions with fellow prominent Catholic prisoners Johannes Neuhäusler, Karl Kunkel, and Michael Höck.2 In May of 1945, in Northern Italy, American troops rescued Niemöller from certain death at the hands of an SS execution squad.3 His encounter with Western reporters immediately followed this harrowing experience, with Niemöller understandably anxious to be reunited with his remaining family in Germany. The interview, resembling a press conference more than a one-on-one discussion, consisted of a particularly strained pastor not exactly known for his even-temperament,4 a handful of American chaplains, and a series of 101

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reporters anxious to get news of the famous pastor.5 There is evidence that Niemöller in fact considered the session to be a religious service for American chaplains, though this seems unlikely given the presence of the press at the event.6 The press’ interest in Niemöller was hardly surprising, given that the American media had sensationalized his resistance to Nazism. Books such as Leo Stein’s embellished novel I Was in Hell with Martin Niemoeller (1942) and Basil Miller’s biography Martin Niemoeller: Hero of the Concentration Camp (1942) both dramatized Niemöller’s disputes with Hitler. Films like Pastor Hall and plays such as God is my Fuehrer similarly aggrandized the pastor’s stand against Nazism.7 TIME magazine’s cover featuring Niemöller in its Christmas release in 1940, boldly proclaimed: “Only the Cross has not Bowed to Hitler.”8 The ubiquitousness of Niemöller’s plight has led Matthew Hockenos to claim that Niemöller was likely the most well-known German figure in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s.9 His popularity also reflected the successes of Judeo-Christian leaders’ propaganda campaigns, as well as the US government, both of whom positioned the United States as the defender of Judeo-Christian morality during World War II.10 Unsurprisingly perhaps, Niemöller’s usual candor at the Naples interview challenged this simplistic portrayal of his personality and actions. Niemöller’s interview suggested that he remained an ardent nationalist and revealed to the public that he had even volunteered to re-enlist in the German Navy in 1939 despite his imprisonment.11 He claimed to have “nourished the hope that National Socialism, if it had gone the right way, might have developed into a system for creating good for the German people,” and that he had “been deceived” by Hitler and his Nazi thugs.12 Moreover, Niemöller stated that the German people “like to be governed and live under some authority,” that he believed Germans were “incapable of living under a democracy,” and that his resistance to Nazism had been religious, not political.13 Niemöller’s comments shattered the illusion of a powerful dichotomy that emerged in both the United States and Europe as a consequence of the political and social crisis of the 1930s. This dichotomy, which I call the Christian–Totalitarian Dichotomy, positioned Christianity against oppressive “totalitarian” forces.14 For Americans, the Dichotomy served as mobilizing propaganda during World War II, stipulating that both National Socialism and communism sought to supersede the Christian God, either through the idol of the “Aryan race” or via “materialist nihilism.” This maneuver attempted to counter the growing logic of progressive secularism, interpreting both “totalitarian”15 ideologies as fundamentally profane, selfish, and politically “religious.”16 However, the Dichotomy also reaffirmed American democratic values. It closely tied together Enlightenment natural rights theory with Christian universalism, drawing from the United States’ long history of English Protestantism.17 Collectively, the Dichotomy conflated Nazism

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with communism and strongly associated democracy with “divine” Christian morality, functioning in the postwar era as a critical arm of what John Fousek calls “nationalist globalism.”18 By simultaneously reinforcing notions of both American greatness via the superiority of democracy and global responsibility through the fight against totalitarianism, the Christian–Totalitarian Dichotomy articulated a distinctly Christian national identity while also reinforcing the need to spread and defend American values internationally.19 But in Germany, as Niemöller’s comments suggest, the Dichotomy played out differently. While German Protestants likewise saw “godless” communism as unredeemable and a serious threat to Christianity, they did not equate democracy with Christian values. Instead, throughout the 1920s and into the 1930s, they cherished hopes that National Socialism might rejuvenate the German nation through a combination of authoritarianism, anti-Semitism, anti-communism, and nationalism.20 While World War II and twelve years of Nazi rule had disabused most German Protestants of this notion, most still did not see democracy as compatible with Christianity in the mid-and late 1940s. As a result, while Germans and Americans both claimed that Christian belief and Nazism were fundamentally incompatible—extending this logic by aggrandizing Christian resistance to the Nazi State—German use of the binary equation varied from individual to individual and differed significantly in some ways from American claims.21 The response to Niemöller’s comments, from the general press, American church leadership, and Niemöller himself, illuminate the ways in which the conflicting American and German interpretations of the Dichotomy formulated in a transnational relationship. Niemöller’s honest self-reflection departed from the American narrative of the Dichotomy by rejecting the truss between democratic values and Christian morality. Thus, his comments diametrically refuted the very principles of the Dichotomy that the American media and Protestant church members had been using him to construct, as the revelation of Niemöller’s continued nationalism and anti-democractic attitudes undermined the constructed image of his person in the American media and by extension the validity and accuracy of the Dichotomy. This maneuver, therefore, not only challenged American justifications for World War II and American Christians’ understanding of their own faith, but also the widespread belief that communism posed a direct threat to Christians and, by extension, American beliefs. This chapter charts Martin Niemöller’s trip to the United States in late 1946 and early 1947, the first time a non-military sponsored German civilian entered the United States after the war.22 It considers Niemöller’s reputation, conduct, and actions leading up to and immediately following his interview in Naples, before then examining how American Protestants in occupied Germany responded to and interpreted his comments, attempting to rehabilitate his image both in the eyes of American military personnel and the public

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at large. Next, it considers criticism of Niemöller’s visit and how Niemöller himself utilized the language and logic of the Dichotomy in his many speeches with American audiences during his tour. Finally, it will consider the tour as a whole, offering a summary of its overall outcomes. Overall, I suggest that the purpose of the tour, the surrounding press coverage, and Niemöller’s own actions illustrate the ways in which both Americans and Germans sought to use Niemöller’s reputation for political ends and how Christian identity and Cold War anti-communism was formed in transnational exchanges between Americans and Germans. American Protestants carefully cultivated Niemöller’s resistance record to strengthen the Dichotomy and to argue for the necessity of Christian aid to Germany and American intervention in Europe. German Protestants, eager to rebuild their reputation abroad, likewise attempted to utilize Niemöller’s record to strengthen the rather self-serving joint American–German claim that Christianity had functioned, and would continue to function, as a form of protection against totalitarian ideology. However, as Niemöller’s candid comments in Naples demonstrated, he often refused to abide by or be utilized as a tool for strengthening the Dichotomy and vacillated between anti-Western integration and pro-Western sentiments. This vacillation in many ways anticipated the European Cold War pacificism and neutralism of the 1950s and beyond, which often used religious justifications when opposing military rearmament and nuclear weapons.23 Niemöller’s paradoxical acceptance and refutation of the Dichotomy also revealed the ways in which hardline anti-communists, American Protestant ecumenists, and German national conservatives sought to use him for their own political agendas. THE MYTH AND THE MAN: CONSIDERING NIEMÖLLER’S INTERVIEW IN CONTEXT After the interview in Naples, American press outlets made a meal of Niemöller’s comments with histrionic headlines like Sam Pope Brewer’s in the New York Times: “Niemoeller asks [for] Iron Rule of Reich."24 To a certain extent, the press’ reaction to the reality of Niemöller’s character was inevitable given wartime propaganda and its portrayal of Niemöller as a paragon of Christian opposition to National Socialism. Certainly, there had been ample evidence that Niemöller was not everything his most ardent supporters claimed he was, given the fierce nationalism he had demonstrated during and after World War I in his popular autobiography From U-boat to Pulpit (1934), his participation in the Freikorps, and his support for the failed Kapp Putsch in 1920.25

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Still, the pastor’s record of resistance was among the strongest of any surviving Protestant church leader, and his turbulent confrontation with Hitler in 1934 has rightly become a key moment in Confessing Church lore.26 He was one of the few pastors to recognize the threat the Aryan Paragraph presented to the Christian rite of baptism, even if he harbored anti-Semitic sentiments of his own.27 His open declarations of remorse, in conjunction with his comparatively positive wartime record of resistance, made him an incredibly useful ally in the postwar ecumenical movement and a potentially powerful figure in German politics. Perhaps more so than any other national-conservative German church leader, Niemöller moved away from German Lutheran orthodoxy and toward a more ecumenically, politically, and racially inclusive form of Christianity. But his paradoxical and seemingly contradictory statements, seen, for example, in his open admissions of guilt and repentance and yet fierce criticism of denazification, make it incredibly difficult to place Niemöller into almost any category of Protestant postwar factions.28 Upon his return to Germany, Niemöller quickly established himself as somewhat of a maverick within the Protestant churches. His open engagement with and acknowledgment of the Holocaust separated him from virtually all of his Lutheran peers. In 1946, he wrote: “I think we Christians belonging to the Confessional Church have all the reasons for saying; ‘My fault, my own grievous fault.’”29 Niemöller also urged all Germans to come forth in a public declaration of faults and wrongdoings by rejecting the absolution of guilt for the individual who had “just followed orders.” In his eyes, every German had something to feel guilty about: “The guilt exists there is no doubt about it. Even if there were no other guilt than that of the six million clay urns, containing the ashes of burnt Jews from all over Europe.”30 Such comments stand in rather stark contrast to the passive admittance of guilt issued in the official statement of the postwar German Protestant Church— The Stuttgart Declaration of Guilt.31 Niemöller in many ways became the symbol of German guilt and repentance, or at least Protestant guilt and repentance, enshrined in his now ubiquitous poem inscribed at the Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand (Memorial Site of German Resistance) in Berlin: When the Nazis came for the Communists, I remained silent; I was not a Communist. When the Nazis came for the Social Democrats, I remained silent; I was not a Social Democrat. When the Nazis came for the trade unionists, I remained silent; I was not a trade unionist. When the Nazis came for the Jews, I remained silent; I was not a Jew. When they came for me, there was no one left who could protest.32

Still, Niemöller did not abandon nationalism in the late 1940s and 1950s. His attacks on the division of Germany in 1949 revealed a degree of continuity in

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his nationalist rhetoric. Allied occupation authorities, well aware of the potential influence Niemöller wielded, kept their distance from his political statements and treaded carefully in their dealings with the man. Marshall Knappen, head of the American Religious Affairs Office until 1947, noted as early as July 19, 1945, that American officials must distinguish between “Niemöller the. . . . Confessional martyr . . . [and] Niemöller the politically-minded retired naval officer.” Knappen argued that while the former should be “accorded the freedom and respect” due to him, the latter, “who says he will serve his people ‘politically, if necessary’ and then launches a campaign which tends to turn us against our Russian allies and to discredit current Anglo-American policy . . . is to be carefully watched.”33 Knappen had good reason to be cautious, as Niemöller’s criticism of American policy (especially denazification) demonstrated. Even General Lucius Clay, who largely supported church activities during his tenure as military governor of the US Occupied Military Zone in Germany, expressed concerns about Niemöller in September of 1945, stating: “While permitting Niemöller to take active leadership in religious affairs, we have not felt it is advisable to utilize his services in other fields as yet. While his anti-Nazi stand was demonstrated fully by his own actions, it is still too early to predict as to his wholehearted rejection of the militaristic and nationalistic concepts of the former German state.”34 Considering Niemöller therefore requires a great deal of caution. On the one hand, one must say that Niemöller’s experiences during the war greatly affected his political and theological outlook, facilitating his break with the enduring spirit of Prussian Lutheran conservatism. But on the other hand, one must be careful not to presume that his transition into the broader ecumenical pro-democratic consensus was inevitable.35 He consistently said as much in relation to questions about democracy and the political future of Germany. In 1947, when asked to choose between the Weimar Republic (1919–1933) and the Wilhelmine Empire (1871–1918), he answered unequivocally in favor of the latter.36 In late 1947, Niemöller reiterated his controversial comments from Naples, and stated that he could not be certain that democracy could work in Germany.37 In 1981, when asked why he had volunteered to join the German navy during World War II, Niemöller admitted that patriotism had driven him, and that he had brooded over another possible German defeat like that of 1918.38 While Niemöller’s experiences in prison likely caused him to rethink his values more critically than many of his peers, his position during occupation and the early years of the Federal Republic, especially toward democracy, was in flux. Ultimately though, both the Protestant Church in Germany (EKD) and international ecumenical leaders needed Niemöller, precisely because he embodied their claims about the incompatibility of Nazism and Christianity. Furthermore, his notoriety similarly purchased credit with Allied occupation forces and international audiences. This meant that even his

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opponents sought to use the image of a heroic Niemöller to further the EKD’s position in German society and its privileged position during occupation. “That Unfortunate Incident in Naples”: Rehabilitating Niemöller’s Image Upon Niemöller’s return to Germany, American religious liaisons were quick to begin damage control for his comments in Naples. Being acutely aware of the negative press coverage Niemöller’s comments had caused, and concerned about the effect this might have on the broader Protestant ecumenical movement as well as Allied policies toward the German churches, ecumenical allies in Germany sought to minimize the damage. They insisted Niemöller’s comments were “taken out of context,” and did not fully represent his values or his potential usefulness to the Allied cause. Ecumenical leaders in the United States also hoped Niemöller might visit their country and made contact with him in 1945.39 Niemöller desired to visit both the United Kingdom and the United States to personally thank friends and colleagues for their support,40 but upon becoming vice president of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany and the head of its department for relations with foreign churches, his reputation, the great material need of the German Protestant churches, and the evolving postwar relationship between Germany and the United States meant that any sort of visit was bound to take on significant meaning both politically and religiously. However, gaining approval from the State Department and military for Niemöller to enter the United States proved challenging. State Department undersecretary Dean Acheson explicitly rejected Niemöller’s early visas, stating that he hoped the first visitors from Germany “would be indisputably representative of democratic and peace-loving forces within Germany,” and while he supported Niemoeller’s commitment to repentance, he believed his politics were “hostile to our occupation objectives.”41 Niemöller’s comments in Naples had the effect that many of his supporters feared, and, as such, they attempted to justify any potential visit through the American occupation authority’s strong proclivity for separating out “religious” and political” issues. This meant proving to Allied authorities that any visit by Niemöller would be purely “religious” in its orientation. American Protestants in Germany were, therefore, careful to present themselves as supporters of occupation policy by encouraging Niemöller to tone down his nationalist rhetoric. American Lutherans Sylvester Clarence Michelfelder and Stewart Herman, along with the Dutch general secretary of the World Council of Churches, Willem Adolph Visser ‘t Hooft, sought out Niemöller in October of 1945. Michelfelder said he wanted Niemöller to explain “that unfortunate incident in Naples.” American occupation

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authorities and American Protestant leaders chose Michelfelder and Herman for their expertise on German Protestant theology and ecclesiastics. Herman had even served as the American pastor of a nondenominational church in Berlin from 1935 to 1941. According to Michelfelder in a report to the American Religious Affairs Office, Niemöller claimed to have offered to serve only to overthrow Hitler and then negotiate a separate peace for Germany. He claimed to have put the issue directly to Niemöller, asking: “If you had known at the time that your own enlistment would have given victory to Hitler’s armies, would you have enlisted? He looked at me in astonishment . . . and answered: ‘No! No! Never!’” Michelfelder, reported that he was convinced that the press had not told the full story about the interview in Naples. Concluding with “My sympathies are with Pastor Niemöller.” He even added a glowing character reference: This is the explanation of a man . . . who loved his God more than he loved his country or his own life and who is ready to lay down his life rather than deny his Christ or see another dictator come to Germany who shall enslave the people and the Church. You cannot be in the presence of such a great personality as Martin Niemöller without realizing that here is a man like a re-incarnated Jeremiah or John the Baptist. . . . He also did say that he objected to the Nazi regime for religious reasons, because Niemöller considers every question whether political or economical, a religious question. Since the national socialist regime ran counter to God’s command by killing the weak and helpless it posed a religious question. . . . And so Dr. Niemöller explained his position that he objected to Hitler on religious grounds. And who would not?42

There seems little reason to consider Michelfelder’s account disingenuous or his enthusiasm for Niemöller artificial. After all, Niemöller’s charismatic and passionate sermons in the late 1930s inspired a substantial number of supporters.43 If his comments in Naples demonstrated nothing else, Niemöller never shied away from what he saw as the truth regardless of the consequences involved. Undoubtedly, this tendency is what brought his differences with Hitler to the forefront and likely captured the attention of the American press and wartime propaganda machine as well.44 Still, his claim that he desired to join in the war in order to overthrow Hitler is worthy of scrutiny given he later noted that a second German defeat had weighed on his mind considerably at the time. Nonetheless, Michelfelder’s report tells us much about how ecumenical Protestants attempted to influence both Niemöller himself and the stories and controversies that surrounded him. Michelfelder seemingly acknowledged that there was no separation between religious and spiritual issues (at least in Niemöller’s case), because he interpreted political scenarios as a religious matter, thereby, again, explaining away Niemöller’s political

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stance. However, Michelfelder also conflated Niemöller’s religious and moral objection to Nazism with Niemöller’s political beliefs. As the interview in Naples illustrated, Niemöller had little objection to the political platform of National Socialism. He certainly did not oppose Nazism based on liberal individualism and rather welcomed aspects of its virulent anti-Semitism and anti-communism. Michelfelder’s report, therefore, illustrates some of the inconsistencies with the Christian–Totalitarian Dichotomy, and, most especially, the differences between the German and American interpretations of postwar Protestant goals. Michelfelder suggested that because Niemöller was “ready to lay down his life” for Christ, he could not possibly be anti-democratic. However, Niemöller’s own comments indicate otherwise, and indeed Michelfelder’s presumed knowledge of German theology demonstrates the lengths to which he went to equate Niemöller’s faith with democracy, even when he surely knew differently. The report obscured Niemöller’s political beliefs in an effort to portray him as a noble resistor fighting against totalitarianism, brushing aside the “unfortunate incident in Naples” as nothing more than poor or biased reporting. Stewart Herman’s reports about Niemöller proceeded along similar lines. He noted that Niemöller informed him that he tried to explain why he offered his services to the German navy, but the press was apparently “forbidden to print his comments.” Furthermore, Niemöller stated that he was acting on advice from his lawyer, who was attempting to save his life at the outbreak of war. He also felt moved to stand by his sons, both of whom had served on the Eastern Front.45 Both reports clearly attempted to rehabilitate Niemöller’s image in the eyes of American authorities. To be sure, Allied command was likely only too pleased to have American church leaders warn Niemöller about the effects his comments had on the press at large,46 especially since they likely presumed further contact from American church leaders would encourage him to tend to church issues over political issues.47 The Holocaust and Nazism, however, had blurred the separation between “political” and “religious” issues even more so than they already were.48 Surely the murder of innocents fell into the “religious” sphere to some extent? Thus paradoxically, American Protestants claimed Niemöller’s religious worldview necessitated political action, while also simultaneously claiming his political statements were, in fact, religious in nature and therefore within the realms of “proper” conduct for a church official. Evidence exists that Protestant representatives not only succeeded in convincing Niemöller to change his tone, but also in convincing Allied military authorities, and the public at large, that Niemöller was a supporter of democracy, and the “unfortunate incident in Naples” was simply a misunderstanding

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and misrepresentation of the true Niemöller. Indeed, historian John Conway notes that as late as 1963, some were still positioning Niemöller as a defender of liberal-democratic values.49 John J. Muccio of the American Religious Affairs Office, after observing Niemöller speak at Treysa in 1945 (the site of the foundational meeting of the EKD by members of the former Confessing Church), noted that Niemöller’s “true” feelings on democracy were in fact positive. Niemöller, he insisted, believed that the church must foster democracy because Christianity alone could foster law and liberty. The American mainline Protestant Federal Council of Churches (FCCoC) employed similar tactics in its efforts to petition for Niemöller and his wife to visit the United States in 1946. Ostensibly, the stated purpose of the trip was to thank the American churches for their support during Hitler’s reign in Germany,50 but in practice, Niemöller’s speeches sought to reinforce the ecumenical relationship between German and American Protestants, express German guilt, reinforce Niemöller’s understanding of the Christian– Totalitarian Dichotomy, and to ask American churches for material aid.51 It also seems likely at least certain portions of American military command were aware of these objectives since Clay assisted the FCCoC General Secretary Sam Calvert in his pursuit to obtain a visa for Niemöller from the State Department.52 Clay’s support proved useful, as John Foster Dulles, then a commissioner with the FCCoC and chief foreign policy adviser to Republican presidential nominee Thomas Dewy, and the Methodist Bishop Garfield Bromley Oxnam succeeded in convincing Acheson to allow Niemöller’s visit.53 “His lights Are Not the Lights of the American People”: Eleanor Roosevelt and Criticism of Niemöller’s Visit Just as American Protestant leaders attempted to improve Niemöller’s reputation in the eyes of American authorities, so too did they try to promote him as a paragon of Christian faithfulness, piety, and anti-Nazi resistance to the American public. Leading up to his visit in December of 1946, several prominent newspapers published excerpts depicting a contrite Niemöller in an effort to garner sympathy for Germans. Still, public criticism of both the visit and Niemöller the individual countered the public image presented by the FCCoC and their allies. Such criticism drew harsh rebukes from Niemöller’s supporters, who responded with efforts to rehabilitate his image often through the confines of the Christian–Totalitarian Dichotomy. Press coverage leading up to Niemöller’s visit focused on explaining the “Naples Incident,” while also emphasizing Niemöller’s, and by extension German Protestants,’ repentance and contrition for the Holocaust and their blindness and inability to prevent Hitler’s conquest of Germany. For instance,

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just a month and a half prior to his arrival, the New York Times published comments Niemöller had made to the German newspaper Tagesspiegel. Niemöller was quoted: “We were dreaming when we thought guilt belonged to the past. When, however, in the midst of a Christian people 6,000,000 persons are deliberately murdered only because they belonged to another race, no one can maintain that that guilt is not a fearful reality.”54 Announcements of Niemöller’s visit often came accompanied by pleas for mercy and sympathy for Germans and their material conditions, establishing a theme for the tour’s tone and emphasis.55 However, Niemöller’s visit certainly did not go without criticism. Eleanor Roosevelt, a vocal critic of Niemöller after the Naples Incident,56 also opposed his visit, in which his wife had joined him. In an excerpt from her syndicated column “My Day,” published shortly after their arrival, Roosevelt argued that, “We must try to prevent easy forgetfulness of where responsibility really lies for the coming to power of the Hitlers and Mussolinis of the world.” Niemöller, she argued, not only bore responsibility for Hitler’s rise to power but also sought to whitewash Germany’s record. She continued: “Anyone who comes to this country and . . . makes us forget this . . . even temporarily, does harm to the policy which must prevail if everywhere we are going to watch out for another rise of fascism.”57 In an earlier piece prior to Niemöller’s arrival, Roosevelt wrote: “While one may applaud his devotion to his church, one can hardly applaud his attitude on the Nazi politics, and I cannot quite see why we should be asked to listen to his lectures. I am sure he is a good man according to his lights, but his lights are not those of the people of the United States who did not like the Hitler political doctrines.”58 Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver, an accomplished scholar, a leading advocate of Jewish-Christian relations, and a staunch Zionist, likewise criticized the narrative of Niemöller as a leading anti-Nazi resistor. In a public address in New York City on February 2, 1947 (during Niemöller’s tour), Silver claimed Niemöller was “unfit” to serve as a “prophet or spiritual leader” in post war Germany because he was “opposed to Hitler and Nazism not because of its humanity-destroying racism but because of its persecution of the German Christian Church.” Like Roosevelt, he worried about the agenda of the press tour stating: “What we are most afraid of in this visit of Pastor Niemöller is that his utterances may be used to allay the fears held by many American people that Germany will be rebuilt without a real moral regeneration of the people.”59 While Roosevelt’s criticism of Niemöller tended to reflect American assumptions that every German was a Nazi or complicit with Nazism, she and Silver in many ways astutely anticipated the tour’s agenda. While often expressing guilt and responsibility for failing to prevent Hitler’s rise to power,

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the tour tended to center on Niemöller’s experiences in prison and Nazi oppression of the Christian churches. This, in combination with his descriptions of material conditions in Germany and his insistence on Christian unity against totalitarianism, accomplished much of what Roosevelt had feared—making Americans forget the role Germans, and especially German Protestants, played in Hitler’s rise to power. Moreover, Roosevelt’s criticism of Niemöller decoupled American democratic liberalism from Christianity, challenging one of the core concepts of the Christian–Totalitarian Dichotomy. Both comments accurately deduced that the values of German Protestants did not correspond to those of American liberalism, and, therefore, its leaders at a minimum ought to be treated with caution if not disregarded entirely. Such criticism, therefore, also threatened to undermine the Protestant insistance that Christianity had, and would continue, to operate in direct opposition to totalitarian regimes.60 Well aware of the criticism against Niemöller and having learned from the Naples Incident, the FCCoC sought to carefully control press coverage by limiting ad hoc speeches, refusing all unscheduled interviews,61 and having FCCoC representative, Ewart E. Turner (the former Methodist pastor of the American Church in Berlin and longtime friend of the Niemöllers), present with the Niemöllers at all times in public.62 General Secretary Calvert of the FCCoC even included a templated letter to all relevant potential hosts that they would be required to “protect the Niemöllers from the press,” signifying the seriousness of the FCCoC’s concerns. Niemöller’s supporters continuously defended the pastor against his critics, especially Eleanor Roosevelt. In response to her comments, the FCCoC called Roosevelt’s criticism a “smear” and demanded that she retract the statements immediately. They accused Roosevelt of perpetuating “misinformation,” and stated emphatically that the “record clearly shows that he [Niemöller] repeatedly spoke against the political aims of the Nazis [sic].” They further requested that she “correct the erroneous impression created by [her] column and give recognition to the fact that Niemoeller took a courageous stand against Nazi polices long before our own country was alert to their danger.” Moreover, they argued that her criticism of Niemöller stemmed from an earlier, likewise erroneous, smear campaign orchestrated by “fellow travelers” and “leftists.”63 Niemöller’s campaign also attended to the criticism by emphasizing his experience in prison and in positive press coverage that accentuated his resistance to Nazism. For example, during Niemöller’s visit to Seattle in December of 1946, the Los Angeles Times directly refuted Roosevelt’s criticism by retelling Niemöller’s confrontation with Hitler in 1934 as proof of his political opposition to Nazism.64 Conservative journalist Westbrook Pegler criticized Roosevelt’s “hypocrisy” for defending the free speech rights of

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communists but refusing to allow Niemöller the “chance to tell his story.”65 Some published letters from readers also condemned Roosevelt’s stance. For instance, Katherine T. Lowery of Elmhurst, New York, complained that Roosevelt was “short on memory.” Surely, she exclaimed, Niemöller “did all he could to make his people see where brown communism would lead them! . . . Mrs. Roosevelt is always pleading with us to understand the Russians. Would it not be a good thing for her now to try and understand a German’s love of country too?”66 Likely unaware, Katherine Lowery tellingly evoked the very language of the Christian–Totalitarian Dichotomy by referring to Nazism as “brown communism.” The FCCoC and other Protestants came to Niemöller’s defense continuously leading up to and over the course of his tour in the United States. Estelle Sternberger, the leftist Jewish activist and political commentator, likewise experienced the full force of the FCCoC’s influence after criticizing Niemöller in a series of columns in early 1947. After raising questions about Niemöller’s record (particularly his participation in unrestricted submarine warfare during World War I and his decision to volunteer for military service despite being imprisoned at the outbreak of World War II), Sternberger retracted her statements and “clarified the record” in a radio address over WLIB Brooklyn after being “challenged” by Henry Smith Leiper and Samuel Calvert of the FCCoC. In response, she issued a lengthy statement depicting Niemöller as a defender of the Jews and a contrite Christian openly repentant for past errors. She also thanked Leiper, Calvert, and General Dwight D. Eisenhower for challenging her, exclaiming: “None of us wants to perpetuate stories that can be denied by reliable evidence.”67 Niemöller and the FCCoC carefully avoided any discussion of the denazification proceedings taking place in occupied Germany, which had come under heavy criticism by the EKD and Niemöller himself. This is for good reason, as current scholarship has conclusively demonstrated the lengths to which German churchmen went to undermine denazification and war crimes trials. This included the writing of glowing character references, which were intended to wipe clean the record of the accused, and consistent public criticizing of the proceedings as unjust, immoral, and nothing short of victor’s justice.68 Their criticism of the trials and their support of numerous defendants went a long way toward the acquittal or lessening of charges of a great many former Nazis. Their criticism proved so effective that American authorities refused to open any new denazification cases in the US occupation zone by 1948.69 The reasons for this omittance are all too clear. Not only did EKD criticism of denazification again reveal the nuggets of truth in Roosevelt’s initial criticism of Niemöller, but they also exposed the paradoxes of the central narratives of Christian resistance toward Nazism.

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The cases of Sternberger and Roosevelt, therefore, reveal two important aspects of how Niemöller’s person was used and interpreted. First, American Protestants clearly made every possible effort to use him to uphold the tenants of the Christian–Totalitarian Dichotomy. Not only did they consistently defend Niemöller’s conduct during the war, they also often interpreted criticism of him to have originated from communist or other totalitarian forces. The careful control of Niemöller’s access to the press and immediate and forceful refutation of any and all criticism made against his person likewise indicates that the narrative of Protestant resistance did not emerge within American political and religious rhetoric without significant effort. The fundamental refusal to acknowledge the legitimacy of Roosevelt’s nuanced criticism of Niemöller’s political conduct outlines the ways in which the Christian–Totalitarian Dichotomy dictated rhetorical and political positions. “That Was the Fight, that Was the War!” Niemöller in America and Hitler’s War against Christ Niemöller’s speeches to American audiences continually reiterated the incompatibility of Christianity and Nazism in his descriptions of the “totalitarian” Nazi state. Speaking in Phoenix on December 15, 1946, Niemöller stated: “There was no place on earth for both Jesus Christ and Adolf Hitler at the same time . . . because Jesus Christ was raised from the dead and He is living, not only in heaven, but on earth, so Hitler . . . had to try to fight Jesus Christ.” While Niemöller did acknowledge that parts of the Protestant churches had succumbed to Nazi pressure, he further claimed that no matter how many pastors Hitler threw into prison, another simply took their place, declaring “the Word of God could not be bound.”70 At Davidson College, in North Carolina, he also emphatically declared: “Hitler and Jesus Christ— these two were competitors, from the beginning, and rivals; and there was no place in the world, and not in Germany, for both of them!”71 Niemöller’s entire tour followed this rhetorical tract: “Not even the prisons and the camps and the totalitarian authority of Adolf Hitler was able to get the better of the church of Jesus Christ.”72 In this sense, Niemöller’s interpretation of totalitarianism mostly matched that of other German Protestant leaders, with some exceptions. Much like his American counterparts, Niemöller understood “the real war” in Germany to be between Hitler and Christ.73 He underlined this point repeatedly with his interpretation of totalitarianism, stating: Adolf Hitler couldn’t help persecuting Jesus Christ because this Jesus Christ is not just the founder and representative of a new religion. . . . Why? Because . . . Jesus Christ has claimed [a] totalitarian regime for all the world, and for the

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world of our present times. He claims that his commands and his rules shall govern mankind. . . . That is the word that couldn’t be heard well by Adolf Hitler, who claimed all this, not in heaven but on earth for himself. . . . Therefore he went out from the beginning of 1933 to do away with Jesus Christ, first, in the German nation and afterward in all those territories he got into his hands.74

Niemöller’s use of the word totalitarian in conjunction with Jesus Christ warrants further scrutiny and offers considerable insight into how German Protestants understood and used the word. First, it seems clear that totalitarianism, for Niemöller, represented the complete permeation of an ideology into all facets of society. Because of this absolute encroachment into society, Niemöller argued that no two totalitarian ideologies could exist side by side. Even more importantly, Christianity qualifies as a totalitarian ideology because true Christianity could not ever accept a form of law above God’s own. Therefore, we can understand the theological framework of the Christian–Totalitarian Dichotomy. Any ideology that sought to supersede God’s Law threatened the entirety of Christianity. Thomas Stafford, who had interviewed Niemöller in 1947 for the Christian Advocate, wrote later that Niemöller understood Christianity as a counter to statist doctrines, and it is here one must say that Niemöller stood apart from his German colleagues. Because Christ is the only one who can be granted “totalitarian authority,” Niemöller distanced himself from a denominational identity in favor of ecumenical Christianity.75 In so doing Niemöller theologically shifted away from a nationalist identity, even if at times his comments still reflected a strong adherence to German nationalism. Niemöller, in contrast to American Protestants, largely discounted a Nazi resurgence in Germany.76 Instead, he saw communism as the central threat to Christian order, though in comparison to other German Protestants Niemöller’s anti-communism was considerably less pronounced. Still, Niemöller argued that the USSR constituted something fundamentally different from Western life. “The Russian will never be a democrat—The same sort of human animal as is today [sic] and will be 2000 years since.” Germany’s fate, according to Niemöller, rested not necessarily on a communist take-over of Europe but rather the spiritual fortitude to survive the clash of East and West. For Niemöller, “The question of whether this or that can be done in Europe is a question of the meeting of those two types of life.” Christianity, he contended, was the only hope for Germany because only Christianity can exist within both the East and West.77 Niemöller’s categorization of Russians and Americans as “types” bears similarities to his insistence that Germany was unsuited for democracy. Both reflected the sort of racial and nationalist thinking that dominated late-nineteenth-century and early-twentieth-century Europe. For Niemöller, only Christianity could solve the crucial question of

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community versus individual by allowing for individual faith but binding the individual to a larger faith-based community. Without a common goal to work toward, without hope for the future, “nihilism” would overtake the German people. The German trapped between these two types, neither of which particularly suited his needs, leads to despondency and aimlessness. Germans, Niemöller said, “live, but they live without faith, and therefore without any conscious plan of life.”78 Because the threat of nihilism was still grave, Niemöller argued Protestants must forget their denominational differences and recognize their commonalities under Christ.79 Niemöller and “The Call for Mercy”: Press Coverage and Sympathy for Germany Coverage of the Niemöller’s tour continued to promote and highlight his speeches, while also continuing to emphasize his personal story and resistance.80 The FCCoC and Niemöller’s allies also continuously published documents explaining his decisions and “easily distorted” anti-democratic statements.81 Yet, in addition to highlighting Niemöller’s understanding of totalitarianism and his religious justification for resistance, the tour emphasized a need for understanding, mercy, and unity between Christians and nations. While Niemöller’s speeches usually centered on his personal experiences and Nazi persecution of Christians, he did at times address current circumstances in Germany. Although he did not directly ask for assistance from American churches,82 he occasionally told stories detailing the poverty, violence, and despondence many Germans were experiencing. Many of his speeches included anecdotal evidence of German despondence and fears of starvation. Niemöller’s descriptions of the East best demonstrate this tendency. In one speech, he exclaimed: The sense of this cutting off of the East has remained incomprehensible even to those who accepted, without opposition albeit with a heavy heart, the succession of whole German provinces to the Polish State. But why . . . now that the war has ended . . . is starvation on a gigantic scale being allowed to rear its head, starvation to which must fall, victims, hundreds of thousands [sic], who for the most part bear no personal guilt for the events of the past.83

Niemöller also described the refugee situation as exacerbating Germans’ existential despair and material circumstances. After being asked to officiate the funeral of a fifty-year-old refugee weighing a meagre fifty-eight pounds who perished just one day after reuniting with her family in the West, Niemöller asked rhetorically whether “with a little good will, all this confusion and want

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could have been avoided.” He argued that “such cases [of the refugee] are by no means isolated . . . [and] they leave deep and abiding scars on the souls of the people . . . and at the same time they lend support to the current rumors, which maintain that the occupying Powers are determined further to decimate what remains of the depleted German population.”84 Such stories from Niemöller were not unusual,85 and reveal that Roosevelt’s concerns about the tour generating sympathy for Germans were by no means unfounded. They likewise indicate, especially Niemöller’s understandable lamentation at the loss of the territories east of the Oder and Niesse rivers, that he certainly still held nationalist impulses and concerns. Indeed, Matthew Hockenos noted, “the ultimate purpose of the Niemoeller’s speaking tour was to alleviate German suffering at home.” The strategy, he stated, was to persuade “as many Americans as possible that Germans were a peace-loving people with deep Christian roots—a people the American government should treat as friends rather than a defeated enemy.”86 But most importantly, and in conjunction with more overt appeals by the FCCoC and other Protestant congregations, they revealed a joint Protestant opposition to the conditions imposed upon Germany by the Allies at the Conference at Potsdam in 1945 and a clear campaign to politicize the material conditions in Germany through the confines of the Christian–Totalitarian Dichotomy. The implications were clear: American Christians, through their brotherhood in faith, had the capacity to prevent the rise of despair, injustice, and totalitarianism in Germany through financial, spiritual, and emotional support of the German churches. This framing also reinforced John Fousek’s concept of global nationalism within American Protestantism by detailing America’s messianic role in the world. The physical repair of the German churches became indistinguishable from the political aims of fighting the “spiritual” forces of totalitarianism. Niemöller also undoubtedly intended to further strengthen the link between American and German churches, which had already begun to send aid to Germany. He continually thanked the American people for their prayers during his imprisonment and the FCCoC even circulated a special Christmas message he wroteto “Our Christian Friends in America” in 1947. The statement directly thanked Americans for demonstrating: New evidence of the real and deep-rooted unity of the one ecumenical church of Jesus Christ, our Lord . . . your churches . . . have become a great blessing to us and you have helped us in our hour of need by sending food, clothing and medical supplies. In this way, you have helped in saving lives, and have testified to the spirit of Christian brotherhood and reconciliation.87

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Moreover, most of Niemöller’s speeches also included the collection of some sort of donation (usually clothing), with some even calling for a donation in their advertisements. Thus, while neither Niemöller solicited gifts or donations, their very presence in the context of Protestant rhetoric encouraged such donations—especially as Niemöller consistently detailed Nazi oppression of Christians and emphasized Protestant ecumenism. Furthermore, the FCCoC authorized and announced the creation of the Church World Service, a conglomerate of Protestant worldwide relief agencies in December of 1946, just as the Niemöllers arrived in the United States. Thus, FCCoC promotions for the tour often also included an announcement about the new relief agency.88 On his return to Germany in late spring 1947, with his rhetorical restraints seemingly lifted, Niemöller wrote a letter to Reverend Frederick Forell, secretary of the Emergency Committee for German Protestantism, urging the sending of foodstuffs to Germany in great haste. He lamented that “people who are suffering today and who are facing the death of starvation . . . are being convinced that the whole propaganda for democracy has been an illusion, worse even than Hitler’s propaganda.” Continuing, he remarked their faith in Western Powers’ purported Christianity “has been utterly shattered . . . the result is Nihilism, and the dying people today [are] cursing God and man.” He went on to question both Western and Soviet reports, stating that “since the end of hostilities, 6,000,000 Germans have disappeared . . . people who know these facts and are facing now the general starvation in the Western Zones can’t help thinking that this whole development is nothing else than the Morgenthau plan put into action, with the tendency to exterminate a whole nation to its very roots.” The letter, subsequently summarized in part by the New York Times,89 conclusively indicates Niemöller’s aim to influence Western policy in Germany as well as to acquire relief for Germans. He continued to reiterate such criticisms and concerns throughout the late 1940s.90 Just as Niemöller’s criticism of Western policy contained hints of anti-Western sentiment, his subsequent statements and actions reveal a mistrust of the American postwar aims and a refusal to abide by the anticommunist principles of the Christian–Totalitarian Dichotomy. If Niemöller’s assertion that the partitioning of Germany had been “conceived by the Vatican and born in Washington,” did not demonstrate this clearly enough, his criticism of German rearmament, his outbursts against Western “propaganda,” his unsanctioned and impromptu visit to the USSR in 1951,91 and his refusal to adopt a strong anti-communist position surely do. Niemöller’s position anticipated German, and indeed European, Cold War politics in the early 1950s. His reluctance to embrace Western integration as a logical consequence of Christian unity in the face of totalitarian communism transitioned into Cold War neutralism. Indeed, Niemöller featured in Gustav Heinemann’s heavily Protestant, All-German People’s Party, which

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opposed German rearmament and a united Western military alliance against the USSR.92 Curiously, Niemöller’s adoption of anti-Western integration coincided with a deepening of his democratic attitudes. In his case, despite seemingly coming to accept the strong correlation between democracy and Christian belief as the American interpretation of the Christian–Totalitarian Dichotomy projects, his opposition to Western integration seems to have emerged as a consequence of this belief, rather than its rejection. CONCLUSION: NIEMÖLLER, ECUMENISM, AND THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE CHRISTIAN– TOTALITARIAN DICHOTOMY While Martin Niemöller’s shift toward ecumenism over a nationalist-based religion was more pronounced than that of the majority of his colleagues, his prioritizing of Christian identity as a response to totalitarianism was not. In this respect, his American journey did much to solidify the ecumenical movement in Europe and the United States. Conservative Protestants such as Hans Asmussen, Hans Lilje, and even arch-conservative Hans Meiser supported international Protestant movements in one form or another following Niemöller’s lead after 1946. The resounding success of his trip confirmed, at least in the minds of the FCCoC and the WCC leadership, that a broader proselytizing of Europe was in fact possible.93 The Christian–Totalitarian Dichotomy, therefore, allowed Americans and Germans to find common ground after the war. For Americans, this proved that all Germans were in fact not Nazis and could be counted upon to uphold biblical values in the future if given proper support. For Germans, it paved a path forward after Nazism that did not involve a complete break from German tradition. By claiming Christianity as the antithesis of Nazism, German pastors and parishioners alike could simultaneously repent for not believing or praying ardently enough, while claiming membership in a group that could not possibly be Nazi and was, in fact, a principal opponent of Nazi totalitarianism. That this identity also carried with it varying degrees of anti-communism and an international support network, meant that asserting a firm Christian identity also included a place in the new post-world order. Because of the Christian–Totalitarian Dichotomy’s flexibility, individuals could maintain existing ideological and/or racial assumptions without threatening coherency. This allowed a diverse group of Christians to buy into the concept and work toward similar goals. For Americans, this often meant insisting on the connection between the Wilsonian promise of spreading democracy and Christianity.94 For Germans, this meant continuing racial prejudices like those uttered by Niemöller in relation to Russian and German

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capacities for democracy. That Niemöller contradicted his own emphasis on Christian identity with nationalist identity demonstrates both his individual transition away from conservative nationalism and the ways in which the identities often conflicted in the postwar moment. The Niemöllers’ trip, therefore, reinforced key rhetorical and theological points of ecumenical Protestantism: First, that Christian principles could provide both international peace and prevent the return of totalitarian ideologies. Second, the example of German history and the Third Reich demonstrated the effects of a societal abandonment of God and His commandments. To a certain extent, the Christian–Totalitarian Dichotomy blamed Hitler’s rise on a lack of true faith. Finally, it convinced many Americans that the United States was uniquely poised to show Germany the proper path. Central Europe, Niemöller stated, had “somehow gotten a new faith, a new soul, a new life” in response to Nazi persecution. When Christians congregated, it fostered a peace that was “higher than all human understanding . . . and [more] durable and . . . stronger even than persecution and suffering.”95 His implication was clear: A Christian World Order required German and American cooperation. However, the tour also demonstrated that American and German understandings of the Christian–Totalitarian Dichotomy were strained, especially over politics. Roosevelt’s criticism of Niemöller’s political ethics demanded a response from sympathetic Protestants eager to change the tide of American public opinion and influence American occupation and foreign policy in Europe. Their insistence on coupling theological and political ethics best demonstrates this point. Efforts to organize Niemöller’s speaking points, limit press interaction, and otherwise control the media narratives similarly indicated that the tour was in many ways a continuation of American wartime propaganda. The FCCoC used Niemöller as a symbol of Christian resistance toward totalitarianism, a mantle Niemöller was happy enough to take up provided it did not bind Germany indefinitely to Western democratic-liberalism and did not include an uncompromising stance toward the USSR. Still, Niemöller’s American tour succeeded in eliciting an emotional response from American Protestants by reinforcing the Christian–Totalitarian Dichotomy and facilitating Germany’s transition from enemy to victim. NOTES 1. For more on Protestant Resistance especially regarding Niemöller and the Pastors’ Emergency League, see: Victoria Barnett, For the Soul of the People: Protestant Protest against Hitler, New York: Oxford University Press 1992. For Niemöller’s emotional status, see: Matthew Hockenos, “Martin Niemöller in America, 1946– 1947: ‘A Hero with Limitations,” ACCH Quarterly 18, no. 2 (2012): 1–13.

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2. It remains unclear as to whether Niemöller had in fact converted to Catholicism during his imprisonment, as reported by multiple news outlets. See, for example, “Niemoeller Denies Change of Faith: Nazi Commentary Gives Pastor’s Declaration,” Los Angeles Times, March 18, 1941; also, “Deny Plea by Niemoeller: Nazis Say Militant Pastor Has Not Asked to Become a Catholic,” New York Times, February 6, 1941; see also Matthias Schreiber, Martin Niemöller (Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 1997), 81–93. 3. For a retelling of the rescue, see “Niemoeller,” The Washington Post (1923– 1954), May 13, 1945. 4. Niemöller was, in fact, infamous for the opposite. James Bentley, Niemöller (New York: The Free Press,1984). 5. Hockenos, “Martin Niemöller in America”; see also his unpublished paper given the following year at the New York State Associate for European Historians, October 5, 2013. 6. See Stewart Herman’s report concerning a conservation he had with Niemöller and his wife on July 31, 1945. BAK, OMGUS POLA/737/3. Report from Stewart Herman on Martin Niemöller. 7. Hockenos, “Niemöller in America,” 3. Leo Stein has also published a more scholarly edition. See Leo Stein, Hitler Came for Niemöller: The Nazi War against Religion (Gretna: Pelican Publishing, 2003). 8. Time Magazine issue, December 22, 1940. WWII Era Records of the WCC. Microform No. 249. YDS-4. 9. Hockenos, “Niemöller in America,” 1. 10. Kevin Schultz, Tri-Faith America: How Catholics and Jews Held Postwar America to Its Protestant Promise (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). 11. Swiss Theologian Karl Barth’s article explaining why Niemöller had offered to fight in 1940 was seemingly not picked up by mainstream press despite its publication in the Swiss paper “La Semanine Religieuse and the Watchman Examiner.” See Watchman Examiner issue February 22, 1940. WWII Era Records of the WCC. Microform No. 249. YDS-4. 12. “For What I Am,” Time, 45, 25, June 18, 1945. 13. “Germans Unfit for Democracy: Pastor Foe of Nazis Tells Dispute with Hitler,” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 6, 1945. 14. For the development of this concept in more detail, see: Ky Woltering, ‘“A Christian World Order’: Protestants, Democracy, and Christian Aid to Germany, 1945 to 1961” (PhD thesis The City University of New York, The Graduate Center, 2018). 15. The use of the term “totalitarian” should not be confused with Hannah Arendt’s sophisticated examination of the term, nor subsequent scholarly understandings. See Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harvest Books, 1951). 16. By this, I mean that Protestant leaders often understood and referred to these “totalitarian” ideologies. See Jason Stevens, God Fearing and Free: A Spiritual History of America’s Cold War (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010), 20; see, specifically, footnote 59 on page 352. The idea that fascism, communism, and/ or Nazism were fundamentally religious in their construction features prominently in many explanations for the rise of these respective movements. See, for example,

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Emilio Gentile’s reliance on Emilie Durkheim in The Sacralization of Politics in Fascist Italy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996). Ian Kershaw observes that the word “totalitarianism” often serves as little more than a “Boo-word” in common parlance. This certainly seems to be the case with church leaders. Suffice to say that “totalitarianism” often functioned as a catch-all for Protestants, encompassing a variety of factors which they despised. See Ian Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation (London and Oxford: Bloomberg, 2000), 34. 17. Jonathan D. Sasse, “The First Party Competition and Southern New England’s Public Christianity,” Journal of the Early Republic 21, no. 2 (2001): 261–99. See also Ernest Lee Tuveson, Redeemer Nation: The Idea of America’s Millennial Role (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1968). 18. John Fousek, To Lead the Free World: American Nationalism and the Cultural Roots of the Cold War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 6–8. 19. Fousek likewise sees the 1930s as a period of reenergizing democracy in the battle against totalitarianism. See Fousek, To Lead the Free World, 8. 20. Paul Hanebrink, “European Protestants between Anti-Communism and AntiTotalitarianism: The Other Interwar Kulturkampf?” Journal of Contemporary History 53, no. 3 (2018): 622–43. 21. For similar scholarly discussions of this term see: Mark Thomas Edwards, The Right of the Protestant Left: God’s Totalitarianism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). Other scholars have noted the contrast consciously created between religious belief and communism especially in relation to German and American anti-communist thought during the Cold War, but none have connected this divide directly to Nazism as a predecessor of communism, nor have they framed it specifically as “totalitarian.” For instance, Mike Grimshaw refers to a “Manichean Dualism” of “religion versus communism,” but he never uses the phrase totalitarianism nor does he draw specific links to Nazism. See Mike Grimshaw, “Encountering Religion: Encounter, Religion, and the Cultural Cold War, 1953–1967,” History of Religions 51, no. 1 (2011): 35. Also, Paul Hanebrink, “European Protestants Between Anti-Communism and Anti-Totalitarianism.” Although I began using the phrase the “Christian–Totalitarian Dichotomy” before having read Hanebrink’s work, there are striking similarities between his discussion of “anti-Totalitarianism” and the concept conveyed in this essay. 22. Undated Data Sheet concerning Niemöller’s visit to America. WWII Era Records of the WCC. Microform No. 246. YDS-4. 23. Alice Holmes Cooper, Paradoxes of Peace: German Peace Movements since 1945. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996; also, Johanna Vogel, Kirche und Wiederbewaffnung die Haltung der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland in den Auseinandersetzungen um die Wiederbewaffung der Bundesrepublik 1949–1961 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978). 24. “Niemoeller Asks Iron Rule of Reich: Freed Pastor Says Germany Is Unfit for Democracy” New York Times, June 6, 1945. 25. John Conway, “The Political Theology of Martin Niemöller,” German Studies Review 9, no. 3 (1986): 524.

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26. For an account of this encounter, see Barnett, For the Soul of the People, 50–53 and John Conway, The Nazi Persecution of the Churches, 1933–1945 (Toronto: The Ryerson Press, 1968), 71–74. See also “German Martyrs” Time 36, 26, December 23, 1940. 27. Barnett, For the Soul of the People, 128–32. 28. See John Conway’s description of historiographical interpretations of Niemöller in Conway, “The Political Theology of Martin Niemöller”; see also Matthew D. Hockenos, A Church Divided: German Protestants Confront the Nazi Past (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004). 29. Martin Niemöller, Of Guilt and Hope (New York: Philosophical Library, 1947), 15. 30. Niemöller, Of Guilt and Hope, 14. 31. In fact, Niemöller was responsible for sharpening the document from Otto Dibelius’s original draft. See Conway, “The Political Theology of Martin Niemöller.” 32. Martin Niemöller. Quotation translated from the Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand in Berlin, last visited June 2012. 33. Report from Knappen July 10, 1945, OMGUS POLA/737/2. ZA 46, BAK; see also undated interview conducted by Francis S. Harmon, Executive Vice Chairman of the War Activities Committee (Motion Picture Industry), OMGUS, POLA/737/2, ZA 46 BAK. Many scholars have made similar remarks, most especially Clemens Vollnhals, Evangelische Kirche und Entnazifizierung, 1945–1949: Die Last der nationalsozialistischen Vergangenheit (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1989). 34. Clemens Vollnhals, Die evangelische Kirche nach dem Zusammenbruch: Berichte ausländischer Beobachter aus dem Jahre 1945 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988), xxvi. Quote also in Hockenos, “Martin Niemöller in America,” 4. 35. This is implicit in many interpretations of church democratization. See, for example, Hockenos, A Church Divided. 36. Confidential special report of the RAO dated October 27, 1947, 7, OMGUS, 3/429-3/37. Z45, BAK. 37. Interview with Niemöller in “Pastor Niemöller: The Evolution of an Anti-Nazi,” published by the Research Branch of the Information Control Division of OMGUS. OMGUS, 3/429-2/37. Z 45, BAK. 38. Barnett, For the Soul of the People, 157. This is quite important, as Niemöller later claimed that he volunteered to fight only so that he might join a resistance movement and overthrow Hitler. 39. BAK OMGUS, AG45/2/4 Letter to Clay from Sam Calvert, October 3, 1946. 40. Marshall Knappen interview with Niemöller June 19, 1945, 2. OMGUS POLAD 737/-2. Z45, BAK. 41. Matthew Hockenos, Then They Came for Me: Martin Niemöller, the Pastor who Defied the Nazis (New York: Basic Books 2018), 189–90. 42. Report from Michelfelder October 15–25, 1945. OMGUS 5/344-2/6, Z45, BAK. 43. Martin Niemöller, God Is My Führer (New York: Philosophical Library, 1941). 44. Robert Ericksen, “Wilhelm Niemöller and the Historiography of the Kirchenkampf,” in Manfred Gailus and Hartmut Lehmann (eds.), Nationalprotestantische

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Mentalitäten: Konturen, Entwicklungslinien und Umbrüche eines Weltbildes (Goettingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2005), 433–52. 45. Report dated July 31, 1945, concerning Stewart Herman’s meeting with Niemöller. OMGUS POLA/737/3, Z46 BAK. 46. Robert Murphy indirectly expressed gratitude for Herman’s attempts to convince Niemöller to tone down his Nationalist rhetoric. Memo from Robert Murphy, March 28, 1946. OMGUS, POLA/752/2, Z46 BAK. 47. Donald Heath expressed hopes that they might see further proof that Niemöller was a “simple man of God,” and refrain from “sounding off in public” a bit like an “unrepentant nationalist” In a memo. Letter from Heath, September 5, 1945. OMGUS, POLAD/737/2. Z46, BAK. 48. Victoria Barnett, For the Soul of the People, 9–46; see also Richard V Pierard, “The Lutheran Two Kingdoms Doctrine and Subservience to the State in Modern Germany,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 29, no. 2 (1986): 193–203. 49. Conway, “The Political Theology of Martin Niemöller,” 533. Conway Specifically cites E.H. Robertson’s Christians against Hitler, London: S. C. M. Press 1962, as well as wartime publications. 50. Hockenos, “Niemöller in America,” 5. 51. At least these were directly suggested (or implied in the case of the Dichotomy), in a letter from Paul Tillich to Henry Leiper in relation to a meeting he held with the FCC’s German Advisory Committee. See PHSA, RG 18 23 1. Report from Tillich to Leiper, January 14, 1946. 52. Letter from Calvert to Clay dated October 3, 1946. OMGUS AG 45/2/4 Z46, BAK. In relation to a previous conversation between the pair in which Clay suggested the FCCoC invite more than just Niemöller to visit. 53. Letter from Calvert to ‘t Hooft, November 15, 1946. RG 18 23 2, PHSA; see also “State Dept. Gag on Niemoeller Finally Bared,” Chicago Daily Tribune (1923– 1963), January 11, 1947. 54. “Niemoeller Sees Guilt,” New York Times (1923–Current File), October 28, 1946. 55. “By Kenneth Campbell Wireless Churchmen Urge Peace of ‘Mercy,’” New York Times (1923–Current File), February 26, 1946. 56. On August 7, 1945, Eleanor Roosevelt stated that Niemöller’s statements at Naples sounded “almost like a speech from Mr. Hitler,” claiming that Niemöller sounded like “a gentleman who believes in the German doctrine of the superiority of race.” See Eleanor Roosevelt, “My Day,” August 7, 1945, last accessed electronically on August 11, 2017 at George Washington University, https:​//​www2​.gwu​.edu​/​ ~erpapers​/myday​/displaydoc​.cfm​?​_y​=1945​&​_f​=md000096. 57. Article published in the Cincinnati Ohio Press, January 4, 1947, YDS-4, WWII Era Records of the WCC, Microform No. 260. 58. “Pastor Niemöller,” by Eleanor Roosevelt. YDS-4, WWII Era Records of the WCC, Microform No. 262. 59. “Niemoeller Called ‘Unfit’ as a Leader,” New York Times (1923–Current File), February 3, 1947. 60. Woltering, “‘A Christian World Order.’”

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61. Unaddressed and undated letter from Calvert detailing instructions, YDS-4, WWII Era Records of the WCC, Microform No. 246. 62. Memo titled Regarding the Visit of Pastor and Mrs. Martin Niemoeller,” YDS-4, WWII Era Records of the WCC, Microform No. 246. 63. J. Evans, “Retract Smear of Niemoeller, Eleanor Told,” in Chicago Daily Tribune, December 6, 1946 (1923–1963). 64. “Cause of Hitler’s Anger Related by Niemoeller,” Los Angeles Times (1923–Current File), December 6, 1946. For his full speech given in Seattle on December 4, see the address from Niemöller, “The Faith that Sustains Me,” YDS-4, WWII Era Records of the WCC, Microform No. 247. 65. “Niemoeller Deserves Chance to Tell Story,” December 20, 1946, and “Mrs. Roosevelt Contradicts Herself,” and December 30, 1946, in YDS-4, WWII Era Records of the WCC, Microform No. 262. 66. “Many Things That Should be Remembered,” published December 23, 1946, YDS-4, WWII Era Records of the WCC, Microform No. 262. 67. “Sternberger Reverses Position on Niemöller in Light of Evidence,” January 15, 1947, YDS-4 WWII Era Records of the WCC, Microform No. 262. 68. Steven P. Remy, The Malmedy Massacre: The War Crimes Trial Controversy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2017); Volnnhals, Entnazifizerung; Robert Ericksen, Complicity in the Holocaust: Churches and Universities in Nazi Germany (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012). 69. The effectiveness of church critiques of denazification has been noted in many places. See, for instance, Robert Moses’s report to Secretary of War Robert Patterson July 12, 1947. Allen W. Dulles Papers, MC019, Box 12, Folder 22. See also Norbert Frei’s Adenauer’s Germany and the Nazi Past: The Politics of Amnesty and Integration (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002). Remy, The Malmedy Massacre, 235. Konrad Jarausch specifically credits the effectiveness of Protestant critiques toward the end of reforming and abandoning procedures. See Konrad Jarausch, After Hitler: Recivilizing Germans, 1945–1995 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 52. See also Volnnhals, Entnazifizerung, 24. 70. Speech in Phoenix on December 15, 1946, YDS-4, WWII Era Records of the WCC, Microform No. 252. 71. Speech at Davidson College, NC, January 4, 1947, YDS-4, WWII Era Records of the WCC. Microform No. 253. 72. Speech at the Church Federation of Greater Chicago, January 14, 1947, YDS-4, WWII Era Records of the WCC, Microform No. 255. 73. Speech at the Church Federation of Greater Chicago, YDS-4, WWII Era Records of the WCC, Microform No. 255. 74. Speech given December 22, 1946, in Davenport Iowa, YDS-4, WWII Era Records of the WCC, Microform No. 252. 75. Undated article from Thomas Stafford, “Niemöller and Totalitarianism,” YDS-4, WWII Era Records of the WCC, Microform No. 260. 76. Essay titled “Widersehen mit Deutschland,” YDS-4, WWII Era Records of the WCC, Microform No. 249.

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77. Speech at “The Swedish Church,” February 17, 1947, YDS-4,0020 WWII Era Records of the WCC, Microform No. 256. 78. Essay titled “Widersehen mit Deutschland,” YDS-4, WWII Era Records of the WCC, Microform No. 249. 79. See story of holding a Christmas service in Dachau 1944, which he repeated many times. For example, speech given on January 12, 1947, YDS-4, WWII Era Records of the WCC, Microform No. 254 80. See, for example, the article “Who’s Who and Why,” Detroit Michigan News, January 5, 1947, YDS-4, WWII Era Records of the WCC, Microform No. 262. 81. “This man Niemöller,” by Henry Leiper Smith published in Advance and reprinted by the FCCoC, February 1947, YDS-4, WWII Era Records of the WCC, Microform No. 247. 82. On one occasion Niemöller claimed that he had not come to the United States in search of material assistance but instead to tell of God’s power and magnificence, YDS-4, WWII Era Records of the WCC, Microform No. 247. See address from Niemöller, “The Faith that Sustains Me.” 83. See speech “Wiederstand mit Deutschland,” YDS-4, WWII Era Records of the WCC, Microform No. 249. 84. Speech “Wiederstand mit Deutschland,” YDS-4, WWII Era Records of the WCC, Microform No. 249. 85. “Dr. Niemoeller tells of German Church’s Fight against Hitler,” speech given at WMCA in New York, January 19, 1947, YDS-4, WWII Era Records of the WCC, Microform No. 255. “Martin Niemoeller’s Sermon in the Second Presbyterian Church, January 25, 1947 (given in German). Also, YDS-4. WWII Era Records of the WCC, Microform Nos. 255–56. Also, Niemöller’s address to “Ministers of the Swedish church,” February 17, 1947, in Microform No. 256. 86. Hockenos, Then They Came for Me, 197. 87. “A message to our Christian friends in America,” YDS-4, WWII Era Records of the WCC, Microform No. 249. 88. Advertisement for the gathering at St. John’s Presbyterian in Berkley, CA, December 10, 1946, YDS-4, WWII Era Records of the WCC, Microform No. 247; Metropolitan Church Life, December 26, 1946. 89. “Niemoeller Asks Change in Policy,” New York Times (1923–Current File), May 11, 1947. 90. “Aid Europe in Time, Niemoeller Urges,” New York Times (1923–Current File), November 27, 1947; “Special to the New York Times, Niemoeller Asks Dismantling Halt,” New York Times (1923–Current File), July 14, 1949. 91. This caused quite a bit of controversy in both Germany and the WCC, since Niemöller, as a representative of both the EKD and the WCC, took it upon himself to visit without any real consultation with said institutions. For some selected press clippings and letters concerning the trip, see YDS-4, WWII Era Records of the WCC, Microform Nos. 260–63. 92. Niemöller joined with Gustav Heinemann’s Deutsche Volkspartei in the early 1950s protesting West German rearmament. Jarausch, After Hitler, 160; Vogel, Kirche und Wiederbewaffnung, 121–44; Cooper, Paradoxes of Peace, 43–46, 95, 166–67.

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93. Article published in The Christian Century, January 15, 1947, which reported that “Pastor Niemoeller’s visit to the United States . . . provides the clearest possible proof that the ecumenical principle is a living for in American Christianity,” YDS-4, WWII Era Records of the WCC, Microform No. 247. Letter also from Calvert to Visser ‘t Hooft, December 26, 1946, RG 18 23 3, PHSA. 94. Quite a bit has been written on this topic. See, for example, Walter LaFeber, America, Russia and the Cold War, 1945–2002 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002); Mark Noll, God and Race in American Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008); D. G. Hart, That Old-Time Religion in Modern America: Evangelical Protestantism in the Twentieth Century (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2003).

BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Sources Archival Sources Bundesarchiv Koblenz (BAK). Koblenz, Germany Allied Control Authority Coordinating Committee [Z 46] Allied Control Authority Religious Affairs Committee [Z 45] Evangelical Lutheran Church of America Archives (ELCA), Chicago, United States National Lutheran Council [NLC 2] United Lutheran Church in America [ULCA 4] Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America Records [RG 18] Länderrat des Amerikanischen Besatzungsgebietes [Z 1] Microform, Princeton Theological Seminary Library, Princeton, NJ [YDS-4] ———. [WCC-1] Presbyterian Historical Society Archives (PSHA). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America. Records of the World Council of Churches Geneva, Switzerland WWII Era Records of the WCC, Germany Wartime

Newspapers Chicago Daily Tribune Los Angeles Times New York Times The Washington Post Time Magazine

Special Collections Allen W. Dulles Papers; Public Policy Papers, Documents of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

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Published Sources Niemöller, Martin. God is my Führer. New York: Philosophical Library, 1941. ———. Of Guilt and Hope. New York: Philosophical Library, 1947. Stein, Leo. Hitler came for Niemöller: The Nazi War Against Religion. Gretna: Pelican Publishing, 2003.

Secondary Sources Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism New York: Harvest Books, 1951. Barnett, Victoria. For the Soul of the People: Protestant Protest against Hitler. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Bentley, James. Niemöller. New York: The Free Press, 1984. Conway, John. The Nazi Persecution of the Churches, 1933–1945. Toronto: The Ryerson Press, 1968. ———.”The Political Theology of Martin Niemöller.” German Studies Review 9, no. 3. (1986): 521–46. Cooper, Alice Holmes. Paradoxes of Peace: German Peace Movements since 1945. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996. Edwards, Mark Thomas. The Right of the Protestant Left: God’s Totalitarianism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Ericksen, Robert P. Complicity in the Holocaust: Churches and Universities in Nazi Germany. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012. ———.”Wilhelm Niemöller and the Historiography of the Kirchenkampf.” In Nationalprotestantische Mentalitäten: Konturen, Entwicklungslinien und Umbrüche eines Weltbilds, edited by Manfred Gailus and Hartmut Lehmann, 433–52. Goettingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005. Fousek, John. To Lead the Free World: American Nationalism and the Cultural Roots of the Cold War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000. Frei, Norbert. Adenauer’s Germany and the Nazi Past: The Politics of Amnesty and Integration. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Gentile, Emilio. The Sacralization of Politics in Fascist Italy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996. Grimshaw, Mike. “Encountering Religion: Encounter, Religion, and the Cultural Cold War, 1953–1967.” History of Religions 51, no. 1 (2011): 31–58. Hanebrink, Paul. “European Protestants Between Anti-Communism and AntiTotalitarianism: The Other Interwar Kulturkampf?” Journal of Contemporary History 53, no. 3 (2018): 622–43. Hart, D. G. That Old-Time Religion in Modern America: Evangelical Protestantism in the Twentieth Century. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2003. Hockenos, Matthew D. A Church Divided: German Protestants Confront the Nazi Past. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004. ———. “A Hero with Limitations.” ACCH Quarterly 18, no. 2 (June 2012): 1–13. ———. “Martin Niemöller in America, 1946–1947.” Conference Paper given at the New York State Association for European Historians.

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———. Then They Came for Me: Martin Niemöller, the Pastor Who Defied the Nazis. New York: Basic Books, 2018 Jarausch, Konrad. After Hitler: Recivilizing Germans, 1945–1995. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Kershaw, Ian. The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation. London/Oxford: Bloomberg, 2000. LaFeber, Walter. America, Russia and the Cold War, 1945–2002. New York: McGraw Hill Publishing, 2002. Noll, Mark. God and Race in American Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008. Pierard, Richard V. “The Lutheran Two Kingdoms Doctrine and Subservience to the State in Modern Germany,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 29, no. 2 (1986): 193–203. Remy, Steven P. The Malmedy Massacre: The War Crimes Trial Controversy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2017. Sasse, Jonathan D. “The First Party Competition and Southern New England’s Public Christianity.” Journal of the Early Republic 21, no. 2 (2001): 261–99. Schreiber, Matthias. Martin Niemöller. Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 1997. Schultz, Kevin. Tri-Faith America: How Catholics and Jews Held Postwar America to Its Protestant Promise. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Stevens, Jason. God Fearing and Free: A Spiritual History of America’s Cold War. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010. Tuveson, Ernest Lee. Redeemer Nation: The Idea of America’s Millennial Role. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 1968. Vogel, Johanna. Kirche und Wiederbewaffnung die Haltung der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland in den Auseinandersetzungen um die Wiederbewaffung der Bundesrepublik 1949–1961. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978. Vollnhals, Clemens. Die evangelische Kirche nach dem Zusammenbruch: Berichte ausländischer Beobachter aus dem Jahre 1945. Goettingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988. ———. Evangelische Kirche und Entnazifizierung, 1945–1949: Die Last der national- sozialistischen Vergangenheit. Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1989. Woltering, Ky. “‘A Christian World Order’: Protestants, Democracy, and Christian Aid to Germany, 1945 to 1961,” PhD thesis The City University of New York, The Graduate Center, 2018.

Chapter 5

Intercontinental Labor Migration within the Socialist World‌‌ Cuban Contract Laborers in the German Democratic Republic, 1975 to 1990 Berthold Unfried

While labor migration in general has received increasing attention from scholars who work within the fields of migration studies and global history, labor migration within the socialist world in the second half of the twentieth century has been largely neglected both by scholars who study global history and scholars of migration history.1 Socialist countries such as the German Democratic Republic (GDR) are perceived as closed societies, which were cut off from global movements and trends. It is the goal of this chapter to present East German society and economy as part of a system of temporary migration in the socialist world system2 in the twentieth century. Labor migration within the socialist world has so far attracted limited academic attention. Yet, the contract labor program of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) was created as an intercontinental program that served to advance the economies of participating countries along the trajectory of building a socialist economy. Within this program, the socialist countries of Eastern Europe received contract laborers from American and Asian COMECON member states such as Cuba and Vietnam, from African countries with observer status such as Angola and Mozambique, and from African countries that sought closer relations with the East such as Algeria. The focus of this chapter will be on Cuban contract laborers in the GDR. While Cuban contract laborers today typically laud the contract labor program as a success story, German historians in the wake of the fall of the GDR 131

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generally describe it as a failed venture and Cuban contract laborers as victims of exploitation. German historians have neglected the motivations of contract laborers to come to the GDR and instead treated them as victims without agency to assert their own interests. After the downfall of communism in the GDR, the presence of contract laborers turned into a social and political problem and provided the backdrop for countless xenophobic attacks on foreigners from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Empathetic historians began to search for the roots of this xenophobia in the East German past and treated contract laborers as victims. They portrayed contract laborers as exploited workers who received only a part of their wages since the East German government confiscated a portion of these earnings and used it as a down payment on the debt Cuba had incurred with the GDR. They also pointed to the xenophobic attitudes of East Germans, which fed into racist attitudes and actions. In the context of this narrative contract laborers were stripped of any agency.3 Even studies that have made use of extensive archival documentation fall into the victimization template. The voices of contract laborers, which are captured within these documents and do not fit this established narrative of victimhood, are simply excluded.4 While Ann-Judith Rabenschlag’s doctoral thesis from 2014 on contract labor in the GDR offered extensive archival evidence, she limited her studies to East German sources and completely ignored sources of the sending country—here Mozambique—and further omitted the dimension of daily contacts between contract laborers and their East German colleagues. She explored the relationship between East Germans and Mozambiquan contract laborers not through the lens of everyday life history but rather as a study of stereotypical images.5 Exiled Cuban scholars at the beginning of the 1990s were, by contrast, able to discuss the motivations on both sides for engaging in contract labor programs.6 The picture of contract labor that emerged within the publications of German historians does not do justice to the memories contract laborers have of their stay in the GDR.7 Common to previous studies is not only a focus on East German sources and East German society, which creates a one-sided history, but also a tendency to present a world made of imaginations, misconceptions, and prejudice—in stark contrast to the positive memories of contract workers.8 This rather black and white image also resulted from the lack of access to, or the absence of, archives in the countries that sent contract laborers to the GDR as well as the dearth of scholarly discussion on this phenomenon within the sending countries. In the case of Cuba, for instance, scholars have not produced a single scholarly study of contract labor. Christoph Lorke’s article on non-European labor in the GDR fell short of its goal of offering new perspectives that afford agency to contract laborers because the author still relied exclusively on East German sources from East German factory archives and neglected the dimension of Cuban motivations and goals.9 Taking the



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views of Cuban and Vietnamese contract laborers into account, as Christina Schwenkel did in the case of Vietnamese contract laborers, fundamentally changes the picture.10 Utilizing sources from both Cuba and Germany, this chapter will explore the contacts between individuals—Cuban contract laborers and East Germans—in a society that espoused the doctrine of proletarian internationalism. I will treat Cuban contract laborers not as passive victims but rather as individuals who pursued their own agendas, had specific motivations, and followed their traditions—which they practiced in collaboration and in conflict with their East German colleagues and neighbors. This discussion could provide new directions for research about international labor migration in general and contract labor in particular. However, the term “contract labor” appears problematic since this term has been applied to the historical phenomenon of employing foreign laborers in socialist countries post hoc.11 The official term East German officials used was ausländische Arbeitskräfte (foreign laborers). These foreign laborers were temporarily employed in East German factories for the purpose of work and training. Cuban officials used the term jovenes t a calificarse en la RDA (young workers to be trained in the GDR) to emphasize the aspect of training over employment. Applying the term “contract laborer” to this arrangement provides not only a classification, but also an interpretation that is intended to make this program comparable to similar situations in global history such as the guest worker program of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). However, too often, comparative history serves to emphasize similarities over differences. Some scholars such as Almut Zwengel and Cindy Hahamovitch even subsumed contract laborers into the “Western” category of “guest workers.”12 This chapter will not be limited to the exploration of the economic function of contract labor as it will also explore the GDR and Cuba’s role as educators and their attempt to use the contract labor program as a vehicle to mold its participants into reliable members of socialist society. This aspect clearly distinguishes contract labor programs within the socialist world from guest worker programs within the capitalist world. It also further discusses the stream of contract laborers within the socialist world as part of migration movements among socialist countries. Migration within the socialist world included not only labor migration, but also migration for educational purposes and the migration of technical experts and specialists. These migrations were always temporary and occurred within the geographic and political space created by COMECON, including its fringes—as in the case of non-member countries, which were classified as countries on a “socialist path of development,” such as Angola, Mozambique, and Nicaragua. Even though labor migration was considered a phenomenon of capitalist economies—it also did not fit particularly well into the planed economies of socialist countries—the “Complex

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Program” of 1971 envisioned collaboration between all member states in the field of labor migration.13 During the 1960s and 1970s, the East German government concluded several agreements with other European members of COMECON that brought contract laborers to the GDR. The 1970s saw the expansion of COMECON beyond Europe into the Americas (Cuba 1972) and Asia (Vietnam 1978, after Mongolia 1962). Beginning in the mid-1970s contract laborers from Africa, Latin America, and Asia replaced contract laborers from Europe (Poland and Hungary) who had become scarce in their countries of origin. Employment of foreign laborers was no longer guided by just the aspect of labor and, in response to requests made by the sending countries, began to explicitly include the aspect of job training as part of larger development programs.14 This change in function of the contract labor programs was due to COMECON re-envisioning itself as an organization that facilitated the economic development of its members. Beginning in 1975 agreements about the sending of contract laborers were concluded among several members of COMECON. Cuba entered into such agreements first with the GDR and Czechoslovakia, later with Hungary, and Bulgaria but not with the Soviet Union. The initiative to enter into these programs came from the Cuban side, which sought to combine two objectives: training of its labor force and equilibrating its balance of payment. In 1977 the head of the Cuban central planning commission approached his East German counterpart with the suggestion that Cuba would be interested to compensate for losses in its sugar trade through the sending of laborers that would receive training in the working process.15 CUBAN AND EAST GERMAN MOTIVATIONS FOR ENTERING CONTRACT-LABOR AGREEMENTS Education and training of the workforce was the biggest challenge for the socialist government of Cuba after the revolution. The training of young men and women was not only necessary for economic advancement along the trajectory of socialist development but also contributed to solving socioeconomic problems such as high unemployment among young people and the resulting high crime rates. In 1971, the Second Congress of the Unión de Jovenes Comunistas (UJC), the country’s Communist Youth organization, proclaimed the mobilization of Cuba’s young for the building of a socialist society. Part of this mobilization was to offer young people from families with limited educational opportunities access to education and vocational training. The Communist Youth leadership described those who would ignore such opportunities as “unwilling to learn,” depraved, and potentially deviant. Communist leaders demanded that every teenager take advantage of the



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education opportunities offered.16 In the early 1970s brigades named for revolutionary heroes such as Camilo Cienfuegos and Che Guevara (Seguidores de Camilo y Che) were formed to provide teenagers, who were unemployed or who did not have the qualifications for a job, with vocational training and political-ideological education.17 Since Cuba was unable to provide education and training to its entire young population, it took advantage of the educational opportunities offered by socialist countries such as the GDR, which suffered from a constant shortage of laborers, and, from the mid-1970s to the late 1980s, Cuba sent thousands of young Cubans to East Germany. The Cuban government sent these contract laborers in hopes that after a few years they would return as well-trained and disciplined workers who could benefit the Cuban economy. The migration of laborers was part and parcel of an integrated program of East German support for Cuba.18 Mayra Lavigne, who was at the time director of the Labor Resources Directorate of the Cuban Ministry of Labor, considered the exposure of Cuban laborers to (East) German technology, (East) German discipline, and the (East) German work ethic as essential goals of Cuba’s decision to send contract laborers to the GDR.19 Based on the notion of “cooperation,” the groups of Cuban laborers sent to the GDR during the 1980s were named Contingente de Cooperación Socialista (Contingent of Socialist Cooperation). This was an effort to expand control over Cuban contract laborers beyond the members of the Communist Youth organization. The vocational training of these groups of socialist cooperation was declared a “revolutionary duty” and those who finished their education successfully were awarded the title Colaborador Socialista Destacado (Distinguised Socialist Cooperant), along with the permission to take home to Cuba a motorcycle.20 These material enticements had become necessary in the 1980s because too many of those sent to the GDR lacked ideological motivation. The sending of Cuban contract laborers to the GDR was, from the Cuban perspective, intended to solve the problems of both sides. Cuba needed help in educating its workforce, accelerating its economic development, and decreasing youth unemployment and youth delinquency rates; while the GDR got additional labor that helped overcome its labor shortage. Thus, the contract labor program was founded to be mutually beneficial. While this aspect of mutual benefit has not yet been taken seriously by historians, this chapter will take the Cuban aspirations seriously and afford Cuban contract laborers and Cuban government officials agency that was guided by Cuban interests and perspectives—which could and did clash with the expectations of the East German side. Historians can reconstruct the East German perspective on the contract labor agreements and their implementation from the extensive archival

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sources preserved in the Federal Archives of (unified) Germany, which, in contrast to Cuban sources, are more numerous and freely accessible. These sources come mostly from the files of the GDR’s State Secretariat of Labor (Staatssekretariat für Arbeit und Löhne) and Ministry of State Security, which were in charge of executing and supervising the contract labor program. These archival sources offer insights into the practices, motivations, and perceptions of East German officials involved in the coordination of the Cuban contract labor program. However, the language of these documents proves challenging. Official reports produced by East German factory managers and officials at the State Secretariat of Labor are characterized by language that suggests that East Germans received Cuban contract laborers with open arms. These reports highlight that the Cubans received vocational training along with practical labor experiences from well-qualified political and technical specialists in the GDR.21 The official records were accompanied by informal reports that spoke of conflicts between Cubans and East Germans and the need for better preparation of the Cuban contract laborers before they came to the GDR. These informal reports were not shared with the wider East German public. There are also documents from the East German State Security that investigated conflicts between contract laborers and East Germans. These reports from the Ministry of State Security, along with police records, offer an image that is not tainted by the political-ideological stereotypes of the “socialist friendship” between the Cuban and East German people, but reflect the daily tensions and conflicts between Cubans and East Germans. We need to keep in mind, however, that these reports were produced by state institutions of surveillance. Cuban contract laborers were, in the eyes of the Ministry of State Security, troublemakers who had a propensity for criminal actions. Yet, the reports of the Ministry of State Security focused not only on Cubans but also on East Germans who participated in questionable behavior and who caused conflicts with Cubans. The East German sources provide, foremost, an East German perspective on the phenomenon of contract labor, although, the files from the state secretariat of labor also include some documents that highlight the positions of the Cuban counterparts. However, archival documents from Cuban archives have not yet been studied, making this chapter the first publication that bases its results upon an organized study of sources from those archives. The most significant corpus of archival sources comes from the archive of the Cuban Communist Youth organization—the Unión de Jovenes Comunistas. This organization played a significant role in the contract labor program as, at the beginning of the program, about half of the young Cubans sent to the GDR were members.22 The records of its branch-chapters formed for the



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Cuban contract laborers in East Germany provide a Cuban perspective of contract laborers. The Cuban perspective will be further captured through the analysis of interviews conducted with contract laborers and government officials. However, these interviews cannot provide a complete depiction of the experience of contract laborers in the GDR, as the individuals interviewed typically avoided expressing negative experiences with the contract labor system to a German interviewer. While problems and tensions were mentioned, they were always portrayed as something that was quickly resolved. Nevertheless, these interviews allow for the exploration of the motivations and agendas of Cuban contract laborers and, thereby, help us to overcome the one-sided perspective that is incompatible with a global history approach. The inclusion of sources from both Cuba and the GDR helps us realize a genuine global history approach, which contributes to the de-Eurocentralization of German history. Furthermore, this chapter represents a study of the global dimensions of labor and labor migration, which considers the agendas and perceptions of all groups of actors that participated in the migration process. These groups had, of course, very different means to realize its visions and agendas and, therefore, were not always successful. THE VOCATIONAL TRAINING PROGRAM AS A PRECURSOR TO THE CONTRACT LABOR PROGRAM The sending of Cuban laborers to the GDR was based upon two agreements. The first agreement struck in 1975 provided for the training of 750 Cuban laborers in East German factories. These trainees who had already received some professional experience in Cuba received vocational training in industries that Cuba hoped to develop with East German support. Cuban trainees worked in textiles, construction, sugar refining, book printing, and machine building—areas in which Cuba and the GDR cooperated.23 Thus, the contract labor program contributed to the development of economic ties between both countries and to the advancement of those industries in which the GDR sought closer collaboration with Cuba. This program was part of a larger set of programs that connected the GDR not only to Cuba but also to countries such as Vietnam.24 In the early 1980s, the East German state hosted about five thousand trainees from countries in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. 25 Cuban participants in this contract labor program were considered apprentices, as opposed to laborers, since the program was to offer training, rather than just employment.26 Three years later, the Cuban government suggested a new program that no longer focused only on vocational training but also on providing unskilled laborers training within the labor process. This program, created in

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1978, did not replace the first program but coexisted with it until the demise of the GDR.27 Cuban participants of the vocational training program could and did switch into the contract labor program.28 The vocational training program offered an introduction to specific East German professional qualifications of a skilled laborer (Facharbeiter). While this offering was intended to be part of the East German support for countries that turned toward socialism, it was also part of a foreign policy strategy to combine political and economic goals. The East German government offered these services for free only to politically friendly countries such as Cuba and expected countries such as Libya, which, because of its oil production had significant Western currency reserves, to pay for these services in Western currencies.29 The training of specialists, thereby, became an East German export article that brought much-needed Western currency into East Germany’s accounts. The 1978 agreement between the Cuban Ministry of Labor and Ministry for Economic Collaboration and the East German State Secretariat for Labor linked the lines of labor and training on a new basis, as it provided for the training and employment of young Cubans in the GDR. Both sides agreed that the training of Cuban contract laborers was in their mutual interest and that their subsequent employment strengthened the economic cooperation between both countries.30 The overall objective of the training of laborers caused both sides to agree to strict rules about the labor contracts. Cuban contract laborers were given sufficient time for training and education, but had no free choice of industry or factory, and were limited to factories that were designated by the East German’s as participants in the program.31 Cuban participants were bound to their contract time and needed the permission of both sides for an early release date in the case of criminal charges, offenses against the socialist work ethic, or for medical reasons.32 The free movement of Cuban contract laborers was, thus, significantly limited. Contracts normally ran for four years and, in positively evaluated cases, could be extended for another two years. Government agencies and internal surveillance machines of both countries expected and forced contract laborers to return to Cuban after four or six years, respectively. Both sides made sure that this program allowed for temporary migration only. SELECTION AND PREPARATION OF CONTRACT LABORERS The selection of candidates for the contract labor program was left entirely to the Cuban side. The Cuban Ministry of Economic Collaboration advertised the program and recruited candidates from across the country.33 Potential contract laborers had to be between seventeen and twenty-seven (later thirty-five)



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years of age, had to have completed at least nine years of schooling, and had to have served in the country’s military. They were required to undergo a medical exam and to provide a background check. They also needed a letter of recommendation from the Comités de Defensa de la Revolución, the political neighborhood organization. However, not all successful applicants underwent all these procedures. Documents could be falsified, and Cuban government agencies were not capable of policing the applicant pool. The Comités de Defensa de la Revolución apparently in some cases sent unruly young Cubans, whom they wanted to get rid of, out of the country.34 The selection of applicants in the first couple of years was, thus, quite chaotic and resulted in the acceptance of unsuitable and unprepared candidates.35 The Cuban government sent to the GDR young Cubans who, as the Minster for Labor Joaquín Benavides admitted, did not fulfill even the minimum requirements in terms of formal education.36 It was only in 1980, a full two years after the beginning of the program, that Cubatecnica—the country’s executive agency for Technical Assistance—managed to establish a clear system for the selection of contract laborers.37 The improved scrutiny of applicants and the rejection of applicants who did not pass the background check led, according to an internal report of the Cuban Communist Youth organization from 1981, to a pacification of the Cuban contract laborers in the GDR and to a decrease in conflicts with East Germans.38 Cuban contract laborers were also said to have become used to the different living and working conditions so that the situation stabilized in the first half of the 1980s.39 Both sides were satisfied with the development. Cuban laborers were productive—they reached 85 percent of the work performance of East German laborers—and they made great strides in working toward their professional and linguistic integration into the East German workforce.40 In the mid-1980s, Cuban selection mechanisms broke down again and allowed for the sending of contract laborers who were, in the eyes of the East German Ministry of State Security, unsuited for participation in the program.41 It seems as if the Cuban government tried to use the contract labor program not only for the training and education of its workforce but also in hopes that a stay in the GDR would contribute to disciplining troublemakers. Thus, it would not only be the incompetence of Cuban authorities that led to a deterioration of the Cuban–East German contract labor program, but also their utilization of the program for reasons disconnected from the technical training of the labor force. East German society was, in the eyes of Cuban officials, a tightly run society, which seemed to provide an opportunity to deal with delinquent young Cubans who acted out. Cuba sent individuals who not only lacked basic educational preconditions but also basic social pre-qualifications. Coming from very different backgrounds, Cuban contract

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laborers had a hard time adjusting to the social norms and expectations of East German society and acted in ways that brought them into conflict with East German officials and colleagues. Some engaged in brawls with East German colleagues and neighbors as well as with police forces and were more interested in social activities, including alcohol and sex, than education and vocational training—they also listened to loud music, urinated in the streets, and molested East German teenagers. The Cuban government seems to have hoped that East German authorities would help in disciplining individuals who did not comply with social and political expectations. They even asked the East German authorities to not simply send back those who violated laws or behaved in problematic ways, suggesting that they instead be subjected to punishments commensurate with their infractions.42 This is an indication that Cuba’s government expected that the East German system take over the disciplining of its deviant youth. Even though the Cuban government promised East German officials repeatedly that it was making improvements to the selection process, these promises did not lead to a long-term increase in the sending of better prepared individuals. This could be seen as a parallel to the general strategy of Cuba’s leader, Fidel Castro, to ship off troublemakers—as in the case of the 1980 Mariel boatlift, in which Castro allowed more than 100,000 Cubans to leave Cuba. Castro hoped that allowing people considered deviants—“90 percent criminals”43— to leave the country would stabilize the Cuban political system. The disciplining of Cuban contract laborers in the GDR was in part left to East German and Cuban authorities in East Germany. However, both sides felt overwhelmed by the task and did not wish to be responsible for disciplining deviant youths.44 Both sides tried to shift responsibility for disciplining Cubans to the other. The Cuban officials considered the GDR an advanced socialist state with the tools and institutions to address deviant behavior of all people including Cuban contract laborers. The East German authorities, by contrast, considered the Cuban contract laborers as an extraterritorial group for whom they held the Cuban self-governing structures primarily responsible. However, when a Cuban contract laborer violated social standards and East German factories and authorities requested the individual’s repatriation, Cuban officials from Cubatecnica delayed their response. Flying back a contract laborer before his contract term expired was expensive and seats on airplanes rare. It was the Cuban side which had to pay for such repatriations. Therefore, contract laborers dismissed from their places of employment and training often remained for months in their East German homes, which resulted in escalated conflicts with East Germans. This tactic of the Cuban authorities caused the East German government, even though they were not obliged to do so, to provide funding for airplane tickets to accelerate the repatriation of delinquent Cubans.45 Financial considerations not only influenced



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the actions or inactions of the Cuban authorities but the East German government as well. The East German authorities were, for instance, given an opportunity to send an official to Cuba to participate in the selection and screening of applicants for the contract labor program. The East German government rejected the offer for financial reasons.46 For the Cuban contract laborers, East German society was a very alien world. Many Cuban contract laborers came from rural areas and did not even have a basic school education.47 Most of them had no experience with working in factories.48 Cuban officials expected that the stay in the GDR would transform them into industrial workers, but most of them had never left Cuba before. Only the men who came after serving in the Cuban army had, in some cases, been abroad. Some of them had been sent to Angola,49 where they fought for the socialist government in the country’s civil war that pitted it against the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), which was backed by the United States. This experience of war desensitized the men who later came to the GDR—a society that had not been involved in any military conflict since 1945. For those who had served in Angola, being sent to the GDR was considered a reward for their military service abroad. After their arrival in East Germany, they encountered considerable problems with adapting to their new roles and their new environment. Many remained uncertain about how to behave and how to respond in specific situations, and the proper behavior in East German society that was so distant from their experience of war in Africa. The Cuban government did not manage to provide sufficient resources and time in preparing its contract laborers for their stay. Before embarking on their trip to Europe, contract laborers received very limited information about East German society. They learned about its geography, about the training they were to receive, and about their employment in general. This preparation provided insufficient teaching about social and cultural differences, as it did not introduce contract laborers to the customs and norms of East German society. Added to this, many contract laborers were not informed about the place of their stay or the nature of the work they were expected to do upon arrival. This was not a deliberate policy but due to a lack of resources and of awareness. The negligence in preparing Cuban contract laborers for their stay might have been due to a “naïve proletarian internationalism” or pragmatic optimism that things would work out. However, this lack of preparation set the stage for confrontations and conflicts between some but far from all Cuban contract laborers and East Germans.

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THE TRAINING OF CONTRACT LABORERS IN THE GDR Training and education of Cuban contract laborers was part and parcel of the contract labor program. This training included both vocational training and political-ideological education. Contract laborers were to become trained workers as well as socialist citizens who embraced the norms of a socialist society. They were expected to abstain from drunkenness, control their instincts and impulses, express themselves in appropriate terminology and to become hardworking laborers. They were further required to attend courses that introduced them to the German language and to the political system of the GDR. Theoretical education was combined with practical education in factories, where Cuban contract laborers were integrated into work “brigades” (Brigaden), which were to help form the character of its members. In their first month in the GDR, Cuban contract laborers underwent schooling that was funded and organized by their assigned factories. This schooling provided basic German language knowledge and technological knowledge about their future employment. Teachers were also responsible for introducing students to the basic social norms and behaviors at work and at leisure. These classes included lessons about body hygiene, eating habits, relationships, the position of women in a socialist society, and proper behavior in restaurants.50 East German sources contain many complaints about the lack of motivation to learn among contract laborers. Cuban contract laborers were criticized for not attending training sessions. About 20 to 30 percent of Cubans did not show up for the German-language courses.51 In general, East German sources contended that about one-third of Cuban contract laborers were very eager to learn, another third needed constant reminders of their obligations, and the last third had no interest in learning at all—resulting in 40 percent of Cuban contract laborers being labeled as unteachable for lack of basic knowledge of the German language.52 Punishments in the form of pay cuts did not help much to improve the situation.53 Many Cuban contract laborers were not willing to attend German-language courses—which, after two paid months, were scheduled during their leisure time—beyond the basic introduction.54 This recalcitrance contributed to difficulties in communication with East German colleagues and ensuing tensions. Despite these difficulties, a large share of Cuban contract laborers acquired certificates as skilled workers. About 75 percent of those who returned to Cuba in 1982 after a four-year stay in the GDR received a certification of Facharbeiter (skilled worker). The remaining 25 percent received certificates with limited qualifications (Teilfacharbeiter).55



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A very small number of Cuban contract laborers were recruited for education at one of East Germany’s universities. Beginning in 1983, between fifteen and thirty Cubans were sent annually to obtain a higher-education degree. East German factories selected these students from their contract labor pool and were in charge of supporting them during their education.56 While the candidates were few and some among them badly prepared for a university education, the inclusion of these students points to the educational aspect of the contract labor program. THE TRANSFER OF WAGES In principle, Cuban contract laborers received the same wage as their East German colleagues. They were also entitled to receive a share of their wage in pesos, which they could send back to their families in Cuba—after some time, this possibility became compulsory.57 This arrangement between the GDR and Cuba was not very popular among contract laborers, as they could buy more products for East German money in the GDR than for pesos in Cuba.58 Possession of the East German currency allowed them to acquire goods such as motorcycles, which were in short supply in Cuba, and take them home.59 These transfers of goods by which the contract laborers brought their excess of purchasing power home were remittances in kind. However, the desire of Cuban contract laborers to buy such goods, which were also in limited supply in the GDR, turned them into competitors with East Germans who sought the same goods. This competition aided in damaging the image of Cuban contract laborers within the East German population, and the East German government’s attempts to limit the transfer of goods to be sent back to Cuba largely failed.60 The contracts gave the Cuban government permission to deduct 60 percent of the contract laborers wages in excess of 350 East German marks and pay them this sum in Cuban pesos upon their return. Some contract laborers opposed and protested this practice. However, the Cuban government did not waver and recalled those who refused to go along with the practice. East German officials from the political side unsuccessfully opposed the practice as well, since they determined that it was a cause for low working morale among the Cubans. Cuban contract laborers, thus, got less pay on the spot in the GDR than their East German colleagues, but were also paid less in GDR-Marks than other contract laborers from countries such as Algeria.61 While the Cuban contract laborers were unhappy with this arrangement, the Cuban government saw this practice as a necessary part of Cuban social policy. Cuban society was based upon relatively homogeneous incomes. Siphoning off a share of the East German mark incomes of Cuban contract laborers brought these incomes more down to the level of Cuban incomes.62

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This practice shows that Cuban authorities considered their contract laborers in the GDR as a dislocated part of the Cuban economy rather than as part of the East German economy. The funds accumulated by the Cuban government through the siphoning of these wages also provided much-needed currency reserves, which were traded for pesos at a previously negotiated rate. In the early 1980s, Cuba received about 30 million East German marks per year from this practice. This amount allowed Cuba to cover a part of its negative balance of payments with the GDR.63 Some of these funds were, at least as East German authorities assumed, channeled into funding Cuba’s support for the socialist government of Ethiopia.64 THE ORGANIZATIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR CUBAN CONTRACT LABORERS The Cuban state, the Communist Party, and the security forces created institutions of self-administration for the contract laborers in the GDR. Contract laborers were grouped into collectives in a hierarchical leadership of Gruppenleiter (group leaders) and Bezirksbeauftragte (district leaders) appointed by Cubatecnica and representatives of the Communist Party and the Communist Youth organization. These officials served as representatives of the Cuban contract laborers, were responsible for disciplining individual laborers, and were in charge of organizing leisure-time events. They were further responsible for the “political-ideological education” of their fellow countrymen and for supporting them in their training and employment.65 Many Gruppenleiter and Bezirksbeauftragte were initially, just like the contract laborers, ill-equipped and unprepared for their duties in the beginning of the program. The first generation of these officials was subsequently recalled in the early 1980s and replaced with better-trained individuals.66 Also among the officials who worked for Cubatecnica, were members of the Cuban State Security who worked together with their East German colleagues to put Cuban contract laborers under surveillance.67 The collaboration between both state security services was based upon an agreement that provided for their close collaboration through regular communications between both institutions, the collection of information, measures to prevent conflicts, and the prevention of contacts with “enemies of socialism.”68 While the surveillance of contract laborers was deemed the responsibility of the Cuban State Security, their East German colleagues provided liaison officers to support these efforts.69 However, the cooperation between the state security services did not work out as planned. On the one hand, the number of antisocialist crimes such as “the praising of the Western way of life” and escaping



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to the West—flights from Havana to East Berlin had a layover in Canada— were rather insignificant. On the other hand, tensions and conflicts between Cubans and East Germans, which became a much more frequent problem, could not be prevented by the Cuban or the East German security forces. The Cuban Communist Party and the Communist Youth organization set up sections for their members abroad. In 1980, about 14,450 members of the Communist Youth were temporarily living outside of Cuba. Nearly half of these Cubans abroad (47 percent) were students, 32 percent participated as soldiers or civilians in support missions in countries such as Angola and Ethiopia (Internacionalistas), 19 percent were contract laborers, and 2 percent worked in Cuba’s embassies. About 18 percent of those Cubans abroad lived in the GDR, where university students joined the sections of the Communist Youth organization more frequently than contract laborers.70 Cuban university students in the GDR lived distant from contract laborers, who had less contact with East Germans because of their isolated living arrangements and practiced their own customs and traditions.71 About half of the contract laborers held a membership in the Communist Youth organization, which was not a mass organization with mandatory membership for all young people. The Cuban Communist Youth organization was limited in its membership as admission was by invitation only. However, members of the Communist Youth organization were not immune to violent conflicts and delinquency and did not, as internal reports confirm, always live up to the expectations of their government.72 In 1987, about 12,000 Cuban contract laborers worked in 150 East German factories. That was twice as many as in 1984.73 This enormous rise in numbers in just three years made existing problems in the selection of contract laborers worse. The organizational framework set up by the chapters of the Cuban Communist Party and the Communist Youth was incapable of controlling its members and of framing their transition from Cuban to East German society. The result was an increase in violence including rape, brutal beatings, and vandalism. Morale among Cuban contract laborers and university students was considered low. Too many Cubans preferred, according to an internal report of the Communist Youth organization, a life of leisure, lax work ethic, and delinquency over study and work.74 When, in 1979, a committee of the Communist Youth organization visited contract laborers in the GDR and Czechoslovakia, its members produced a report that pointed to deficiencies in preparation and assistance in cultural integration. The report mentioned that contract laborers experienced a culture shock in dealing with a different climate, language, and society. Few had industrial labor experience and had not learned how to manage their monthly income and how to spend their leisure time. The report demanded that both sides should make efforts to better integrate Cuban contract laborers into

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the East German economy and society. The report also suggested that the existing structures of the youth organization were ill-equipped to provide further and effective help. The authors of the report further argued in favor of better screening for applicants—instead of sending individuals without any industrial work experience to Europe, Cuba was to consider limiting its applicant pool to individuals with at least some industrial work experience. The report finally suggested that contract laborers needed better social and cultural preparation for living and working in the GDR.75 The East German government acknowledged for its part, in internal reports, shortcomings in providing Cuban contract laborers with sufficient support in managing life and work in East German society.76 Factory officials (Ausländerbeauftragte) who were charged with the care for contract laborers had little preparation and experience for this job. They did not give this task its due political attention, criticized reports of the State Security’s “Arbeitsgruppe Ausländer.” The East German Communist Youth organization—the Free German Youth (Freie Deutsche Jugend, FDJ)—did not live up to its political duty of providing a welcoming frame for its Communist “friends” from Cuba.77 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CUBAN CONTRACT LABORERS AND EAST GERMANS The contacts between East German and Cuban laborers on the factory floor were presented in official declarations as an effort to put into practice the ideal of proletarian internationalism and “People’s Friendship.” Official statements insisted that Cuban contract laborers and East Germans lived in harmony and formed social bonds across national and even continental lines.78 However, East German government officials did not encourage relationships between individual East Germans and individual Cubans. Relationships between Cubans and East Germans were to be arranged by official organizations such as the FDJ and trade unions, and to be maintained at an official level. Official meetings, however, showcased the “good Cubans” who performed traditional dances and music for East German audiences.79 Individual contacts between Cubans and East Germans in their leisure time—between colleagues or even between lovers—were not promoted, since they were outside of state surveillance. Meetings in pubs, private homes, and gardens were outside the organized level of relationships and, from time to time, turned into situations beyond “friendship” and “solidarity.” While Cuban women, who constituted only one-quarter of the Cuban contract labor force in the GDR, were generally not permitted by the Cuban collective to engage in sexual relations with East German men, the Cuban male collective tolerated Cuban men having sexual relations with East German women.



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Following cultural patterns, Cuban men prevented their fellow Cuban women from engaging in romantic relationships with East German men, even with violence if necessary. Cultural norms and customs were not primarily put into practice in official meetings but rather in private contacts between Cubans and East Germans. And these negotiations did not occur without tensions and conflicts. The meetings of Cubans and East Germans could take the form of an intercultural conflict between Cubans who came largely from rural areas and East Germans who had little experience with people from other cultures. According to the historian Michael Zeuske, who, as the son of the East German professor Max Zeuske, grew up in Cuba, East Germans had no imagination with regards to the cultural difference of Cuban society. He had to explain them as an expert.80 Government officials were naïve in believing that laborers from different countries would quickly find common ground for cooperation centered on ideological identity. Only after violent clashes between individual Cubans and East Germans occurred did the East German government produce handouts that detailed the “national specificities of Cuban culture and life.” In these handouts, Cubans were portrayed as having a different mentality, which needed to be considered when East Germans encountered them. Cubans were said to be “hot-blooded” and deeply patriarchal, which manifested itself in strict norms about “honor” and the relationship between men and women. East German authorities saw these traits as remnants of a pre-socialist past, which, with the advance of socialism, would eventually disappear. However, such cultural changes were projected to take a long time. The handouts further explained that Cuban adolescents engaged in sexual activities much earlier than their East German counterparts—that is, before the age of maturity, eighteen. Cubans were also characterized as leading a more communal life than East Germans, which resulted in frequent social gatherings as well as collective responses if one Cuban felt threatened by an East German. Cuban contract laborers felt lonely and isolated in the GDR since they were separated from their family and not integrated into social life. This isolation caused them to abuse alcohol and to pursue sexual encounters with East German women, including teenagers.81 DEVIANCE AND DELINQUENCY Badly prepared for the social and cultural norms of East German society, young Cubans arrived in towns and factories that were as equally ill-prepared for their arrival and stay. The fundamental lines of conflict emerged immediately after the arrival of the first cohort of Cubans in places such as the truck producer IFA in the town of Brandenburg, which was located about fifty miles

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west of Berlin. Local officials complained about the lack of work ethic among the Cuban contract laborers, women complained about their machismo, and neighbors complained about loud music and too many crowded gatherings at night. Brawls between Cuban and East German young people were frequent and from time to time led to serious injuries.82 Conflicts about sexual relationships were frequent and dominated the semi-public discourse about Cuban contract laborers in East German society. Cuba sent significantly more men than women, who felt forced to seek out East German partners. While East German women, according to East German sources, often felt threatened by the aggressive behavior of Cuban men, Cuban contract laborers have fond memories of their East German girlfriends.83 Cuban contract laborers quickly became physical in both romantic relationships with East German women and in confrontations with East German men. In brawls Cubans reacted fast and used physical force decisively to hurt the opponent. Fists fights could quickly turn into knife fights, in which Cubans were almost always superior to East Germans. Intoxicated Cubans showed very little control over their actions and engaged in violent behavior. Many conflicts were based upon cultural misunderstandings. In one case, a Cuban man attacked an East German man in a public bathroom while urinating. The East German had started laughing when releasing himself, and the Cuban man mistakenly took the laughter as a sign of disrespect and belittling of his genitals.84 It was problems such as this that caused members of the East German government to reconsider the agreement with Cuba and the replacement of Cuban contract laborers with those from Vietnam and Mozambique, who were much more disciplined and showed a significantly higher work ethic.85 Vietnamese contract laborers did not cause as much sociocultural problems as they did cause economic ones. Vietnamese contract laborers engaged in extensive endeavors to send consumer goods back to their families in Vietnam and engaged in black market trading of West German consumer goods, which were in short supply in the GDR.86 In the mid-1980s, Cubans accounted for most police encounters among the various groups of contract laborers in the GDR.87 Conflicts arose at the workplace, when Cubans felt discriminated, and in leisure time, when they engaged in social gatherings that disturbed their neighbors or in brawls in pubs. It is in the nature of brawls, that they produce divergent versions concerning their origin, and since German archival sources are often the only documentation for these events, we are often left with the East German perspective. In some cases, both versions are at disposal. One such conflict occurred during a wine feast in the September of 1978, in which violent clashes broke out between Cubans and East Germans. From the perspective of the East German police forces, drunk Cubans had started to destroy furniture and to attack the intervening police forces, while the Cubans contended that the police had let dogs



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loose on them without any reason.88 The most severe conflicts emerged in the sphere of leisure-time activities. Excessive consumption of alcohol and the desire for sexual relationships with East German women caused frequent violent clashes, in which mostly East Germans sustained severe injuries and some casualties. This behavior, along with the communal form of life with many social gatherings, contributed to the creation of a derogatory image of Cubans among the local population.89 In September 1989, an internal report from the East German Ministry of State Security came to the conclusion that these conflicts were fed by the lack of Cuban integration into East German life, cultural misunderstandings, rivalries for sexual relationships, and a growing aversion against foreigners among East Germans.90 Violent drunken conflicts among men that were motivated by a desire for sexual relationships were certainly not alien to East German society. East Germans considered such fights as normal for as long as they remained fist fights.91 What was different about the conflicts when they involved Cuban contract laborers was the inclusion of dangerous weapons such as knifes. Conflicts that involved Cubans often involved weapons and led to serious injuries or even death. The use of such force, as well as the collective acting of Cubans when one member of their group was attacked or felt assaulted was alien to East German men who typically acted alone and who did not use dangerous weapons. THE POLITICAL RESOLUTION TO CONFLICTS BETWEEN CUBANS AND EAST GERMANS A mass brawl between Cubans and East Germans in the small town of Merseburg in the August of 1979, which was instigated by Cubans, led to the death of two Cubans who died while swimming across the river Saale. They tried to escape their opponents by jumping into the nearby river. These deaths were part of a confrontation that dragged out over two days and involved two separate confrontations between several East Germans and Cubans.92 The scope of the conflict and the death of two individuals caused the East German authorities to intervene and to try to find a non-judicial, “political” resolution acceptable for both contract partners, “taking into consideration the fraternal relations between the GDR and Cuba.” Local police shut down its investigation because the two drownings were not the result of outside force, and the instigators of the brawls could not be identified. The East German government asked the Cuban ambassador to intervene and to order the repatriation of those Cubans who could be identified as the instigators. The Cuban authorities responded, however, that they considered it the responsibility of the East German judicial system. Cuba’s ambassador in East Berlin

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encouraged the East German government to arrest and put on trial two Cuban instigators. After the trial, those Cubans found guilty could be repatriated to Cuba where they would serve their prison sentence.93 The Cuban government, which intended to send many more contract laborers in the coming years, clearly wanted to use this case to set an example for others to make clear that deviance and non-compliance with East German laws and customs would not be tolerated94—the instigators of the deadly brawl had obviously been the Cubans. Cuban authorities cared less for the indulgent “political” implementation of proletarian internationalism than their East German counterparts and considered the judicial punishment of deviance as more important for the future collaboration of Cuba with the GDR. GDR authorities sanctioned local police forces when they violated the principles of “People’s Friendship” by using disproportionate and unlawful force in the arrests of contract laborers. In an internal police report from November 1979, about a brawl that involved five Cubans, the author identified the arrest of the five Cubans, one among them “of African descent,” to have been conducted with excessive force. An internal investigation scolded the arresting police officers as in need of “political-ideological education,” since their behavior endangered the country’s policy of proletarian internationalism and recommended disciplinary proceedings.95 The internal investigation concluded that the arresting policemen not only used excessive force but also acted outside of the law. They were asked to apologize for their unlawful actions and to provide compensation for damaged clothing and missed work due to the injuries sustained by those who had been arrested.96 The East German State Security investigated cases in which policemen appeared as too biased with regards to identifying the instigators of conflicts between Cubans and East Germans. When, in June of 1980, the local police in Leipzig concluded that a mass brawl between Cubans and East Germans was caused by Cubans, local State Security officers criticized local police authorities for focusing on Cuban instigators and ignoring East German culprits. The report of the state security officers also included a statement about anti-Cuban sentiments among East Germans.97 Since the East German government considered “People’s Friendship” a major political precept it favored non-judicial solutions to conflicts between Cuban contract laborers and East Germans. Instead of trying instigators of brawls—whether they were Cuban or East German—GDR authorities organized public discussion sessions that were run by the local chapters of the East German Communist Youth organization in collaboration with the local chapters of the Cuban Communist Youth organization. Both youth organizations were asked to collaborate in dealing with conflicts between young people from both countries by finding appropriate leisure-time activities for both groups.98



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Both East German government officials and State Security officers supported leniency with regards to the particularities of Cuban contract laborers. They believed that it was up to local factory managers to understand the political mission of the contract labor program by creating an environment that helped Cubans to integrate and to prevent conflicts through the organization of controlled meetings between Cubans and East Germans, as well as through educating both Cubans and East Germans about the customs and traditions of the other.99 However, conflicts never subsided. In 1986 alone, about one thousand Cuban contract laborers had to be repatriated because of infractions. For the East German government, this repatriation rate showed that Cuban authorities were either unwilling or unable to improve the selection and screening process of applicants. In 1986, the Cuban government finally decided to end the contract labor program.100 In January 1987, Carlos Rafael Rodríguez, Cuba’s chief economic leader, let his East German partners know that, starting in the year 1988, Cuba would feel forced to stop sending contract laborers to countries such as the GDR, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Bulgaria because a significant number of these laborers had damaged the reputation of the Cuban state through their behavior.101 This problem had been discussed at the Third Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba in December 1986.102 The contract labor programs with Bulgaria and Hungary were also terminated after severe clashes.103 The Cuban government, however, continued to send Cuban contract laborers even after the decision to end the contract labor program to the GDR. In February 1989, the Cuban government even approached the East German government with the suggestion to increase the number of Cubans to be sent to the GDR. The East German government accepted this proposal and also granted the Cuban contract laborers who were still living in the GDR in 1989 the opportunity to extend their stay.104 About three thousand contract laborers applied for such an extension.105 Both sides agreed to a target number of ten thousand Cuban contract laborers by the end of 1990.106 When the GDR ceased to exist in 1990, the Cuban government finally suspended the contract labor program. The decision of the Cuban government to end its contract labor programs with all socialist countries occurred in the context of a political reorientation implemented by the Third Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba in 1986. Its decisions heralded the last short-lived stage of Cuba’s COMECON period, the Rectificación de errores (Rectification of Errors, 1986–1991). The Cuban leadership criticized the high value given to economic incentives provided to laborers in Eastern European Communist countries. They also distanced themselves from reform programs that championed an economic reorientation toward a market economy. Cuba’s socialist allies began to embrace economic reforms that were geared toward market economies and the liberalization of

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economic and political life.107 The Cuban leadership, by contrast, believed in a reviving of traditional principles of a socialist economy regarding state control of the economy and the rejection of market mechanisms. In this context, Cuban contract laborers who had experienced political and economic change in socialist Europe became a danger for the Cuban system. Fidel Castro concluded that the political damage of the contract labor program outweighed its economic benefit. This political reorientation set Cuba apart not only from socialist countries in Europe but also from the other non-European members of COMECON, such as Vietnam. Since the mid-1980s, Vietnam had introduced economic reforms that were intended to strengthen private enterprise and to create a socialist market economy (Doi Moi). These reforms provided the background for Vietnam’s growing interest in sending contract laborers to Europe to obtain training and education.108 Vietnam and Cuba’s decisions about their participation in contract labor programs with socialist countries were, thus, driven by domestic policies about the nature of socialist society. In the 1980s, East German government officials developed doubts about the usefulness of the contract labor programs. Labor contract programs were never exclusively about economics but also about collaboration (“development”) programs named “international solidarity” and “proletarian internationalism.” East German officials hoped that these arrangements would deepen the integration of people in various socialist countries and help sustain solidarity among the people of Cuba and the GDR. However, the tensions and conflicts between Cubans and East Germans contributed to the strengthening of xenophobic attitudes in the minds of many East Germans. Several reports from the Ministry of State Security from 1987 mention growing xenophobia among young people hostile to the socialist system.109 And, in 1988, East Berlin’s city council issued a statement in which it called upon East Germans to accept and understand the political and ideological significance of contract labor agreements. The statement demanded that East Germans be familiarized with the different customs and lifestyles of foreign laborers.110 REPATRIATIONS In 1980, the East German collaborator of the Cuban Women’s Organisation FMC, Monika Krause, produced a report concerning the Cuban contract labor program, which stated that about 8 percent of the Cuban contract laborers sent to the GDR returned either voluntarily or involuntarily before the end of their contract term. A report of the Cuban Communist Youth organization form 1982 noted that about 20 percent of Cuban contract laborers returned to Cuba before their term expired. About two-thirds of these early returners were sent home because they had violated the law or social conventions.111



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In 1983 and 1984, the number of those sent back sank again to about 7 percent.112 Most Cuban contract laborers who were sent home early came from Havana (about 82 percent) and only 18 percent from the rural areas of Cuba. About 11 percent of those sent home were forced to return to Cuba because they had opposed the rule that 60 percent of their income was exchanged into pesos and transferred to Cuba, and about a quarter (!) of the female contract laborers were sent back because they had become pregnant.113 If Cuban contract laborers became pregnant in the GDR, they were, in principle, to return to Cuba. However, such a request violated, as Krause complained, the Cuban Constitution, Cuban family law, and basic human rights, in general. Cuban men, by contrast, who had engaged with their fellow Cuban women in sexual relations, did not face such consequences and were allowed to remain in the GDR. This pattern reinforced masochistic social norms and caused conflicts among Cubans as well as between Cubans and East Germans. In particular, romantic relationships between Cuban men and East German women repeatedly led to violent clashes, as East German women did not conform to Cuban customs in gender relations and machismo. Monika Krause, an advisor on female emancipation and sexual education, criticized Cuban society, in general, for clinging to outdated sexual stereotypes, in which men dominated women. She saw a need for the creation of regulations and norms for romantic relationships between Cuban men and women during their stay in the GDR.114 Traveling to and living in East German society showed Cuban men and women a very different model for the relationships between men and women and afforded Cuban women an opportunity to experience a more liberated lifestyle. These experiences may also have impacted social norms in Cuba since women could return with new ideas about relationships, marriage, and sex.115 In 1982 and 1983, a total of 995 contract laborers were (voluntarily and involuntarily) repatriated. Of these, 563 were sent back because of infractions of legal and social norms at their workplace or during their leisure time. A total of 197 Cubans returned for personal reasons. Thirty-eight women left early due to pregnancy. Fifteen contract laborers died, eight did not return from their vacations, and one fled the country.116 East German sources pointed primarily to a lack of work ethic and basic education as the main reasons for early contract terminations.117 In total, East German sources estimated the early termination rate of Cuban contract labor at 15 percent—a significantly higher share than that of contract labor from other countries such as Vietnam.118 Only 1 percent of Vietnamese contract laborers were sent home for legal and social infractions.119 This high rate of deportations of Cuban contract laborers was not specific to the GDR. In the case of Czechoslovakia, about 9 percent of Cuban contract laborers were sent home for disciplinary reasons or for health reasons during the period from May 1978 to December 1980.120

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Of the 150 Cuban contract laborers sent to the diesel motor factory in the small town of Schönebeck, 33 were sent back to Cuba within the first months of arrival. A report from the State Security blamed the factory management, which was unable to integrate the Cuban contract laborers into the factory and allowed for a breakdown of basic social norms at the workplace, in the housing complex reserved for the contract laborers, and within the town. The Cuban government also accepted some responsibility and acknowledged that the selection of these contract laborers had been careless, and that the local Cuban officials who were in control of the group of laborers in Schönebeck had lost all authority. The factory officials believed that they were only responsible for the Cubans during the time they spent at work and left them unsupervised during off hours. As a result, a government report demanded that factory officials take responsibility for organizing leisure-time activities for their Cuban contract laborers.121 East German officials blamed ignorance and irresponsibility on both sides for the failure of the contract labor system in Schönebeck. In other cases, officials of the East German trade unions saw more responsibility with the East German workers and demanded that these workers needed to be better prepared for interactions with people from other socialist countries such as Cuba.122 COMING HOME After their return home, few Cuban contract laborers found employment in the positions and industries for which they had been trained in the GDR. The reason was not an incompatibility in the industrial training but rather the downfall of socialism in Europe, which negatively impacted plans for the industrialization of Cuba. Most planned factories were simply not built, and plans for the creation of a large-scale automobile industry in Cuba, for which hundreds of Cubans were trained in the GDR, did not materialize. These contract labor programs depended on the continued existence of the socialist world, and it was the disappearance of that socialist world that made their results obsolete. Even though former Cuban contract laborers contributed to the spread of German language and culture in the Americas, the presence of these contract laborers in Germany has largely been forgotten among Germans and is not institutionalized in Cuba either. The factories in which they worked were closed, and the Cuban industries for which they were prepared were never built. After the downfall of the socialist states in Europe, many Cuban contract laborers were left with the knowledge they had acquired in the GDR but without the opportunity to actually use it.



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Many contract laborers, as it becomes clear from interviews and memoirs, do not retrospectively see their vocational training as the most important outcome of their stay in the GDR, but rather the general social disciplining that led them to observe a strict work ethic, punctuality, and precision as valuable life lessons. In 1982, one contract laborer wrote in an article for the Cuban journal Colaboracíon Internacional, which was published by the Ministry for Economic Collaboration, that he had learned in the GDR basic virtues such as disciplined learning, fulfilling work norms, and being punctual for work.123 A collection of essays written by former Cuban contract laborers and published in an edited volume even suggests in its title that they had returned from the GDR as changed and improved persons—Regresé siendo otra persona (I Came Back as Another Person).124 Thus, the stay of Cuban contract laborers contributed to the discipline of the Cuban workforce and infused Cuban society with the virtues of an industrialized society in the image of the GDR. Nevertheless, the stay in the GDR was, for most contract laborers, not helpful in securing professional careers. Only those who were sent to attend East German universities were able to obtain important positions in Cuban society and politics. However, this did not cause contract laborers to regret their time spent in the GDR. Looking back, nearly all contract laborers who were interviewed for this project contended that their stay in the GDR was a beautiful experience. For most of them, it also remained their only time abroad. CONCLUSION This chapter explores the transfer of Cuban contract laborers to the GDR in the 1970s and 1980s as a phenomenon of temporary labor migration within the socialist world. In contrast to existing scholarship on this topic, which has focused nearly exclusively on the East German side, this chapter acknowledges that both sides were driven by their own agendas in creating and executing contract labor programs. This temporary labor migration was part of larger “development” programs within the COMECON, which sought to align the economic levels of its member states,125 and organized by the respective states. The strong emphasis on political and economic development toward a socialist economy and an integrated world system was a peculiarity of this temporary labor migration programs in the global history of migrations. A second particularity was the combination of vocational training with “all-sided” education of the personality. However, both states were overstrained by these tasks. The Cuban side never managed to create a selection mechanism that permitted the selection of educationally qualified and culturally prepared youngsters for a stay in East Germany. The result was an inter-cultural clash between East Germans and Cubans that, from time to

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time, erupted in violent confrontations. The high percentage of repatriations caused by deviance (7–10 percent) was an expression of these problems. These confrontations created among the population the impression that the labor program was not mastered by the East German authorities and consequently led to the rise of xenophobic sentiments. However, they did not lead to a termination of the labor program. The GDR continued to demand, and Cuba continued to send laborers to be trained. The conflicts were politically mediated at the highest levels and did not result in conflicts at the state or party level. Examples of successful cooperation and cohabitation, of getting used to each other, typically showed a considerable effort of preparation and commitment from both sides, but this effort was rarely sufficiently put into practice. More often, at the level of implementation, incapacity, carelessness, or indifference prevailed. Cuba and the GDR come to the fore as educational states. The Cuban youngsters sent abroad were to be supervised and educated by a network of Cuban Communist Party and state officials in the GDR. However, the Cuban authorities expected a major contribution to this educational effort from their integration into the East German economy and society. In this perspective, the contract labor program can likewise be seen as a contribution to the education of Cuban youngsters toward the standards of an industrial society in its socialist version. The contract labor programs brought Cuban, Vietnamese, Algerian, Mozambican, and some Angolan laborers to Europe as part of larger intercontinental flows of professional and educational temporary migration. Thus, they were an effect of the “globalization” of the socialist world system— or, probably more appropriately, of its “inter-nationalization,” taking into account that the main actors in this temporary migration remained nationstates. However, this was no mass movement. There is no doubt that the labor migration streams within the socialist world were significantly smaller than the labor migration streams within the capitalist world.126 Contract laborers in the GDR represented only less than 1 percent of the East German population, while “guest workers” in the Federal Republic of Germany accounted for 4.5 percent of the West German population at the end of the 1980s.127 However, these two types of labor migrations differed in regards to their organization, the agency of the people involved, the imposed duration of stays, the role of education and training, and the motives of the countries involved. Contract labor was, in contrast to guest worker programs, grounded in a “civilizing mission” of spreading socialist values, virtues of work ethic, socialist lifestyle, and socialist forms of production across the globe. The international dimension of these migration streams modifies our image of socialist countries as isolated and closed nation-states. Countries such as the GDR, which appear as closed to the world, were without any doubt homogenous societies.



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However, East German society was affected by those intercontinental migrations that brought people of different cultures and skin colors to the GDR. Quite a few Cubans mated with Germans, some engaged in permanent relations. These encounters did not give East Germans and Cubans the feeling of being citizens of a shared “socialist world system.” The Cubans did not become socialist cosmopolitans.128 They did not develop an identity markedly distinct from their compatriots without migratory experience. In distinction to the Cuban civilian and military personnel sent on “internationalist” missions to Africa, Asia, and Latin America, they were not labeled “Internationalists” (Internacionalistas) by the Cuban state, nor did they feel as such. The inter-nationalism within the socialist world was to be realized “in national colors.” Cuban contract laborers were seen as Cubans first and as members of an international working class second. Cuban workers lived in East German society in segregated living arrangements, and they practiced their own customs and traditions including their own holidays. Segregation of the respective life-worlds was, however, not a general feature. In practice, it was often subverted by individuals meeting informally, mating in all possible circumstances, engaging in contacts and thus in conflicts of all sorts. In a metalworking factory 45 Cuban contract workers engendered in four years (1979–1983) 34 skilled worker-certificates, 3 marriages with Germans, and 11 children. On the other side, 10 of them, nearly a quarter, were repatriated for lack of qualification or discipline.129 This example shows the variety of possible forms of encounters between Cubans and Germans, from professional collaboration, personal mingling, and confluence to conflict, at times taking violent form. At the level of the Cuban state and party, the contract labor program was—together with the large endeavor of sending thousands of military and civilian “Internationalists” to countries such as Angola, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, and Vietnam—part of the island’s global outreach. It gave ordinary Cubans an international experience. This form of but Cuba’s “socialist inter-nationalization” ended with the collapse of the socialist world. NOTES 1. This chapter is the result of a research project, “Inter-kontinentale Arbeitsmigration im Sozialistischen Weltsystem: Kubanische Vertragsarbeiter in der DDR,” that was funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation, Düsseldorf. I would also like to thank Claudia Martínez Hernández for her support with archival research and conducting interviews in Cuba. My sincere thanks, also, go to the archivists in Cuba and Germany without whose help this chapter could not have been written.

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2. Not every scholar is willing to see the socialist countries as forming a socialist world system. See, for the discussion of this issue, Christopher Chase-Dunn (ed.), Socialist States in the World-System (Beverly Hills, London, and New Delhi: Sage, 1982); Zeev Gorin, “Socialist Societies and World System Theory: A Critical Survey,” Science & Society 49, no. 3 (1985): 332–66; Berthold Unfried, “Sozialistisches Weltsystem? Wie tauglich ist diese Selbstbezeichnung für die historische Forschung? Eine Erorterung anhand der Praxis außereuropaïscher internationaler Zusammenarbeit der DDR,” Zeitschrift für Weltgeschichte 22, no. 2 (2022). 3. Helga Marburger (ed.), “Und wir haben unseren Beitrag zur Volkswirtschaft geleistet”: Eine aktuelle Bestandsaufnahme der Situation der Vertragsarbeitnehmer der ehemaligen DDR vor und nach der Wende (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag für Interkulturelle Kommunikation, 1993); Andreas Müggenburg, Die ausländischen Vertragsarbeitnehmer in der ehemaligen DDR: Darstellung und Dokumentation (Mitteilungen der Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für die Belange der Ausländer), Berlin, 1996; Sandra Gruner-Domic, “Kubanische Vertragsarbeiter. Leben in einer anderen sozialistischen Realität,” in Almut Zwengel (ed.), Die ‘Gastarbeiter’ der DDR. Politischer Kontext und Lebenswelt (Berlin and Münster: Lit, 2011), 53–70; Damian Mac Con Uladh, “Studium bei Freunden? Ausländische Studierende in der DDR bis 1970,” in Christian T. Müller und Patrice G. Poutrus (eds.), Ankunft— Alltag—Ausreise: Migration und interkulturelle Begegnung in der DDR-Gesellschaft (Cologne, Weimar, and Vienna: Böhlau, 2005), 175–220; Dagmara Jajesniak-Quast, “‘Proletarische Internationalität’ ohne Gleichheit: Ausländische Arbeitskräfte in ausgewählten sozialistischen Großbetrieben,” in Müller/Poutrus, Ankunft—Alltag— Ausreise, 267–94; Ulrich van der Heyden, Wolfgang Semmler, and Rolf Straßburg (eds.), Mosambikanische Vertragsarbeiter in der DDR-Wirtschaft (Berlin: Lit, 2014); Ulrich van der Heyden, Das gescheiterte Experiment. Vertragsarbeiter aus Mosambik in der DDR-Wirtschaft (1979–1990) (Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2019). 4. Sandra Gruner-Domic, Kubanische Arbeitsmigration in die DDR 1978–1989. Das Arbeitskräfteabkommen Kuba-DDR und dessen Realisierung (Berlin: Edition Parabolis, 1997); Annegret Schüle, “Proletarischer Internationalismus oder ökonomischer Vorteil für die DDR? Mosambikanische, angolanische und vietnamesische Arbeitskräfte im VEB Leipziger Baumwollspinnerei (1980–1989),” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 42 (2002): 191–210; Eric Allina, “Between Sozialismus und Socialismo: African Workers and Public Authority in the German Democratic Republic,” in Mahua Sarkar (ed.), Work out of Place (Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2018), 77–99. 5. Ann-Judith Rabenschlag, Völkerfreundschaft nach Bedarf: Ausländische Arbeitskräfte in der Wahrnehmung von Staat und Bevölkerung der DDR (Stockholm: Acta Universitatis, 2014). 6. Jorge Perez-Lopez and Sergio Diaz-Briquets, “Labor Migration and Offshore Assembly in the Socialist World: The Cuban Experience,” Population and Development Review 16, no. 2 (1990): 273–99. 7. Leonel Cala Fuentes, Kubaner im realen Paradies. Ausländer-Alltag in der DDR: Eine Erinnerung (Berlin: Dietz, 2007); Wolf-Dieter Vogel and Verona



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Wunderlich (eds.), Abenteuer DDR: Kubanerinnen und Kubaner im deutschen Sozialismus (Berlin: Dietz, 2011). 8. Leonel Cala Fuentes, Kubaner im realen Paradies. Ausländer-Alltag in der DDR: Eine Erinnerung (Berlin: Dietz, 2007); Wolf-Dieter Vogel and Verona Wunderlich (eds.), Abenteuer DDR. Kubanerinnen und Kubaner im deutschen Sozialismus (Berlin: Dietz, 2011). 9. Christoph Lorke, “Außereuropäische ‘Werktätige’ als interkulturelle Herausforderung. DDR-Betriebe und ihr Umgang mit Fremdheit,” Geschichte und Region/Storia e regione 28, no. 2 (2019): 21. 10. Christina Schwenkel, “Rethinking Asian Mobilities: Socialist Migration and Postsocialist Repatriation of Vietnamese Contract Workers in East Germany,” Critical Asian Studies 46, no. 2 (2014): 235–58; Christina Schwenkel (ed.), Vietnamese in Central and Eastern Europe, special issue of Journal of Vietnamese Studies 12, no. 1 (2017). 11. Heyden, Das gescheiterte Experiment, 2. 12. Almut Zwengel (ed.), Die “Gastarbeiter” der DDR. Politischer Kontext und Lebenswelt (Berlin and Münster: Lit, 2011); Cindy Hahamovitch, “Men Do Not Gather Grapes from Thorns: Indentured Labor, Guestworkers, and the Failure of Regulation,” in Sarkar, Work out of Place, 23–54. 13. Horst Dieter Brezinski, Internationale Wirtschaftsplanung im RGW (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1978), 160–64; Eva-Maria Elsner, “Zum Arbeitskräfteaustausch zwischen sozialistischen Staaten,” Fremdarbeiterpolitik des Imperialismus 15 (1983): 33; EvaMaria Elsner and Lothar Elsner, Ausländer und Ausländerpolitik in der DDR (Berlin: Helle Panke, 1992): 24; Friedrich Levcik, “Migration and Employment of Foreign Workers in the CMEA Countries and their Problems,” in East European Economies Post-Helsinki: A Compendium of Papers Submitted to the Joint Economic Committee Congress of the United States (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1977), 458; Sandra Gruner-Domic, “Zur Geschichte der Arbeitskräftemigration in die DDR: Die bilateralen Verträge zur Beschäftigung ausländischer Arbeiter (1961– 1989),” IWK 32, no. 2 (1996): 204. 14. The agreement concluded on May 3, 1978, was initiated by the Cuban side. Positionspapier: Entsendung kubanischer Werktätiger in die DDR zur Qualifizierung im Prozess der produktiven Arbeit, o.D., Bundesarchiv Berlin (BA Berlin) DL 3/54. See also Hana Bortlová-Vondráková and Mónika Szente-Varga, “Labor Migration Programs Within the Socialist Bloc: Cuban Guestworkers in Late Socialist Czechoslovakia and Hungary,” in Labor History (2021) https://doi.org/10.1080/002 3656X.2021.1908972: 4. For an opposing argument, see Jorge Domínguez, To Make a World Safe for Revolution: Cuba’s Foreign Policy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), 98. The contract labor program with Vietnam was also concluded at the request of the Vietnamese government. Aktenvermerk über ein Gespräch in der Botschaft der SR Vietnam, Berlin November 7, 1978. This document was reprinted in Oliver Raendchen, Vietnamesen in der DDR. Ein Rückblick (Berlin: SEACOM, 2000), 42–43. 15. Begründung Beschluss über die zeitweilige Beschäftigung kubanischer Werktätiger in Betrieben der DDR, 8.12.1977, BA Berlin DC 20-I/4/3956.

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16. Proyecto de ponencia sobre los jóvenes de 13 a 16 años que no estudian ni realizan ninguna actividad socialmente útil, La Habana September 15, 1971, Instituto de Historia de Cuba, La Habana, Archivos CC PCC, 2088/10.1/117/35.F.10-35.F.15/23-36. 17. Archivo Central de la UJC, Actas de las reuniones del Comité Nacional, September 17, 1972, 3-2-110/3; Primer Secretario 1975, 5.0.4: Informes: 6-5-197/2. 18. Concerning the delimitations between one-sided “solidarity” assistance and collaboration based on “mutual interest” see Berthold Unfried, “Instrumente und Praktiken von ‘Solidarität’ Ost und ‘Entwicklungshilfe’ West,” in: Berthold Unfried and Eva Himmelstoss (eds.), Praktiken von Internationaler Solidarität und Internationaler Entwicklung (Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsanstalt, 2012), 73–98. 19. Interview with Mayra Lavigne conducted by the author in Havana on October 17, 2018; Interview with Pedro Mesa conducted by the author in Havana on October 30, 2018. 20. Letter of Carlos Lage Dávila, Primer Secretario de la UJC to Abelardo Álvarez Gil, Jefe del Departamento de Organización del CCPCC, La Habana December 25, 1982, and to Lionel Soto Prieto, Miembro del secretariado CCPCC, La Habana November 27, 1982, Archivo Central de la UJC, Primer Secretario 1982, 1.0.4 Documentos sometidos a la consideración del PCC 10-5-330/3. 21. Anlage 1: Gemeinsame Einschätzung über die Durchführung des Regierungsabkommens zwischen der DDR und der Rep. Kuba über die zeitweilige Beschäftigung kubanischer Werktätiger bei gleichzeitiger Qualifizierung im Prozess der produktiven Tätigkeit in sozialistischen Betrieben der DDR, Havanna 15.5.1980, BA Berlin DQ3/2130/1. 22. Informe central, Asamblea de constitución. Comités de la UJC de país RDA, dec. 1979, Archivo Central de la UJC, La Habana, 18.3.1 / 9-5-296/2. 23. Abkommen zwischen der Regierung der DDR und der Revolutionären Regierung der Rep. Kuba über die berufliche Qualifizierung von Staatsbürgern der Rep. Kuba in Betrieben der DDR October 15, 1975, BA Berlin DQ 4/565; Staatsbank der DDR, Beziehungen zur Rep. Kuba, Berlin April 1, 1977, BA Berlin DY 3023/1485, vol. 21; Bericht des Sekretärs des Ausschusses für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und WTZ zwischen der DDR und der Rep. Kuba über die Entwicklung der Beziehungen zwischen der VII. und VIII. Beratung des Wirtschaftsausschusses, PAAA Berlin ZR 1861/81; Gemeinsamer Ausschuss für wirtschaftliche und WTZ, Gemeinsame Information über die Entwicklung der wirtschaftlichen und WTZ zwischen der DDR und der Rep. Kuba im Zeitraum 1976–1980, May, 14, 1980, BA Berlin DY 3023/1485, vol. 173. 24. Zur Vorlage für die Kommission Afrika: Übersicht über die Berufsausbildung ausländischer Bürger auf kommerzieller Grundlage im Rahmen der WTZ und Solidarität: notwendige Maßnahmen, Berlin May 18, 1982, Sitzung der Kommission May 26, 1982, BA Berlin SAPMO, DY 30/2683, vols. 217–18; Tabelle des Staatssekretariats für Berufsausbildung, Müller, Die Bildungshilfe, 116–17. For the case of Vietnam see Alena Alamgir and Christina Schwenkel, “From Socialist Assistance to National SelfInterest: Vietnamese Labor Migration into CMEA Countries,” in James Mark, Artemy M. Kalinovsky, and Steffi Marung (eds.), Alternative Globalizations: Eastern Europe and the Postcolonial World (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2020), 106–9.



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25. Tabelle des Staatssekretariats für Berufsausbildung, Müller, Die Bildungshilfe, 116–17; Birgit Fröhlich, “Gedanken zur Entwicklungszusammenarbeit der DDR mit Afrika,” in: Ulrich van der Heyden, Ilona Schleicher, Hans-Georg Schleicher (eds.), Die DDR und Afrika. Zwischen Klassenkampf und neuem Denken (MünsterHamburg: Lit, 1993), 152–54. 26. Abkommen zwischen der Regierung der DDR und der Revolutionären Regierung der Rep. Kuba über die berufliche Qualifizierung von Staatsbürgern der Rep. Kuba in Betrieben der DDR October 15, 1975, BA Berlin DQ 4/565; Staatsbank der DDR, Beziehungen zur Rep. Kuba, Berlin April 1, 1977, BA Berlin DY 3023/1485, vol. 21; Bericht des Sekretärs des Ausschusses für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und WTZ zwischen der DDR und der Rep. Kuba über die Entwicklung der Beziehungen zwischen der VII. und VIII. Beratung des Wirtschaftsausschusses, PAAA Berlin ZR 1861/81; Gemeinsamer Ausschuss für wirtschaftliche und WTZ, Gemeinsame Information über die Entwicklung der wirtschaftlichen und WTZ zwischen der DDR und der Rep. Kuba im Zeitraum 1976–1980, May 14, 1980, BA Berlin DY 3023/1485, vol. 173; Botschaft der DDR/WPA, Vermerk über ein Gespräch des Botschafters, Gen. Langer, mit dem Leiter der Hauptabt. Internationale Beziehungen des ZK der KPK, Gen. Raul Valdes Vivo, September 26, 1975, Havana October 1, 1975, BA Berlin, SAPMO DY 30/27030. 27. Staatsbank der DDR, Beziehungen zur Rep. Kuba, Berlin 1.4.1977, BA Berlin DY 3023/1485, vol. 21; Gemeinsamer Ausschuss für wirtschaftliche und WTZ, Gemeinsame Information über die Entwicklung der wirtschaftlichen und WTZ zwischen der DDR und der Rep. Kuba im Zeitraum 1976–1980, May 14, 1980, BA Berlin DY 3023/1485, vol. 173. 28. Information July 27, 1983, reprinted in: Raendchen, Vietnamesen in der DDR, 35. 29. Floßmann an Gen. Mittag, Zur Vorlage für die Kommission Afrika: Übersicht über die Berufsausbildung ausländischer Bürger auf kommerzieller Grundlage im Rahmen der WTZ und Solidarität: notwendige Maßnahmen, Berlin May 18, 1982, Sitzung der Kommission on May 26, 1982, BA Berlin SAPMO, DY 30/2683, 217–18. 30. Abkommen zwischen der Regierung der DDR und der Regierung der Rep. Kuba über die zeitweilige Beschäftigung kubanischer Werktätiger bei gleichzeitiger Qualifizierung im Prozess der produktiven Tätigkeit in sozialistischen Betrieben der DDR May 3, 1978, BSTU, HA X/336, 281. 31. Vereinbarung zwischen dem Staatssekretariat f. Arbeit und Löhne der DDR und dem Staatlichen Komitee für Arbeit und Sozialversicherung der Rep. Kuba zur Durchführung des Abkommens zwischen der Regierung der DDR und der Regierung der Rep. Kuba über die zeitweilige Beschäftigung kubanischer Werktätiger bei gleichzeitiger Qualifizierung im Prozess der produktiven Tätigkeit in sozialistischen Betrieben der DDR, Art.6, BSTU, HA X/336, 298–299. 32. Art. 3 of Vereinbarung, 283. 33. Interview with Claudio García Diaz Praxedes conducted by the author and Claudia Martínez Hernández in Havana on March 11, 2019. 34. An ex-executive of Cubatecnica denied this in the interview with Claudio García Diaz Praxedes, conducted by the author and Claudia Martínez Hernández in Havana on March 11, 2019.

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35. José Ramón Machado Ventura, Jefe del Departamento de Jóvenes Trabajadores, a Luis Orlando Domínguez, Primer Secretario de la UJC, La Habana July 17, 1980, Archivo Central de la UJC Sección 14 Esfera Obrera 1980, 14.3.1–14.3.2 Despachos/ Informes de trabajo. 36. Information über den Besuch des Ministers für Arbeit und soziale Sicherheit der Rep. Kuba, Gen. J. Benavides, November 27–December 3, 1982, BA Berlin DQ3/2130/2. 37. José Ramón Machado Ventura, Jefe del Departamento de Jóvenes Trabajadores, a Luis Orlando Domínguez, Primer Secretario de la UJC, La Habana July 17, 1980, Archivo Central de la UJC Sección 14 Esfera Obrera 1980, 14.3.1–14.3.2 Despachos/ Informes de trabajo. 38. Analisis del cumplimiento del plan de envío de jovenes a trabajar y calificarse en la RDA y la RSCH y principales problemas confontados, Archivo Central de la UJC, Sección 7 Organización, 7.6.3, Informes de trabajo 1981. 39. Reunión de dirigentes de la UJC en el exterior, Informe (1983), Archivo Central de la UJC, Departamento de Organización 7.5.1, 1983, 36–39; Informe sobre el trabajo de la UJC en el exterior durante el período 1983–1984, 23–24. 40. Niederschrift über die Beratungen zwischen Vertretern des Staatssekretariats für Arbeit und Löhne der DDR und des Staatlichen Komitees für Arbeit und Sozialversicherung der Rep. Kuba über die zeitweilige Beschäftigung und Qualifizierung kubanischer Werktätiger in sozialistischen Betrieben der DDR in Havana October 26–November 2, 1981, 3, BA Berlin DQ3/2127. 41. Beratung mit Cubatecnica, Berlin December 4, 1985, BA Berlin DQ 3/856; Information zur politisch-operativen Lage unter den ausländischen Werktätigen in der DDR (Jahreseinschätzung), September 19, 1988, BSTU ZAIG 20646, 65. 42. Notiz über ein Gespräch in der Residenz des kubanischen Botschafters on December 29, 1982, BSTU HA X/336, 243, 247. 43. Notiz über aufgeworfene Fragen und Bemerkungen des Gen. Fidel Castro in der Begegnung mit der Delegation der DDR zum Abschluss der Plankoordinierung 1981–1985, Berlin May 19, 1980, BA Berlin SAPMO DY 3023/1485, 176. 44. Interview with Ambassador Ramiro del Río conducted by author and Claudia Martínez Hernández in Havana on September 24, 2018. 45. Abt. AAK, Information zu den Rückführungen kubanischer Werktätiger, Berlin August 22, 1980, BA Berlin DQ3/2130/1. 46. Niederschrift June 30, 1981, BA Berlin DQ3/2130/1; Niederschrift über die Beratungen zwischen den Vertretern des Staatssekretariats f. Arbeit und Löhne der DDR und des Staatlichen Komitees für Arbeit und Sozialversicherung der Rep. Kuba über die zeitweilige Beschäftigung und Qualifizierung kubanischer Werktätiger in sozialistischen Betrieben der DDR October 26–November 2, 1981 in Havana, 4, BA Berlin DQ3/2127. 47. Interview with Ambassador Ramiro del Río conducted by author and Claudia Martínez Hernández in Havana on September 24, 2018. 48. Analisis del cumplimiento del plan de envío de jovenes a trabajar y calificarse en la RDA y la RSCH y principales problemas confontados, Archivo Central de la UJC, Sección 7 Organización, 7.6.3, Informes de trabajo, 1981.



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49. Memory of a Cuban student in the GDR (1985–1988), in Susanne Ritschel, Kubanische Studierende in der DDR: Ambivalentes Erinnern zwischen Zeitzeuge und Archiv, Hildesheim, Zurich, New York: Olms 2015, 230–231; Vorkommnisse und Erscheinungen im Zusammenhang mit dem Einsatz kubanischer Bürger in Brandenburg, Potsdam April 20, 1979, (betr. IFA-Getriebewerk Brandenburg), BSTU HA X/336, fol. 178; vgl. Gruner-Domic, Kubanische Arbeitsmigration, 12–13. For Hungary: Bortlová-Vondráková/Szente-Varga, Labor Migration Programs, 7 50. Staatssekretär f. Arbeit und Löhne/Beyreuther, Richtlinie zur Durchführung des Abkommens zwischen der Regierung der DDR und der Regierung der Rep. Kuba über die zeitweilige Beschäftigung kubanischer Werktätiger bei gleichzeitiger Qualifizierung im Prozess der produktiven Tätigkeit in sozialistischen Betrieben der DDR May 3, 1978, Berlin November 17, 1981, BSTU HA X/336, 341–342; Rabenschlag, Völkerfreundschaft, 115–16; Werk Calbe, Kontrollbericht zum Einsatz kubanischer Werktätiger, January 7, 1981; Lorke, “Außereuropäische ‘Werktätige,’” 28; Staatssekretär f. Arbeit und Löhne/Beyreuther, Richtlinie zur Durchführung des Abkommens zwischen der Regierung der DDR und der Regierung der Rep. Kuba über die zeitweilige Beschäftigung kubanischer Werktätiger bei gleichzeitiger Qualifizierung im Prozess der produktiven Tätigkeit in sozialistischen Betrieben der DDR May 3, 1978, Berlin November 17, 1981, BSTU HA X/336, fol. 341–42; Anlage 1: Gemeinsame Einschätzung über die Durchführung des Regierungsabkommens zwischen der DDR und der Rep. Kuba über die zeitweilige Beschäftigung kubanischer Werktätiger bei gleichzeitiger Qualifizierung im Prozess der produktiven Tätigkeit in sozialistischen Betrieben der DDR, Havana May 15, 1980, BA Berlin DQ3/2130/1. 51. Information über die zeitweilige Beschäftigung kubanischer Werktätiger in der DDR im Jahre 1984, April 8, 1985, BA Berlin DQ3/2130/1; Gruner-Domic, Kubanische Arbeitsmigration, 19–22. 52. Entwurf: Information über den Einsatz kubanischer Werktätiger in Betrieben der DDR (1980), BA Berlin DQ3/2130/1. 53. Gruner-Domic, Kubanische Arbeitsmigration, 19–21. 54. Betriebsdir. Schmidt, Bericht zum Prot. über die Kontrollberatung über den Einsatz der kubanischen Werktätigen im VEB Textilmaschinenbau Großenhain April 13, 1983, Großenhain July 26, 1983, BA Berlin, DQ3/2184. 55. Niederschrift June 30, 1981, BA Berlin, DQ3 2130/1. 56. MHF, Sektor Ausländerstudium, Abt Ausland I/Sektorleiter Gomillo, Zuarbeit zur 4. Sitzung der Gemeinsamen Kommission DDR-Republik Kuba, March 23–31, 1985, in der Republik Kuba, Berlin March 11, 1985, BA Berlin, DR3/23998; Information über die zeitweilige Beschäftigung kubanischer Werktätiger in der DDR im Jahre 1984, April 8, 1985, BA Berlin DQ3/2130/1. 57. Ergänzung des Abkommens zwischen der Regierung der DDR und der Regierung der Rep. Kuba über die zeitweilige Beschäftigung kubanischer Werktätiger bei gleichzeitiger Qualifizierung im Prozess der produktiven Tätigkeit in sozialistischen Betrieben der DDR May 3, 1978, Berlin April 4, 1979, BSTU HA X/336, 314; Staatssekretär f. Arbeit und Löhne/Beyreuther, Richtlinie zur Durchführung des Abkommens zwischen der Regierung der DDR und der Regierung der Rep. Kuba über die zeitweilige Beschäftigung kubanischer Werktätiger bei gleichzeitiger

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Qualifizierung im Prozess der produktiven Tätigkeit in sozialistischen Betrieben der DDR May 3, 1978, Berlin November 17, 1981, BSTU HA X/336, 344. 58. Müggenburg, Die ausländischen Vertragsarbeitnehmer in der ehemaligen DDR, 22, erroneously stipulates that the Cuban contract workers were interested to transfer as much as possible of their salary. 59. Gruner-Domic, Kubanische Arbeitsmigration, 65. 60. Alena Alamgir, “The Moped Diaries: Remittances in the CzechoslovakVietnamese Labor Migration Scheme,” in Sarkar (ed.), Work out of Place, 101–20. 61. Arbeitsgruppe RGW, Information über die Einziehung von Arbeitseinkommen der kubanischen Werktätigen durch die Botschaft der Rep. Kuba, Berlin June 8, 1979, BA Berlin, SAPMO DY 30/27031. See also Alamgir/Schwenkel, “From Socialist Assistance to National Self-Interest,” 115–16. 62. (Unleserlich) an Dr. Krolikowski, Berlin June 28, 1979, Wolfgang Bayreuther an Dr. Günter Mittag, Berlin June 5, 1979, PAA, ZR 3721/82: WTZ-Arbeitskräfte Kuba; Entwurf einer Gesprächskonzeption des Gen. Minister für eine Aussprache mit dem Botschafter der Rep. Kuba im Zusammenhang mit dem Einsatz kubanischer Werktätiger in sozialistischen Betrieben der DDR und dabei aufgetretener Probleme HA XVIII/14774, 4; Informe de los resultados del control y ayuda del Comité Nacional del Control a los jovenes trabajadores estudiantes en la RSCH y la RDA (1979), Archivo Central de la UJC, Subseccion 7.6 Becarios y misiones en el exterior, 9-4-286/3. 63. Secundido Guerra Hidalgo, Departamento de Asuntos Generales del CCPCC, an Carlos Lage Dávila, Primer Secretario de la UJC, La Habana November 10, 1982, Archivo Central de la UJC, Primer Secretario 1982, 1.0.10 Documentos sobre esfera obrera 11-1-331/4. 64. Arbeitsgruppe RGW, Information über die Einziehung von Arbeitseinkommen der kubanischen Werktätigen durch die Botschaft der Rep. Kuba, Berlin June 8, 1979, BA Berlin, SAPMO DY 30/27031. 65. Ordnung über die Aufgaben, Rechte und Pflichten der kubanischen Bezirksbeauftragten, June 2, 1981; Ordnung über die Aufgaben, Rechte und Pflichten der kubanischen Gruppenleiter, February 26, 1979, BA Berlin DQ3/2127. 66. Gemeinsame Einschätzung über die Durchführung des Regierungsabkommens zwischen der DDR und der Rep. Kuba über die zeitweilige Beschäftigung kubanischer Werktätiger bei gleichzeitiger Qualifizierung im Prozess der produktiven Tätigkeit in sozialistischen Betrieben der DDR, Havana May 15, 1980, BA Berlin DQ3/2130/1. 67. Beauftragte des MdI der Rep. Kuba in Bezirken der DDR, BSTU HA X/336, 264–65; BSTU HA XVIII/14761, 116–19; Interview with Armando Fernández Sánchez conducted by author in Havana on March 9, 2020. 68. Konzeption über die Zusammenarbeit der HA XVIII mit Vertretern der Sicherheitsorgane der Rep. Kuba bei der politisch-operativen Sicherung von kubanischen Werktätigen in der DDR (November 8, 1978), BSTU ZAIG 5492, 93–94, Vertrag zwischen der HA XVIII und dem IV. Dep. des MdI Kubas April 9, 1984, BSTU HA XVIII/14278, 1–7. 69. Vermerk über eine Beratung mit Mitarbeitern der kubanischen Sicherheitsorgane April 28, 1982, Berlin April 28, 1982, Gerhard Ehlert, Jochen Staadt, Tobias



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Voigt, Die Zusammenarbeit zwischen dem Ministerium für Staatssicherheit der DDR (MfS) und dem Ministerium des Innern Kubas (MININT), Arbeitspapiere des Forschungsverbundes SED-Staat Nr. 33, Berlin 2002, Dok. 11, 171; Thesen zum Einsatz eines “Staatlichen Kontrollbeauftragten” für den Einsatz kubanischer Werktätiger in den Betrieben der Volkswirtschaft der DDR, Berlin July 13, 1978, BSTU HA II/31891, 33–38. 70. Archivo Central de la UJC, Organización 1981, 10-4-321/2: 7.6.2 Orientaciones para el trabajo. 71. Interview with Miranda Perez conducted by author and Claudia Martínez Hernández in Havana on March 2, 2019. 72. Informe central, Asamblea de constitución. Comités de la UJC de país RDA, dec. 1979, Archivo Central de la UJC, Subseccion 18.3.1 / 9-5-296/2 (RDA); Analisis del cumplimiento del plan de envío de jovenes a trabajar y calificarse en la RDA y la RSCH y principales problemas confontados, Archivo Central de la UJC, Sección 7 Organización, 7.6.3, Informes de trabajo 1981 73. Gruner-Domic, Kubanische Arbeitsmigration, 60. 74. Informe central, Asamblea de constitución. Comités de la UJC de país RDA, dec. 1979, Archivo Central de la UJC, 18.3.1 / 9-5-296/2 (RDA); Analisis del cumplimiento del plan de envío de jovenes a trabajar y calificarse en la RDA y la RSCH y principales problemas confontados, Archivo Central de la UJC, Sección 7 Organización, 7.6.3, Informes de trabajo 1981. 75. Informe de los resultados del control y ayuda del Comité Nacional del Control a los jovenes trabajadores estudiantes en la RSCH y la RDA (1979), Archivo Central de la UJC, Subsección 7.6.5. / 9-4-286/3. 76. HA II/AG Ausländer, Informations- und Arbeitsmaterial zum Aufenthalt kubanischer Staatsbürger in der DDR, Berlin October 17, 1979, BSTU HA II/29502, 65–67. 77. HA II/AG Ausländer, Informations- und Arbeitsmaterial zum Aufenthalt kubanischer Staatsbürger in der DDR, Berlin October 17,1979, BSTU HA II/29502, 65–67. 78. Bericht über den Einsatz ausländischer Werktätiger, insbesondere aus Entwicklungsländern, in der Volkswirtschaft der DDR und Schlussfolgerungen für den Zeitraum 1981–1985, Mittag-Kommission, Sitzung September 30, 1981, BA Berlin SAPMO, DY 30/2681, 99–100. 79. Festival der Freundschaft der Jugend DDR-Kuba, Magdeburg Mai 1987, BSTU HA II/1557. 80. Interview with Michael Zeuske conducted by author in Vienna on June 21, 2018. 81. HA II/AG Ausländer, Informations- und Arbeitsmaterial zum Aufenthalt kubanischer Staatsbürger in der DDR, Berlin October 17, 1979, BSTU HA II/29502, 65–67. 82. Vorkommnisse und Erscheinungen im Zusammenhang mit dem Einsatz kubanischer Bürger in Brandenburg, Potsdam April 20, 1979, BSTU HA X/336, 179–80. 83. For example Interview with Cesar Boned conducted by author in Havana on March 7, 2019.

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84. BSTU HA X/336. 85. Bericht über den Einsatz ausländischer Werktätiger, insbesondere aus Entwicklungsländern, in der Volkswirtschaft der DDR und Schlussfolgerungen für den Zeitraum 1981-1985, Mittag-Kommission, Sitzung September 30, 1981, BA Berlin SAPMO, DY 30/2681, 102. 86. Jahreseinschätzung zur politisch-operativen Lage unter den ausländischen Werktätigen in der DDR, Berlin September 7, 1989, BSTU ZAIG 15919, 8–9. 87. Jürgen Mense, “Ausländerkriminalität in der DDR. Eine Untersuchung zu Kriminalität und Kriminalisierung von Mosambikanern 1979-1990,” in Kim Christian Priemel (ed.), Transit/Transfer. Politik und Praxis der Einwanderung in die DDR 1945–1990, Berlin: Be. Bra Wissenschaft 2011, 226. 88. Information Nr. 1667.1/78 zum Vorkommnis mit kubanischen Staatsbürgern während des Winzerfestes in Freyburg/Nebra/Halle September 24, 1978, BSTU, HA IX/8576, 299–300. 89. HA II/AG Ausländer, Informations- und Arbeitsmaterial zum Aufenthalt kubanischer Staatsbürger in der DDR, Berlin October 17, 1979, BSTU HA II/29502, 64. 90. Zur gegenwärtigen Lage im Zusammenhang mit dem Einsatz ausländischer Werktätiger in der Volkswirtschaft der DDR, Anlage 3 zu: Jahreseinschätzung zur polit-operativen Lage unter den ausländischen Werktätigen in der DDR, Berlin September 7, 1989, BSTU ZAIG 15919, 29. 91. Interview with Rolf Straßburg by phone, Berlin, July 12, 2019. 92. HA IX/4, Erstinformation, Berlin, August 14, 1979, BSTU, HA IX/8576, 231. 93. Prot. zu Vorfall Merseburg, October 16 and 24, 1979; Vermerk über ein Gespräch mit dem kubanischen Botschafter, Gen. García Olivera, October 5, 1979, BSTU, HA IX/8576, 124–26. 94. Interner Gesprächsvermerk über ein Gespräch mit Gen. Oliveras [sic] im MfAA, October 5, 1979, BSTU, HA IX/8576, 269–72. 95. Telefondiktat Oberst d. VP BDVP Erfurt über Vorkommnis mit kubanischen Werktätigen, November 24, 1979 in Gotha, HA IX/8576, 9. 96. BSTU HA IX/8576, 51. 97. BSTU HA IX/8577, 206, 209. 98. Incident Leipzig, September 27, 1979, BSTU, HA IX/8576, 161, 163, 166–67. 99. Gemeinsame Einschätzung über die Durchführung des Regierungsabkommens zwischen der DDR und der Rep. Kuba über die zeitweilige Beschäftigung kubanischer Werktätiger bei gleichzeitiger Qualifizierung im Prozess der produktiven Tätigkeit in sozialistischen Betrieben der DDR, Havana, May 15, 1980, BA Berlin DQ3/2130/1. 100. Hinweise (für Min. Mielke) für das Arbeitsgespräch mit dem MdI der Rep. Kuba, Gen. José Abrantes Fernandes, Berlin, November 26, 1987, Anlage 3: Zum Einsatz kubanischer Werktätiger in der Volkswirtschaft der DDR, BSTU ZAIG 5496, 29. 101. Rafael Rodríguez an Gen. Kleiber, January 26, 1987, Positionspapier: Entsendung kubanischer Werktätiger in die DDR zur Qualifizierung im Prozess der produktiven Arbeit, o.D., BA Berlin DL 3/54.



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102. Vorlage für das PB des ZK der SED: Bericht und Schlussfolgerungen zur schrittweisen Beendigung der Arbeitskräftekooperation mit der Rep. Kuba, o.D. BA Berlin DQ3/2130/2. 103. Bericht und Schlussfolgerungen zur schrittweisen Beendigung der Arbeitskräftekooperation mit der Rep. Kuba, o.D. BA Berlin DQ3/2130/2; Carlos Rafael Rodriguez an Fidel Castro, Havana, June 5, 1987, und an Ernesto Menéndez/ CECE, Havana June 9, 1987, Carlos Rafael Rodriguez an Günter Kleiber, Havana, January 26, 1987, Archivo Central de la UJC, Primera segretaria 1987, Correspondencia 4.0.14 ; Bortlová-Vondráková/Szente-Varga, Labor Migration Programs, 15. 104. Jahreseinschätzung zur politisch-operativen Lage unter den ausländischen Werktätigen in der DDR, Berlin, September 30, 1987, BSTU HA X/336, 49. 105. Rafael Rodriguez an Gen. Kleiber, January 26, 1987, Positionspapier: Entsendung kubanischer Werktätiger in die DDR zur Qualifizierung im Prozess der produktiven Arbeit, o.D., BA Berlin DL 3/54. 106. Positionspapier: Entsendung kubanischer Werktätiger in die DDR zur Qualifizierung im Prozess der produktiven Arbeit, o.D., BA Berlin DL 3/54; Jahresprot. 1989/90, Havana, September 16, 1989, BA Berlin DQ 3/1813. 107.Carmelo Mesa-Lago, Breve historia económica de la Cuba socialista. Política, resultados y perspectivas, Madrid: Alianza Editorial 1994, 127–29; Carmelo MesaLago, “Cuba’s Economic Counter-Reform (Rectificación): Causes, Policies and Effects,” in Richard Gillespie (ed.), Cuba after Thirty Years, Rectification and the Revolution, London: Frank Cass 1990, 98–139. 108. Raendchen, Vietnamesen in der DDR, 9. 109. Jahreseinschätzung zur polit-operativen Lage unter den ausländischen Werktätigen in der DDR, Berlin, September 7, 1989, BSTU ZAIG 15919, 6; Jahreseinschätzung zur politisch-operativen Lage unter den ausländischen Werktätigen in der DDR, Berlin, September 30, 1987, BSTU HA X/336, 49. 110. Sitzung des Berliner Magistrats July 25, 1988; Maria Klessmann, “‘WohnenArbeiten.’ Zu den Wohnbedingungen vietnamesischer Vertragsarbeiter in Ost-Berlin,” in Priemel, Transit/Transfer, 198. 111. Monika Krause, Informe sobre los problemas que afrontan los trabajadores cubanos en la RDA, La Habana, February 6, 1981; Informe del trabajo de la UJC en el exterior, August 1982, both Archivo Central de la UJC 7.6.3, Sección 7 Organización, Informes de trabajo, 1982. 112. Information über die zeitweilige Beschäftigung kubanischer Werktätiger in der DDR im Jahre 1984, April 8, 1985, BA Berlin DQ3/2130/1; Informe de las incidencias políticas ocurridas en el mes de enero 1981 en las organizaciones de la UJC en el exterior, Archivo Central de la UJC, Sección 7 Organización, 7.6.3, Informes de trabajo, 1981. 113. Bajas ocurridas entre los jovenes trabajadores (1981); Informe de las incidencias políticas ocurridas en el mes de enero 1981 en las organizaciones de la UJC en el exterior, Archivo Central de la UJC, Sección 7 Organización 7.6.3, Informes de trabajo, 1981.

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114. Monika Krause, Informe sobre los problemas que afrontan los trabajadores cubanos en la RDA, La Habana February 6, 1981, Archivo Central de la UJC, Sección 7 Organización, 7.6.3, Informes de trabajo, 1981. 115. Examples in Vogel/Wunderlich (eds.), Abenteuer DDR. 116. Beratung mit Cubatecnica, Berlin, January 31, 1984, and Berlin March 4, 1986, BA Berlin DQ 3/856. 117. BA Berlin DQ 3/1323, vols. 1 and 2. 118. Niederschrift June 30, 1981, BA Berlin, DQ 3/2130/1. 119. Raendchen, Vietnamesen in der DDR, 60. 120. Informationen über Arbeitskräfteabkommen Kuba-ČSSR, BA Berlin, DQ3/1024. 121. SAL/Inspektion, Information über eine Kontrolle des Einsatzes kubanischer Werktätiger im VEB Dieselmotorenwerk Schönebeck/Elbe, Berlin, February 22, 1980, BSTU HA II/29502, 102. 122. Information: Arbeit mit ausländischen Werktätigen, die in Betrieben unseres Bezirkes arbeiten, November 17, 1980; Lorke, “Außereuropäische ‘Werktätige,’” 40. 123. “Una valiosa experiencia,” in: Colaboración internacional, 1982, 26. 124. Wolf-Dieter Vogel, Regresé siendo otra persona. Cubanas y Cubanos en la RDA, Mexico D. F.: Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, 2009. 125. Grundprinzipien der internationalen sozialistischen Arbeitsteilung June 7, 1962, printed in Curt Gasteyger, Europa zwischen Spaltung und Einigung 1945 bis 1993. Darstellung und Dokumentation, Bonn: Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung 1994, 214–19; Schrittweise Annäherung und Angleichung des ökonomischen Entwicklungsniveaus der Mitgliedländer des RGW,” in Komplexprogramm für die weitere Vertiefung und Vervollkommnung der Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung der sozialistischen ökonomischen Integration der Mitgliedländer des RGW, Moskau, 1971, 13–16 126. Thomas Lindenberger argued that these programs contributed little to globalization. See Thomas Lindenberger, “From Cold War Battleground to a Footnote toHhistory? Labour History in Divided and Unified Germany,” European Review of History / Revue européenne d’histoire 25, no. 1 (2018): 61–78. 127. Gruner-Domic, Zur Geschichte der Arbeitskräftemigration in die DDR, 229. 128. This contradicts Alamgir/Schwenkel, From Socialist Assistance to National Self-Interest, 118, for the Vietnamese contract laborers. 129. Abschlussbericht über den Einsatz der kubanischen Werktätigen im VEB NGMB Mbdb. (1983), BA Berlin, DQ 3/857.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Sources Archival Sources Bundesarchiv Berlin (BA) Berlin: Abt. DDR, DQ3; Stiftung Archiv der Parteien und Massenorganisationen der DDR im Bundesarchiv (SAPMO).



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Bundesbeauftragter für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen DDR, Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (BSTU): HA II, HA IX, HA X, HA XVIII, ZAIG. Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, Berlin (PAAA), Ministerium für Auswärtige Angelegenheiten der DDR. Instituto de Historia de Cuba, La Habana: Archivos CC PCC. Archivo Central de la UJC, La Habana.

Interviews Interview with Emiliano Manresa, Havana, October 26, 2015, and March 6, 2019. Interview with Claudio García Diaz Praxedes, Havana, March 11, 2019. Interview with Armando Fernández Sánchez, Havana, March 9, 2020. Interview with Miranda Perez, Havana, March 2, 2019. Interview with Cesar Boned, Havana, March 7, 2019. Interview with Rolf Straßburg by phone, Berlin, July 12, 2019. Interview with Michael Zeuske, Vienna, June 21, 2018. Interview with Mayra Lavigne, Havana, October 17, 2018. Interview with Pedro Mesa, Havana, October 30, 2018. Interview with Ramiro del Río, Havana, September 24, 2018.

Printed Sources Ehlert, Gerhard/Jochen Staadt/Tobias Voigt, eds. Die Zusammenarbeit zwischen dem Ministerium für Staatssicherheit der DDR (MfS) und dem Ministerium des Innern Kubas (MININT), Arbeitspapiere des Forschungsverbundes SED-Staat No 33. Berlin: Forschungsverbund SED-Staat, 2002. Komplexprogramm für die weitere Vertiefung und Vervollkommnung der Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung der sozialistischen ökonomischen Integration der Mitgliedländer des RGW. Moskau, 1971.

Periodicals Colaboración internacional, La Habana, 1982.

Secondary Sources Alamgir, Alena. “The Moped Diaries: Remittances in the Czechoslovak-Vietnamese Labor Migration Scheme.” In Work out of Place, edited by Mahua Sarkar, 101–20. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2018. Alamgir, Alena, and Christina Schwenkel. “From Socialist Assistance to National Self-Interest: Vietnamese Labor Migration into CMEA Countries.” In Alternative Globalizations: Eastern Europe and the Postcolonial World, edited by James Mark, Artemy M. Kalinovsky, and Steffi Marung, 100–24. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2020.

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Allina, Eric. “Between Sozialismus und Socialismo: African Workers and Public Authority in the German Democratic Republic.” In Work out of Place, edited by Mahua Sarkar, 77–99. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg 2018. Bösch, Frank. Zeitenwende 1979: Als die Welt von heute begann. Munich: Beck, 2019. Bortlová-Vondráková, Hana, and Szente-Varga, Mónika. “Labor Migration Programs Within the Socialist Bloc. Cuban Guestworkers in Late Socialist Czechoslovakia and Hungary.” In Labor History (2021): https://doi.org/10.1080/0 023656X.2021.1908972 (pre-published online). Brezinski, Horst Dieter. Internationale Wirtschaftsplanung im RGW. Paderborn: Schöningh, 1978. Cala Fuentes, Leonel. Kubaner im realen Paradies. Ausländer-Alltag in der DDR: Eine Erinnerung. Berlin: Dietz, 2007. Chase-Dunn, Christopher, ed. Socialist States in the World-System. Beverly Hills, London, and New Delhi: Sage, 1982. Domínguez, Jorge. To Make a World Safe for Revolution. Cuba’s Foreign Policy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989. Elsner, Eva-Maria. “Zum Arbeitskräfteaustausch zwischen sozialistischen Staaten.” Fremdarbeiterpolitik des Imperialismus 15 (1983): 33–37. Elsner, Eva-Maria, and Lothar Elsner. Ausländer und Ausländerpolitik in der DDR. Berlin: Helle Panke, 1992. Fröhlich, Birgit. “Gedanken zur Entwicklungszusammenarbeit der DDR mit Afrika.” In Die DDR und Afrika. Zwischen Klassenkampf und neuem Denken, edited by Ulrich van der Heyden, Ilona Schleicher, and Hans-Georg Schleicher, 148–64. Münster and Hamburg: Lit, 1993. Gorin, Zeev. “Socialist Societies and World System Theory: A Critical Survey.” Science & Society 49, no. 3 (1985): 332–66. Gruner-Domic, Sandra. Kubanische Arbeitsmigration in die DDR 1978–1989. Das Arbeitskräfteabkommen Kuba-DDR und dessen Realisierung. Berlin: Edition Parabolis, 1997 ———. “Kubanische Vertragsarbeiter: Leben in einer anderen sozialistischen Realität.” In Die “Gastarbeiter” der DDR: Politischer Kontext und Lebenswelt, edited by Almut Zwengel, 53–70. Berlin: Lit, 2011. ———. “Zur Geschichte der Arbeitskräftemigration in die DDR: Die bilateralen Verträge zur Beschäftigung ausländischer Arbeiter (1961–1989).” IWK 32, no. 2 (1996): 204–30. Hahamovitch, Cindy. “Men Do Not Gather Grapes from Thorns: Indentured Labor, Guestworkers, and the Failure of Regulation.” In Work out of Place, edited by Mahua Sarkar, 23–54. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2018. Heyden, Ulrich van der. Das gescheiterte Experiment: Vertragsarbeiter aus Mosambik in der DDR-Wirtschaft (1979–1990). Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2019. Heyden, Ulrich van der, Wolfgang Semmler, and Rolf Straßburg, eds. Mosambikanische Vertragsarbeiter in der DDR-Wirtschaft. Berlin: Lit, 2014. Jajesniak-Quast, Dagmara. “‘Proletarische Internationalität’ ohne Gleichheit. Ausländische Arbeitskräfte in ausgewählten sozialistischen Großbetrieben.” In



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Ankunft—Alltag—Ausreise. Migration und interkulturelle Begegnung in der DDR-Gesellschaft, edited by Christian T. Müller and Patrice G. Poutrus, 267–94. Cologne, Weimar, and Vienna: Böhlau, 2005. Klessmann, Maria. “‘Wohnen-Arbeiten’: Zu den Wohnbedingungen vietnamesischer Vertragsarbeiter in Ost-Berlin.” In Transit/Transfer: Politik und Praxis der Einwanderung in die DDR 1945–1990, edited by Kim Christian Priemel, 188–210. Berlin: Be. Bra Wissenschaft, 2011. Levcik, Friedrich. “Migration and Employment of Foreign Workers in the CMEA Countries and their Problems.” In East European Economies Post-Helsinki: A Compendium of Papers Submitted to the Joint Economic Committee Congress of the United States. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1977. Lindenberger, Thomas. “From Cold War Battleground to a Footnote to History? Labour History in Divided and Unified Germany.” European Review of History/ Revue européenne d’histoire 25, no. 1 (2018): 61–78. Lorke, Christoph. “Außereuropäische ‘Werktätige’ als interkulturelle Herausforderung: DDR-Betriebe und ihr Umgang mit Fremdheit.” Geschichte und Region/Storia e regione 28, no. 2 (2019): 20–43. Mac Con Uladh, Damian. “Studium bei Freunden? Ausländische Studierende in der DDR bis 1970.” In: Ankunft—Alltag—Ausreise. Migration und interkulturelle Begegnung in der DDR-Gesellschaft, edited by Christian T. Müller and Patrice G. Poutrus, 175–220. Cologne, Weimar, and Vienna: Böhlau, 2005. Marburger Helga, ed. “Und wir haben unseren Beitrag zur Volkswirtschaft geleistet” Eine aktuelle Bestandsaufnahme der Situation der Vertragsarbeitnehmer der ehemaligen DDR vor und nach der Wende. Frankfurt am Main: Verlag für Interkulturelle Kommunikation, 1993. Mense, Jürgen. “Ausländerkriminalität in der DDR: Eine Untersuchung zu Kriminalität und Kriminalisierung von Mosambikanern 1979–1990.” In Transit/ Transfer: Politik und Praxis der Einwanderung in die DDR 1945–1990, edited by Kim Christian Priemel, 211–44. Berlin: Be. Bra Wissenschaft, 2011. Mesa-Lago, Carmelo. Breve historia económica de la Cuba socialista. Política, resultados y perspectivas, Madrid: Alianza Editorial 1994. ———. “Cuba’s Economic Counter-Reform (Rectificación): Causes, Policies and Effects.” In Cuba after Thirty Years, Rectification and the Revolution, edited by Richard Gillespie, 98–139. London: Frank Cass, 1990. Müggenburg, Andreas. Die ausländischen Vertragsarbeitnehmer in der ehemaligen DDR: Darstellung und Dokumentation (Mitteilungen der Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für die Belange der Ausländer). Berlin, 1996. Müller, Hans Mathias. Die Bildungshilfe der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1994. Perez-Lopez, Jorge, and Sergio Diaz-Briquets. “Labor Migration and Offshore Assembly in the Socialist World: The Cuban Experience.” Population and Development Review 16, no. 2 (1990): 273–99. Rabenschlag, Ann-Judith. “Arbeiten im Bruderland: Arbeitsmigranten in der DDR und ihr Zusammenleben mit der deutschen Bevölkerung.” Deutschland Archiv Online, September 15, 2016, www.bpb.de/233678 (accessed June 17, 2021).

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———. Völkerfreundschaft nach Bedarf. Ausländische Arbeitskräfte in der Wahrnehmung von Staat und Bevölkerung der DDR. Stockholm: Acta Universitatis, 2014. Raendchen, Oliver. Vietnamesen in der DDR. Ein Rückblick. Berlin: SEACOM, 2000. Reis, José. “Keine leichten Lebensumstände in der DDR.” In Mosambikanische Vertragsarbeiter in der DDR-Wirtschaft, edited by Ulrich van der Heyden, Wolfgang Semmler, and Rolf Straßburg, 231–36. Berlin: Lit, 2014. Ritschel, Susanne. Kubanische Studierende in der DDR: Ambivalentes Erinnern zwischen Zeitzeuge und Archiv, Hildesheim, Zurich, and New York: Olms, 2015. Sanchez-Sibony, Oscar. Red Globalization: The Political Economy of the Soviet Cold War from Stalin to Khrushchev. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Sarkar, Mahua, ed. Work out of Place. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2018. Schüle, Annegret. “Proletarischer Internationalismus oder ökonomischer Vorteil für die DDR? Mosambikanische, angolanische und vietnamesische Arbeitskräfte im VEB Leipziger Baumwollspinnerei (1980–1989).” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 42 (2002): 191–210. Schulz, Brigitte. “The German Democratic Republic and Sub-Saharan Africa: The Limits of East-South Economic Relations.” In The Soviet Bloc and the Third World. The Political Economy of East-South Economic Relations, edited by Brigitte H. Schulz and William W. Hansen. Boulder, San Francisco, and London: Westview Press, 1989. Schwenkel, Christina. “Rethinking Asian Mobilities: Socialist Migration and Postsocialist Repatriation of Vietnamese Contract Workers in East Germany.” Critical Asian Studies vol. 46, 2 (2014): 235-258. ———, ed. Vietnamese in Central and Eastern Europe. Special issue of Journal of Vietnamese Studies 12, no. 1 (2017). Straßburg, Rolf. “Persönliche Reminiszenzen zu den Verträgen zwischen der DDR und Mosambik. Eine kommentierte Dokumentation.” In Solidarität oder Eigennutz? Die mosambikanischen Vertragsarbeiter in der DDR-Wirtschaft. 28–48. Berlin: Helle Panke, 2015. Tolmar, Balint. “Sweatshops under State-Socialism? Cuban Temporary Workers in the Hungarian Textile Industry during the 1980s.” Beitrag zum Internationalen Forschungsgespräch: Vertragsarbeiter im Sozialistischen Weltsystem, Vienna, May 31, 2019. Unfried, Berthold. “Instrumente und Praktiken von ‘Solidarität’ Ost und ‘Entwicklungshilfe’ West.” In Praktiken von Internationaler Solidarität und Internationaler Entwicklung, edited by Berthold Unfried and Eva Himmelstoss, 73–98. Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsanstalt, 2012. ———. “Sozialistisches Weltsystem? Wie tauglich ist diese Selbstbezeichnung für die historische Forschung? Eine Erorterung anhand der Praxis außereuropaïscher internationaler Zusammenarbeit der DDR.” Zeitschrift für Weltgeschichte 22, no. 2 (2022).



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Vogel, Wolf-Dieter. Regresé siendo otra persona: Cubanas y Cubanos en la RDA. Mexico D. F.: Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, 2009. Vogel, Wolf-Dieter, and Verona Wunderlich, eds. Abenteuer DDR: Kubanerinnen und Kubaner im deutschen Sozialismus. Berlin: Dietz, 2011. Zwengel, Almut, ed. Die “Gastarbeiter” der DDR: Politischer Kontext und Lebenswelt. Berlin and Münster: Lit, 2011.

Chapter 6

On the Novelty of Transnational History J. Laurence Hare

Transnationalism is one of the latest trends in historical scholarship, and it has been for decades. Thirty years have passed since Ian Tyrell launched a spirited debate in the pages of the American Historical Review as to whether “the new transnational history” might offer a way beyond narratives of American exceptionalism.1 In the following decade, Sebastian Conrad called for more engagement in transnational historical writing, while Thomas Adam and Uwe Luebken recognized the “recent surge” heralding a “transnational turn” in the historical discipline.2 Adam and Luebken acknowledged that the “ascent of transnationalism has been a long and incremental process,” but only two years later, Sarah Lennox noted that “transnational approaches are so new that appropriate methods for them are still being elaborated.”3 Beyond the field of history, the siren song of transnationalism has resounded even longer within the growing field of international relations. Susan Strange promoted its potential in 1976, as did Samuel Huntington in 1973.4 Joseph S. Nye Jr. and Robert O. Keohane suggested that the study of transnational forces and organizations promised a whole new research agenda in 1971, and their work owed a debt to earlier work from Raymond Aron and Karl Kaiser in the 1960s.5 Older still are recognitions of transnational forces, in Hans Kohn’s interpretations of the Spanish Civil War and in Randolph S. Bourne’s trenchant critique of American identity during World War I.6 Finally, Pierre-Yves Saunier has observed that transnational histories were not new, but were the norm in the civilizational and ecumenical accounts that flourished in the nineteenth century.7 This sense of perennial novelty, however illusory, tells us something about the state of transnational scholarship today. It shows a need for more 175

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consensus about what it is, why it is important, and how to assess research in this area. Moreover, it reminds us of the need for greater awareness of the history of the concept and a firmer sense of the future trajectories of its use and impact. In this chapter, I make a few observations from the past hundred years of transnational thought and scholarship and use those to highlight both some key dynamics of conceptual change and the limits to its development. I argue that these lessons not only explain lingering problems in the field today, but also offer guidance on how scholars can deliver on the promise of transnational historiography in its next hundred years. THE CHALLENGE OF “NEW” TRANSNATIONAL APPROACHES Transnational scholarship may not be new, but the illusion of eternal youth has not been without benefits. The intellectual energy derived from a seemingly wide-open scholarly frontier has encouraged a great deal of useful historical engagement. Critics have frequently warned against throwing the proverbial national baby out with the transnational bathwater,8 but they have done little to dissuade scholars from using the disruptive power of transnational perspectives not only to advance disciplinary practices but also to right longstanding injustices within historical writing. Wendy Kozol, for example, has argued that these approaches are invaluable for illuminating social inequalities. “What constitutes the object of historical inquiry,” she asked, “once you challenge the stability of the border to define the nation?”9 Sarah Lennox, meanwhile, suggested that transnationalism was an essential pathway for bringing the legacy of empire more squarely into the history of European countries, abolishing any semblance of separation between the two, and in this way moving beyond the foundations of postcolonial thought into a more “decolonial” mode of scholarship.10 These possibilities have informed an unmistakable increase of interest in transnational history in the twenty-first century. In 2006, the American Historical Review hosted a special forum, “On Transnationalism,” which featured a roundtable of leading historians to discuss the “capacious possibilities” of the field.11 That same year, the eminent historian of modern Germany, Michael Geyer, delivered a landmark presidential address to the German Studies Association in Pittsburgh entitled, “Where Germans Dwell: Transnationalism in Theory and Practice,” in which he signaled the arrival of transnational scholarship within German historiography and provided both an overview of its nascent contours and some hints of its future direction. He lauded the opportunity to extend the temporal and spatial horizons of German history, to highlight the German nation’s embeddedness in the world, and,

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conversely, to “bring Germans from the margins and peripheries.”12 The field has only grown ever since, with more participants and more empirical studies, and Thomas Adam, Uwe Luebken, and Akira Iriye have each used the term “sea change” to describe its impact on the discipline.13 At the same time, the dynamism of the field has generated its own set of problems. Among these is the challenge of defining what it is or, rather, what it should be. A related issue is how best to situate it across the humanities and social sciences. As a result, the concept is laden with a wide range of meanings––both descriptive and analytical––that apply to its subjects of inquiry and its methodological parameters. Transnational history entails both an approach and a perspective. Depending on the research focus, it can also refer to a space, whether physical or conceptual. It is sometimes noted as a condition, which attaches to the movement or presence of individuals or groups across multiple national boundaries or to their belonging in multiple national contexts. In other cases, it denotes a new set of connections. Karl Kaiser called it a “system of interaction,” while Susan Strange wrote of it in narrower terms as an “alternative framework” against the existing postwar international system.14 Among historians, Adam and Luebken described it as a different “frame of reference,” which served to “place the emphasis upon the myriad connections, entanglements, and transfers that link societies to one another.”15 The level of flexibility within the field is important, because it serves to welcome more scholarship on unseen actors, processes, and trends at work beyond borders. The risk lies with stretching the term too far, obscuring its meaning and potential. Indeed, the editors of The American Historical Review expressed concern that transnational history was “in danger of becoming merely a buzzword among historians, more a label than a practice, more expansive in its meaning than precise in its application, more a fashion of the moment than a durable approach to the serious study of history.”16 The seemingly inexhaustible elasticity of the term has also led to confusion among neighboring concepts and approaches, including international history, comparative history, transfer history, entangled history, and imperial history.17 Equally problematic are moments when transnational histories are lumped together uncritically with treatments of global and world history. In part, this is a natural recognition of two “new” frameworks that stand at odds with national histories. Thus, in Global and Transnational History, Akira Iriye treats the two concepts side by side, taking more care to distinguish them from older forms of international history.18 The confusion also lies with the challenge of defining global history as a field. In What is Global History?, Sebastian Conrad describes global history as part of a process of re-spatialization and deterritorialization in the discipline, which implicitly draws transnational approaches into its orbit. He attempts to distinguish between the two by arguing that transnationalism is more limited in scope. Pierre Yves-Saunier

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echoes this view, focusing on the larger temporal horizons of global history, which stretch back hundreds of years before the establishment of modern nation-states.19 But there remain gray areas. As Conrad acknowledges: “The relationship between transnational and global perspectives is close. They each share the objective of transcending container thinking and the compartmentalization of historical reality, and both seek to go beyond what are essentially internalist analyses.”20 His own understanding of global history includes a notion of variable scalability, along with methods rooted in comparative, connective, and relational approaches, each of which aligns closely with transnational research. The conceptual overlays create uncertainty about how to distinguish transnational dynamics, global integration processes, and the history of globalization. Dorothee Wierling, for example, used her research into the history of the coffee trade to support Jürgen Osterhammel’s notion of a “transnational history of society,” but while her case study was rooted in the German example, it followed social interactions along commodity chains that could just as easily be described as global integration networks.21 These areas of overlap make for a broad field of engagement that can generate tremendous scholarly interest, but they can also dilute its precision. If the ever-growing variety of meanings runs the risk of overwhelming the carrying capacity of the term, the conflation with neighboring concepts and topic areas threatens to diminish its impact. THE INESCAPABLE NATION Key to understanding the frontier feeling of transnational history is the paradoxical way it has related to ideas about the nation, and especially to the tensions that emerged in the context of rapid global change in the twentieth century. Indeed, this is one area in which a longer perspective on the scholarship can be illuminating. Over a century has passed since Randolph Bourne’s essay “Trans-National America” appeared in the pages of The Atlantic Monthly in 1916. It spoke to a crucial moment of intersection between lingering anxieties about growing immigrant populations in the United States and new concerns about the country’s potential entry into the Great War. As Bourne observed, these conjoined fears produced a state of “intense shock” about immigrant communities that had retained their cultural patterns, their manners of dress, and, most importantly, some of their allegiances. As the country inched ever closer to the raging conflict in Europe, the United States’ “great alien population” was accused of choosing sides on its own. “Assimilation,” Bourne observed, “instead of washing out the memories of Europe, made them more intensely real.”22 In short, the notion of the American “melting pot” had been proven to be little more than a hopeful

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myth, which allegedly placed the future of the United States and, more specifically, its national identity under threat. Bourne, ever the progressive intellectual, responded to this new state of alarm by criticizing and relativizing the very basis behind this prevailing notion of American national identity. The problem, as he described it, was that immigrants were being asked to “melt” into a static, preexisting ideal defined in the terms of WASPy (White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant), middle-class society. Bourne argued that these “shocked” Americans missed the fact that their ancestors, the first English colonists, were not much different than the immigrants of his day. He explained: “They did not come to adopt the culture of the American Indian. They had not the smallest intention of ‘giving themselves without reservation’ to the new country.” Nor did they create a new, American identity. “In their folkways, in their social and political institutions, they were like every colonial people, slavishly imitative of the mother-country.”23 Bourne’s essay had little immediate impact on the academic conversation.24 A century later, however, his reflections have attracted fresh interest, first regarding his comments on cosmopolitanism, and later the implications of his thought for pluralism.25 Among scholars of transnationalism, Bourne’s emphasis on culture and identity stands out as especially unique in an era in which so many historians and social scientists stressed matters of society, state, and governance. Bourne excites transnational historians today not simply because he invoked the term, but also because he seemed to capture the same spirit of inquiry. Moreover, his message of inclusion has also resonated among those concerned with today’s public debates about immigration and national politics. Writing for The New Yorker magazine, historian Jeremy McCarter presents “Trans-National America” as a warning from history against the sort of “ethno-nationalist world view” that has reappeared in the right-wing populist political movements of the twenty-first century. “The unique challenge of America” is just as it was in 1916, “to define itself in terms broad enough to suit its transnational population.”26 In his overt challenge to the foundation of American culture, Bourne seemed to be ahead of his time. Yet the recent reappraisals of his prescience overlook the degree to which Bourne, despite his evident distaste for the intolerance he had seen in pre-war Europe, nonetheless remained faithful to the national ideal.27 Rounding out his essay’s sharp critique of a narrow, exclusionary patriotism was a hopeful call for a new national identity, something that eschewed the “fiercely heightened pride” of “orthodox nationalism,” that Bourne identified with the root causes of the ongoing war. And he was far-sighted enough to see in American society, “a world confederation in miniature,” the potential to realize a stronger sense of solidarity with countries around the world. But in the end, his critique was one of tone rather than

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structure; he accepted as natural the existence of nations as the standard unit of the political organization and of nationalism as an inherent advocacy for the benefit of that polity. “Whatever American nationalism turns out to be,” he predicted, “it is certain to become something utterly different from the nationalisms of twentieth-century Europe.”28 Indeed, he seemed to place his greatest hopes on a proper American example that could lead the world to a nation-state system rooted in fraternity and solidarity, when he wrote that in “a world which has dreamed of internationalism, we find that we have all unawares been building up the first international nation.”29 Although Randolph Bourne did not live to see the peace settlement following World War I—he perished in the influenza epidemic in late 1918—his essay did in some ways anticipate both the success of the nation-state as the essential unit of world affairs and the rising efforts to establish a viable international order. The war had catalyzed the dissolution of monarchies in Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and American leadership had been involved in the emergence of both new nation-states and a new League of Nations. What these developments did not do was resolve the tensions evident within nationalist and internationalist movements, and the resulting conflicts that preceded World War II consequently gave rise to renewed interest in transnationalism. Most notably, Hans Kohn employed the concept to assess the Spanish Civil War in 1937. On the one hand, Kohn interpreted the conflict, with its strong international involvement on both sides, as an unfortunate means of completing the development of an international order. “Whatever the immediate outcome,” he wrote, “it will have promoted the cause of modern nationalism in modern Spain.”30 On the other hand, he saw the intervention of Italian fascist and German Nazi forces––two ultranationalist movements ideologically opposed to international cooperation––as a symptom of a late stage or even the potential climax of the nation-state order. “Nationalism entered upon its domination only a comparatively short time ago. To a thoughtful observer, however, its day seems fast nearing its end–– despite its apparent triumph or perhaps on account of this triumph.”31 Even as Kohn, like Bourne before him, approached the fact and existence of such an order as a given, his turn to transnationalism as an analytical perspective gave voice to his own doubts about its inherent tensions. Transnationalism played a very similar role in the decades after World War II, and it likewise emerged in a climate of apparent triumph for the nation-state and internationalism. Rather than marking the inglorious end of the nation, the fascist threat spurred renewed efforts to forge a postwar order rooted in a stronger system of international cooperation. Lessons learned in the interwar era informed a push toward trade liberalization, collective security, and, with the founding of the United Nations, formal structures of international governance and law. While fears of communist expansion during the

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Cold War and the tumultuous process of decolonization posed serious challenges, the postwar years were nonetheless defined by a hope that the world would ultimately be successfully integrated into a Western-led global order based on a community of nation-states. Accompanying this turn in the late 1940s was a call for more prominent research and teaching of international relations. From the beginning, there was recognition of the impact of entities and forces beyond the nation-state and multinational bodies,32 but the turn toward systematic consideration of transnational organizations in the field became most intense in the mid-1960s, just as the limits of the liberal international order forged at Bretton Woods became increasingly clear. Political scientists first employed the term to account for elements of the international system that did not conform to their existing vocabulary. This included a growing number of organizations rooted in particular nations but acting (and interacting) outside normal international channels.33 The French political scientist Raymond Aron was instrumental in identifying an aggregate effect produced by organizations and actors, which he called “transnational society.”34 Karl Kaiser took Aron’s idea one step further by describing the impact that actors within transnational society had on nation-state and multinational policy and decision-making, which he defined as the sphere of “transnational politics.”35 By the 1970s, political scientists had begun to pivot toward the intentional study of these seemingly discrete spheres. Scholars recognized that such spaces and interactions had existed far longer than the postwar period and were more expansive than previously believed. The scope of inquiry spread to economic interaction and precipitated awareness of how the integration of national markets created conflict along a north–south axis. Susan Strange used this perspective to explain a number of disconcerting developments in the international system, including “the breakdown of Bretton Woods, the stalling of progress in trade negotiations, the creep of worldwide inflation, [and] the problems arising from a sudden rise in the price of oil.”36 Nye and Keohane saw transnational action as expansive, even to the point of constituting its own sphere of “transnational relations,” but they found it to be limited to the social and economic spaces within developed economies. This, they maintained, explained an unexpected level of “asymmetry” that had emerged between North and South, and in this way challenged the prevailing paradigm of world politics.37 It is interesting to note the ways in which these contributions provided academic explanations for widespread doubts about the status and future of the postwar liberal international order. In critiquing the limits of the system, social scientists also criticized traditional views underpinning the field of international politics. Yet it is also noteworthy that there was a comparatively weaker stance on the idea of nations and nation-states. Samuel Huntington spoke of a “transnational organizational revolution” in world politics but was

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inclined to interpret its onset as more of a challenge for the international system rather than for its constituent nations. He wrote: “While nationalism has remained strong but its impact has changed, internationalism, by contrast, has failed to gain the role and significance, which it was expected to achieve.”38 By contrast, historians in the ensuing decades were more assertive in their challenge to national categories, or at least to their contours. The social sciences had already laid the groundwork for transnational perspectives to cross into the humanities through their adoption of historical concerns, their shift to North–South relationships in former colonial territories, and their increasing use of transnational perspectives as a form of disciplinary self-critique. Among historians, the influence of post-structural and postcolonial approaches and a linguistic turn challenging core assumptions of historical practice also played key roles, as they laid bare the flaws of traditional master narratives within historical subfields.39 With respect to the broader context, it was certainly no coincidence that interest in transnational history followed both a potential alteration of the international order at the end of the Cold War and a perceived increase in the pace of globalization processes. Thus, Ian Tyrell’s writing on the pitfalls of American exceptionalism in 1991, steeped as it was in internal developments within American historiography, nonetheless drew attention at a moment in which the United States was confronting a changing geopolitical order and considering its place within it. Similar pressures rippled across other realms of historical scholarship, and the debate over transnational history occurred alongside formal calls elsewhere for a new global history. Here, too, the tensions over the place of nations loomed large. Jerry Bentley, writing in the premiere issue of the new Journal of World History in 1990, cast the burgeoning subfield as a corrective to over a century of historical writing centered on the nation-state. “Many powerful historical forces,” Bentley contended, “simply do not respect national or even cultural boundary lines, but work their effects instead on a regional, continental, or global scale.”40 Taken together, these developments in transnational, global, and related thematic subfields merged to form the “spatial turn.”41 The tacit endorsement of transnationalism within the profession, although still not without debate over its premises, scope, or impact, expanded the reach of previous investigations in the social sciences. To past emphases on politics, economics, and society, historians and other humanities scholars added considerations of culture, language, and identity. Their work represented at times a change in scale, shifting downward from a concern with the actions of major organizations or world markets to a more focused interest in migrants, travelers, and informal networks. The impetus for the growth of both transnational and global history also generated increased interest in related approaches, including comparative and transfer history, entangled history and histoire croisée,

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and new regional constellations such as the Atlantic World and studies of the Indian Ocean region.42 There is, however, evidence that scholarship remains in important ways chained to the idea of nation. For history, this is more structural than conceptual, and derives from the organization of the discipline. This includes the fact that some of the most significant uses of transnational approaches have occurred within national historiographies. Several national subfields have responded, as Michael Geyer has claimed, to a need for “a history that explores the deep and irremediable entanglement of nations in the world,” or as Thomas Bender has advocated, to a push to “contextualize the nation.”43 At the very least, transnational investigations have helped broaden the scope of national fields or addressed specific historical or methodological problems. Among historians of the United States, for example, the result has been a shift to a broader “United States in the world” subfield. While it has sparked some rather intense debates about the future of traditional diplomatic histories, this subfield has already made significant progress in exploring the intersections of a variety of domestic and international trends.44 One recent example among many is Sarah B. Snyder’s From Selma to Moscow, which explores the ways in which human rights activism in the United States during the 1960s shaped values-based American foreign policy outside normal policy channels and, along the way, forged linkages between national identity and global image.45 European historians have also benefited from applying a broader spatial perspective to national histories. For France, Tyler Stovall has attempted to shed light on the country’s struggles with social integration by using transnational approaches systematically to explore the long-term tensions between Enlightenment notions of universalism as a hallmark of French identity and a legacy of colonialism and cultural exclusion.46 In my own field of German history, the transnational turn has been especially important for assessing the swift and sometimes-difficult process of reunification and for advancing debates over longstanding master narratives. Of special significance has been its role in the decline of the Sonderweg narrative, which had explained Germany’s turn to authoritarianism, Nazism, and radical violence through the lens of modernization. In response, historians have in some cases turned to spatial considerations as an ersatz organizing principle for a field bereft of modernization theses as a temporal paradigm. They featured prominently in the chapters included in The Oxford Handbook of Modern German History (published in 2011), whose editor, Helmut Walser Smith, steered away from the Sonderweg. “Rather,” he declared, “the contributors emphasize the embeddedness and the impact of German history in and on wider developments, and render these qualities as central organizing principles of modern German history.”47

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Such contributions have made national histories richer, more nuanced, and more inclusive. It is tempting to think about the “new” transnational history as an element of an expanding perspective and a sign more broadly of a growing global consciousness eclipsing older nation-centered mentalities. Yet the nation has by no means receded from view. Indeed, the events of the twenty-first century have yielded a resurgence of nationalist thinking within politics and public discourse. The conflicts following the 9/11 attacks, the Great Recession, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the rise of China as a world power have been among a series of significant events and trends following in close succession that have raised doubts about the trajectory of globalization and the future of a liberal international order led by the United States. A countervailing surge of nationalist feeling fueled the surprising political success of populist political movements and causes that have acted, often intentionally so, against efforts to foster international and transnational cooperation and global engagement. Among historians, transnational scholarship has become more widely accepted, but the conversations often remain confined to their respective national fields. In the meantime, the ostensibly larger field of global history has shown signs of plateauing or even declining within academy.48 Global history scholarship still appears regularly, of course, but the discipline very much remains organized around regional categories, which are in many instances further subdivided into national fields. Patrick Manning has made the case for at least some restructuring of graduate programs and institutional structures to accommodate and foster global history scholarship. He argued that the traditional emphasis on a specific country or area at the level of the PhD forced young scholars to approach global history as a “second language.” Instead, he advocated for offering advanced fields in “global patterns and interactions, on working in multiple disciplines, and on addressing the interplay of multiple themes.”49 As he noted, however, many colleagues have proved reluctant to train students in global history, and even today, relatively few programs offer such opportunities at the graduate level. Undergraduate curricula have broadened to include non-Western perspectives, but many retain degree requirements built around regional approaches, with courses on the modern era frequently centered on national cases. World history surveys abound, but as Jack Wells and I have argued elsewhere, they do comparatively little to reflect advancements within global history.50 The slow and uneven pace of institutional change has spurred the further creation of new publication venues to promote more globally focused research, including the Journal of Global History in 2006, which aimed to address ongoing “fragmentation within historiography,”51 and The Yearbook of Transnational History, which in 2018 promised “a home for publications that do not fit

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because of their transnational approach into periodicals that are defined by the national paradigm of history.”52 TOWARD A NEW PHASE OF TRANSNATIONAL HISTORY Transnational scholarship continues to feel like one of the latest trends, but over a century of writing has shown that it has already achieved a great deal. It has helped define national contours and elided assumptions about boundaries, whether physical, conceptual, or theoretical. It has facilitated stronger international cooperation and challenged the limits of international systems. And it has amplified the voices of underrepresented individuals and groups while supporting a more general sense of global community. These contributions have occurred in distinct phases defined by such factors as points of disciplinary focus, domains of inquiry, and the scale and scope of research topics. As a multidisciplinary and multiregional approach, transnational scholarship has unfolded less as a series of internal developments within academia and more through responses to issues and questions raised by shifts in geopolitics, world conflict, regional integration, and global trade and finance. The episodes of inquiry surveyed here have also revealed patterns that suggest conceptual limits. In this case, they show how the critical edge of transnational approaches is often bounded and perhaps even blunted by fundamental assumptions about nations. This is not to say that they have not achieved a substantial measure of self-awareness. Prasenjit Duara claimed that the last thirty years “has denaturalized the national form, or at least undermined its claim to be an evolving primordial essence.”53 Eric Storm concluded: “It is not logical anymore to use the nation-state as an abstract and fixed geographical container and continue to use it unreflexively as the main unit of analysis in the humanities and social sciences.”54 These arguments are hard to dispute, but the nation remains a prominent fixture in historical practice. National governments continue to create and subsidize the structures that support historical research, and historians persist in work that naturalizes national communities. In some ways, of course, this relationship can be positive, whether it serves to promote historical research, enhance state legitimacy, and promote active citizenship. Yet the degree to which the discipline is subordinated to national frameworks, institutional norms, publication markets, associational life, and state-supported archives and grants will inevitably limit its capacity to capitalize on the promises of the spatial turn. If transnational scholarship seems new to historians, despite more than three decades of consistent engagement, it is because it continues to push

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against the grain without achieving a full measure of intellectual catharsis. It poses important challenges to assumptions about the nation as an organizing principle, but it remains rooted to the very concept it seeks to displace and thus never completely resolves the inherent tensions. At the same time, transnational history is often and erroneously conflated with global history, but its practical moorings within national subfields may have the paradoxical effect of inhibiting broader global perspectives. It seems that what we often see as the new quality of the field is in fact a symptom that it is marching in place. The way to move forward may be to look beyond a general belief in its general novelty and instead to think carefully about whether it is possible to envision a new phase in the field. This does not necessarily mean curtailing the range of meanings that have attached to the term. Just as the comprehensive study of nations will carry on as important elements of research, so too should transnational approaches remain relevant for national and regional historiographies. Historians will no doubt continue to employ the term “transnational” to denote spaces beyond borders, conditions implying partial or liminal belonging to the national community or the nation-state, and to sets of actions rooted in and dependent upon national frameworks but occurring or impacting communities outside them. These descriptive functions can and should go forward. What may be different are the ways in which the discipline assesses and promotes the analytical significance of transnationalism. This begins by recognizing that transnationalism is important but limited. It does not stand on its own as a paradigm. It cannot alone fully explain the phenomena that constitute the emergence and development of national, international, and global notions of community. Neither has it ever replaced the nation with another form of political or social entity. To suggest otherwise, even implicitly, is to overburden the concept. A better alternative is to think of transnational history as a bridge. Whether conceived as a spatial framework or conditional description, it should be part of an approach, a method, and an orientation that spans the gap between nations, aspirant nations, regions, cultural groups, and other bounded intersubjective entities and the wider world in which they develop, including global networks, organizations, and issues on the other. It is in this role that transnational history can inform not only the respective national fields, but also the neighboring field of global history. It can strengthen perspectives in research, but also shape their impact in teaching, disciplinary organization, graduate-level training, academic hiring, and interdisciplinary activity. Beyond the profession, perhaps it can turn its constitutive powers away from the narrow confines of nation-states and thereby promote international cooperation and broader global issues engagement. In practical terms, this means that the emphasis for future research must shift from revelation to explanation. The allure of transnational history has

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been in part its capacity to expose the impositions of national frameworks and boundaries. In the next phase, such arguments should form a premise rather than a conclusion of new studies. Transnationalism may not be a theory in itself, but it has a role to play in theorizing about nations and national identity. This entails transforming the scholarly approach to nations so that they are understood not simply as frameworks, but as a slate of research questions. Such an approach could address the ways in which national communities, nation-states, and aspirant national movements emerge and evolve through engagement with actors and resources beyond their purported frontiers. Sebastian Conrad, Michael Geyer, and Charles Bright are among those who have already done important work in this area, showing how encounters in frontier or colonial spaces generate stronger attachments to national identities.55 The next phase of scholarship should push further to help us understand how and why national ideas form within regional, trans-regional, and global contexts, how articulations and iterations change over time, and, notably, the reasons why they have remained resilient as a polity, an ideal, and a building block of community. The capacity to aid theorization reaches in the opposite direction as well. Rather than think about transnationalism merely as a replication of global history on a smaller scale, it might be better to be more specific and focus on answering questions about the relative development of national, regional, and global notions of community. The objective is to illuminate not only the internal dynamics within countries, but also the ways in which they impact developments around the world. Just as they can better subject nations to historical analysis, so too can these approaches facilitate fundamental questions about the condition, spatial contours, and diachronic qualities of globality. Above all, they can help global history move away from linear or overarching narratives of globalization toward more nuanced analyses that explain the dynamics of local and global interaction and integration. Liah Greenfield and Mary Kaldor have already shown how globalization on the one hand and nationalism on the other are integrally linked. Greenfield has explained how globalization itself is largely “an expression of particular nationalism,” while Kaldor has highlighted the flexibility of nationalist thought in the face of globalization.56 This suggests that transnationalism should by no means aspire to efface the nation from analysis, but instead should seek to understand the linkages across a range of spatial conceptions. The results can be quite innovative, as seen in a recent anthology of research on The Global Bourgeoisie, an experiment in global social history edited by Christof Dejung, David Motadel, and Jürgen Osterhammel. With case studies drawn from national examples around the world, the volume features an array of cultural, intellectual, and economic forces to explore the middle class as both an emergent social stratum and as a social idea

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proliferating and evolving within different cultural milieus around the world during the modern era.57 This type of work is remarkable for the innovative ways in which it builds upon national cases to explain an otherwiseoverlooked global phenomenon, but also for the degree to which it hinges on a collective effort among scholars. It suggests a new phase of transnational history relying upon collaboration with scholars working in different contexts and even in different fields. Further scholarship might build on this example to foster conversations across national and regional cases and might reconnect with scholars pursuing transnational perspectives in other social science disciplines. Historians would have much to offer to conversations forming within the relatively young field of global studies, and they can enhance our understanding of potential global structures and pressing global challenges shaping the twenty-first century. New potential contributions require us to commit to changing the way we train students. Once again, transnational history can act as a bridge in this regard to make needed changes within graduate and undergraduate education. The preparation of young academics should no longer be mired in a false choice between area and national fields on the one hand and global approaches on the other. Understanding global processes, trends, and problems as they develop over time is essential to transnational scholarship, and by extension to national fields, because they inform the ways scholars see influences upon the national community. It need not be a question of learning one field or the other, or as is often the case now, of training in a national field and then moving into global or transnational history later under the protection of tenure. Rather, an emphasis on transnational scholarship demands a hybrid approach for at least some students that divides attention among national, regional, and global fields. Of course, this would require changes to departments, to the academic job market, and ultimately to the career trajectories that new academics follow. But it could be feasible as a product of reform rather than revolution. It would entail some rethinking of department rosters and of the criteria that make hires in certain fields desirable. It would also warrant updates to undergraduate curricula to include more coverage of thematic and cross-cultural topics and incorporating advanced courses in global history to complement American, regional, and world surveys. Finally, it would demand a willingness to support faculty participation in interdisciplinary research and teaching, including support for institutional area and global studies programs. The historical discipline in the twenty-first century has been replete with “turns”: cultural, linguistic, emotional, cognitive, and spatial. These are moments when new areas of inquiry appear on the horizon with the promise of challenging older patterns of research and advancing our knowledge about the past. Because we have perceived it as a growing area of study

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in recent years, transnational history is still considered a “turn” in its own right. As we have seen, however, transnational history connects to a deep lineage across disciplines, and even within its own discipline it continues its journey to fruition. Perhaps turn is the wrong word; rather, we should see transnational scholarship as part of a longer arc, crossing borders but also disciplines and genres. It has already done much to change the course of our field, but it remains to be seen whether the full promise of a better understanding of nations and of a richer, more global perspective lies around the metaphorical bend. NOTES 1. Ian Tyrell, “American Exceptionalism in an Age of International History,” The American Historical Review 96, no. 4 (1991): 1038. 2. Sebastian Conrad, “Doppelte Marginalisierung: Plädoyer für eine transnationale Perspektive auf die deutsche Geschichte,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 28, no. 1 (2002): 145–69; Thomas Adam and Uwe Luebken, “Introduction,” in Thomas Adam and Uwe Luebken (eds.), Bulletin of the German Historical Institute, Supplement Five: Beyond the Nation: United States History in Transnational Perspective (Washington DC: German Historical Institute, 2008), 1. 3. Sara Lennox, “From Postcolonial to Transnational Approaches in German Studies,” Cross / Cultures, no. 129 (2010): 49. 4. Susan Strange, “The Study of Transnational Relations,” International Affairs 52, no. 3 (1976): 333–45; Samuel Huntington, “Transnational Organizations in World Politics,” World Politics 25, no. 3 (1973): 333–68. 5. Joseph S. Nye Jr. and Robert O. Keohane, “Transnational Relations and World Politics: A Conclusion,” International Organization 25, no. 3 (1971): 721–48. 6. Raymond S. Bourne, “Trans-National America,” The Atlantic Monthly 118, no. 1 (1916): 86–97; Hans Kohn, “The Twilight of Nationalism,” The American Scholar 6, no. 3 (1937): 259–70. 7. Pierre-Yves Saunier, Transnational History (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2013), 5–6, 17. 8. See, for example, Michael McGerr, “The Price of the New Transnational History,” American Historical Review 96, no. 4 (1991): 1056–57. 9. Quoted in C. A. Bayley, Sven Beckert, Matthew Connelly, Isabel Hofmeyr, Wendy Kozol, and Patricia Seed, “AHR Conversation: On Transnational History,” The American Historical Review 111, no. 5 (2006): 1445. 10. Lennox, “From Postcolonial to Transnational Approaches in German Studies,” 47. 11. Bayley et al., “On Transnational History,” 1441. 12. Michael Geyer, “Where Germans Dwell: Transnationalism in Theory and Practice,” German Studies Association Newsletter 31, no. 2 (2006): 34.

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13. Adam/Luebken, “Introduction,” 2; Akira Iriye, Global and Transnational History: The Past, Present, and Future (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2013), 2. 14. Karl Kaiser, “Transnational Politics: Toward a Theory of Multinational Politics,” International Organization 25, no. 4 (1971): 802; Susan Strange, “The Study of Transnational Relations,” International Affairs 52, no. 3 (1976): 333. 15. Adam/Luebken, “Introduction,” 2. 16. Quoted in Bayley et al., “On Transnational History,” 1441. 17. Stefan Berger, “Comparative and Transnational History,” in Stefan Berger, Heiko Feldner, and Kevin Passmore (eds.), Writing History: Theory and Practice London: Bloomsbury 2020, 302; Saunier, Transnational History, 3–5. 18. Iriye, Global and Transnational History. 19. Saunier, Transnational History, 8. 20. Sebastian Conrad, What is Global History? (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016), 42–45. 21. Dorothee Wierling, “German History as Global History: The Case of Coffee,” Bulletin of the German Historical Institute 59 (2016): 9–28. 22. Bourne, “Trans-National America,” 86. 23. Bourne, “Trans-National America,” 87. 24. One key exception were his critiques of the concept of the “melting pot.” See Aaron D. Fleshler, “The Sociological and Educational Significance of Jewish Schools in New York,” in The Journal of Educational Sociology 2, no. 5 (1929): 282–83. 25. Leslie J. Vaughan, “Cosmopolitanism, Ethnicity, and American Identity: Randolph Bourne’s ‘Trans-National America,’” Journal of American Studies 25, no. 3 (1991): 443–59. 26. Jeremy McCarter, “The Critic Who Refuted Trump’s Worldview––in 1916,” The New Yorker, August 13, 2017, https://www.newyorker.com/books/second-read/ the-critic-who-refuted-trumps-world-view-in-1916 (accessed August 3, 2021). 27. Christopher McKnight Nichols, “Rethinking Randolph Bourne’s National America: How World War I Created an Isolationist Antiwar Pluralism,” The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 8, no. 2 (2009): 219. 28. Bourne, “Trans-National America,” 92. 29. Bourne, “Trans-National America,” 93. 30. Kohn, “The Twilight of Nationalism,” 262. 31. Kohn, “The Twilight of Nationalism,” 267. 32. See, for example, Arnold Wolfers, “International Relations as a Field of Study,” Columbia Journal of International Affairs 1, no. 1 (1947): 24–26; Stanley Hoffmann, ed. Contemporary Theory in International Relations (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1960), 174–90. 33. David P. Forsythe, “The Red Cross as Transnational Movement: Conserving and Changing the Nation-State System,” International Organization 30, no. 4 (1976): 607–30. 34. Raymond Aron, Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations (Garden City: Doubleday, 1966), 105. 35. Kaiser, “Transnational Politics,” 804. 36. Strange, “The Study of Transnational Relations,” 335.

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37. Nye and Keohane, “Transnational Relations,” 736. 38. Huntington, “Transnational Organizations in World Politics,” 338. 39. Kevin Passmore, “Post-Structuralist and Linguistic Methods,” in Berger et al. (eds.), Writing History, 133–57; on the decline of master narratives, see Konrad H. Jarausch and Michael Geyer, Shattered Pasts: Reconstructing German Histories (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003). 40. Jerry Bentley, “A New Forum for Global History,” Journal of World History 1, no. 1 (1990): iv. 41. Eric Storm, “The Spatial Turn and the History of Nationalism: Nationalism between Regionalism and Transnational Approaches,” in Stefan Berger and Eric Storm (eds.), Writing the History of Nationalism (London: Bloomsbury, 2019), 215–39. 42. Berger, “Comparative and Transnational History”; Michael Miller, “Comparative and Cross-National History: Approaches, Differences, Problems,” in Deborah Cohen and Maura O’Connor (eds.), Comparison in History: Europe in Cross-National Perspective (New York: Routledge, 2004), 115–32. 43. Geyer, “Where Germans Dwell,” 30; Thomas Bender, “Historians, the Nation, and the Plenitude of Narratives,” in Thomas Bender (ed.), Rethinking American History in a Global Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 10. 44. See most recently Daniel Bessner and Fredrik Logevall, “Recentering the United States in the Historiography of American Foreign Relations,” Texas National Security Review 3, no. 2 (2020): 38–55. 45. Sarah B. Snyder, From Selma to Moscow: How Human Rights Activists Transformed U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018). 46. Tyler Stovall, Transnational France: The Modern History of a Universal Nation (Boulder: Westview Press, 2015). 47. Helmut Walser Smith (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Modern German History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 1. 48. Donna Gabbacia, “Thoughts on the Future of Transnational History,” Yearbook of Transnational History 1 (2018): 11–42. 49. Patrick Manning, Navigating World History: Historians Create a Global Past (New York: Palgrave, 2003), 332. 50. J. Laurence Hare and Jack Wells, “Promising the World: Surveys, Curricula, and the Challenge of Global History,” The History Teacher 48, no. 2 (2015): 371–88. 51. William Gervase Clarence-Smith, Kenneth Pomeranz, and Peer Vries, “Editorial,” in Journal of Global History 1 (2006): 1. 52. Thomas Adam, “Transnational History: A Program for Research, Publishing, and Teaching,” Yearbook of Transnational History 1 (2018): 6. 53. Prasenjit Duara, “Transnationalism and the Challenge to National Histories,” in Bender (ed.), Rethinking American History, 31. 54. Storm, “The Spatial Turn and the History of Nationalism,” 2. 55. Sebastian Conrad, Globalization and the Nation in Imperial Germany (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010); Michael Geyer and Charles Bright, “Where in the World is America? The History of the United States in the Global Age,” in Bender (ed.), Rethinking American History, 63–99.

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56. Liah Greenfield, “The Globalization of Nationalism and the Future of the Nation-State,” International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 24, nos. 1/2 (2011): 6; Mary Kaldor, “Nationalism and Globalization,” Nations and Nationalism 10, nos. 1/2 (2004): 161–77. 57. Christof Dejung, David Motadel, and Jürgen Osterhammel (eds.), The Global Bourgeoisie: The Rise of the Middle Class in the Age of Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019).

BIBLIOGRAPHY Adam, Thomas. “Transnational History: A Program for Research, Publishing, and Teaching.” Yearbook of Transnational History 1 (2018): 1–10. Adam, Thomas, and Uwe Luebken. “Introduction.” Bulletin of the German Historical Institute, Supplement Five: Beyond the Nation: United States History in Transnational Perspective. Edited by Thomas Adam and Uwe Luebken, 1–8. Washington DC: German Historical Institute, 2008. Aron, Raymond. Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations. Garden City: Doubleday, 1966. Bayley, C. A., Sven Beckert, Matthew Connelly, Isabel Hofmeyr, Wendy Kozol, and Patricia Seed. “AHR Conversation: On Transnational History.” The American Historical Review 111, no. 5 (2006): 1441–64. Bender, Thomas. “Historians, the Nation, and the Plenitude of Narratives.” In Rethinking American History in a Global Age, edited by Thomas Bender, 1­–21. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Berger, Stefan. “Comparative and Transnational History.” In Writing History: Theory and Practice, edited by Stefan Berger, Heiko Feldner, and Kevin Passmore, 292– 315. London: Bloomsbury, 2020. Bessner, Daniel, and Fredrik Logevall. “Recentering the United States in the Historiography of American Foreign Relations.” Texas National Security Review 3, no. 2 (2020): 38–55. Bourne, Raymond S. “Trans-National America.” The Atlantic Monthly 118, no. 1 (1916): 86–97. Clarence-Smith, William Gervase, Kenneth Pomeranz, and Peer Vries. “Editorial.” Journal of Global History 1, no. 1 (2006): 1–2. Conrad, Sebastian. “Doppelte Marginalisierung: Plädoyer für eine transnationale Perspektive auf die deutsche Geschichte.” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 28, no.1 (2002): 145–69. Conrad, Sebastian. Globalization and the Nation in Imperial Germany. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010. Conrad, Sebastian. What is Global History? Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016. Dejung, Christof, David Motadel, and Jürgen Osterhammel, eds. The Global Bourgeoisie: The Rise of the Middle Class in the Age of Empire. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019.

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Index

abolitionism, 86 Acheson, Dean, 107, 110 Acker, Caroline, 87 Adam, Thomas, 175, 177 Africa, 2, 5, 22, 80, 132, 134, 137, 141, 157 North, 47, 54 West Coast of, 53 Age of Revolutions, 83 Albany Medical College, 84 Algeria, 131 All-German People’s Party, 118 Alternative for Germany (AfD), 2 America. See United States America(s), 44, 45, 53, 78, 79, 134 Central, 10 Latin, 132, 134, 137, 157 North, 8–9, 21–22, 43, 50–51, 55, 79 South, 80 Spanish, 7 American Church in Berlin, 112 The American Historical Review, 177 American Provers’ Union, 83–84 American Religious Affairs Office, 110 Amsterdam, 47, 49, 51 Anderson, Benedict, 2, 4, 8, 9, 17, 21 Anderson, James, 79–80 Anglicans, 47 Angola, 131, 133, 141, 145, 157

Civil war, 141 Anticolonialism, 5 anti-communism, 103, 104, 109, 115, 118, 119 Antigua, 53 anti-Semitism, 5, 103, 109 Antwerp, 43 apocynum cannabinum, 84 Appadurai, Arjun, 88 Arabia, 84 “Arabian Prince,” 89 Armenians, 20, 42, 51, 53–55 Armstrong, Louis, 88 Aron, Raymond, 175, 181 Ashkenazi Jews, 20, 42, 47, 53 Asia, 74, 80, 132, 134, 137, 157 East 54–55 Minor, 81, 86 Southeast, 2, 54–55 Asmussen, Hans, 119 assimilation, 178 Atlantic Ocean, 50, 79, 82, 85, 86, 88 Atlantic Revolutions, 6–8, 19 Austro-Hungarian Empire, 8 Baltic Sea, 53 Barbados, 51, 53 Basch, Linda, 10, 15 Benavides, Joaquin, 139 195

196

Bender, Thomas, 11, 12, 183 Bengal, 82 Bentley, Jerry, 182 Berlin, 53, 108, 148 Berlin Academy of Sciences, 50 Bilbao, 53 bioprospecting, 80 Blanc, Christina Szanton, 10, 15 Blavatsky, Helena, 87 Bordeaux, 51, 53 borderlands, concept of, 12 Boston, 53 Bourne, Randolph S., 175, 178–180 Boyarin, Daniel, 56 Boyarin, Jonathan, 56 Brandenburg, 148 Brandenburg-Prussia, 44, 48–49, 55 Brazil, 52, 53 Dutch, 52 Bretton Woods, 181 Brewer, Sam Pope, 104 BREXIT, 1, 2 Bright, Charles, 187 British East India Company (EIC), 52, 54, 76, 79–80 British Empire, 17, 47, 52–54, 74, 76, 79, 81–82, 89 Brussels, 56 Bulgaria, 134, 151 Calcutta, 80, 83 Calhoun, Craig, 17 Calvert, Samuel, 110, 112, 113 Calvinists, 47 Campos, Isaac, 76, 77, 84 cannabis, 73–88 consumption of, 73–74, 77, 78, 80–82, 85–89 culture war, 89 indica, 81, 83–86 knowledge cultures, 73–88 subculture, 87–88 Canada, 41, 145 Canary Islands, 53 Carolinas, 43

Index

Casalilla, Bartolomé Yun, 15, 20 Castro, Fidel, 140, 152 Catholicism, 18, 43 Cevennes, 47 China, 1, 184 Christian Advocate, 115 Christianity, 102–106, 110, 112, 114– 115, 118–119 Church of the Savoye, 50 Church World Service, 118 Cienfuegos, Camilo, 135 Clay, Lucius, 106, 110 coffee, 53, 86 Cohen, Robin, 41 Cold War, 9, 181–182 colonialism, linguistic, 17 Columbian exchange, 78 Comités de Defensa de la Revolución, 139 Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 18 communism, 8, 102–103, 115, 118, 131–157 downfall of, 132, 155 Communist Party of Cuba, 144–145, 151–152, 156 Communist Youth Organization of Cuba. See Unión de Juventud Comunista Confessing Church, 105, 110 Conrad, Sebastian, 11, 175, 177–178, 187 contact zones, concept of, 12 contract labor program 131–157 contract laborers Cuban, 133, 135–157 Vietnamese, 133, 148, 154 Conversos, 51, 53 Conway, John, 110 Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON), 131, 133– 134, 152, 156 Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany, 107 COVID-19 pandemic, 1, 184

Index

Cromwell, Oliver, 18 Cuba, 131–157 industrialization of, 154 Cuban Ministry for Economic Collaboration, 138, 155 Cuban Ministry of Labor, 135, 138 Cuban State Security, 144–145 Cubatecnica, 139, 140, 144 cultural mobility, concept of, 12 Curacao, 52 Czechoslovakia, 134, 145, 151, 154 Dachau (concentration camp), 101 Damascus, 84, 86 Dauphiné, 47 Davidson College, 114 decolonization, 181 DeGrandpre, Richard, 77 Dejung, Christof, 187 denazification, 105, 113 Denmark, 53 Dewy, Thomas, 110 diaspora, 20, 23, early modern, 41–58 Jewish, 56 labor, 57 networks, 52–53 studies, 20 Doi Moi, 152 Duara, Prasenjit, 185 Dufton, Emily, 77 Dulles, John Foster, 110 Dutch Empire, 47, 53, 54 Dutch East India Company, 52, 54 Dutch Republic, 44, 47 East Berlin, 145, 150, 152 Eckert, Andreas, 11 ecumenism, 119–120 Edict of Nantes (1685), 47 Edinburgh, 82 Egypt, 81, 86 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 113 Elmhurst (New York), 113 Elton, G. R. 16

Emergency Committee for German Protestantism, 118 empire-building, 16, 20, 54, 57 England, 17–20, 43, 47, 50, 53 English Empire. See British Empire Enlightenment, 75, 102, 183 Ethiopia, 144, 145, 157 Europe, 12, 22, 51, 53, 55–56, 78, 80–81, 83, 102, 104–105, 115, 119, 134, 141, 146, 152, 154– 156, 178–180 Central, 120, 180 Eastern, 5–9, 22, 131, 180 Protestant, 54 Southeastern, 5–7 Western, 6, 8–9, 21, 22 European Union, 1 exceptionalism, American, 12, 182 English, 19, 43 German, 183 exile, 23, 57 exiles, Italian, 56 Polish, 56 Faneuil, Peter, 53 flax, 80 Florida, 52 Forell, Frederick, 118 Formey, Jean Henri Samuel, 50 Foucault, Michele, 75 Fousek, John, 103, 117 France, 1, 4, 6, 20, 43, 47, 50, 53, 80, 82, 84–86 Free German Youth (FDJ), 146, 151 Freikorps, 104 French Catholics, 53 French East India Company, 52 French Empire, 43, 76 French Wars of Religion (1562–1598), 47 French West India Company, 52–53 ganja, 82

197

198

Index

Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand, 105 Gellner, Ernest, 7 German Democratic Republic (GDR), 131–157 German Studies Association, 176 Germany, 1, 4, 7, 55, 82, 101, 103–108, 110–120, 135 East. See German Democratic Republic division of, 105–106 Federal Republic of, 106, 133, 156–157 Rearmament of, 119 US Occupied Military Zone in, 106, 113 Geyer, Michael, 176, 183, 187 Gibson, Edmund, 50 glaucoma, 73 globalization, 1–2, 184 Granada, Kingdom of, 43 Grazia, Victoria de, 11 Great Britain. See United Kingdom Great Recession, 184 Great War. See World War I Greece, 86 Greeks, 51 Greenfeld, Liah, 6–7, 187 Guevara, Che, 135 guest worker program, 133, 156–157 gunjah, 80, 84 Gusfield, Joseph R., 75 Hahamovitch, Cindy, 133 Haiti, 7 Hakluyt, Richard, 16 Hamburg, 53 Haring, Keith, 11 hashish, 84–87 Havana, 145, 153 Heinemann, Gustav, 118 Helgerson, Richard, 16–17, 18 hemp, 78–81, 84 Indian. See cannabis indica Oriental, 79 Russian, 79

Herman, Stewart, 107–109 Hirschi, Caspar, 18 histoire croisée, 12, 15, 182 history, comparative, 177–178, 182 diplomatic, 10 entangled, 15, 177, 182 global, 177–178, 184, 186 imperial, 177 international, 10, 177 transfer, 177, 182 world, 11, 177, 184 Hitler, Adolf, 101–102, 105, 108, 110– 112, 114, 120 Hobsbawm, Eric, 1–2, 6, 7, 8 Höck, Michael, 101 Hockenos, Matthew, 102, 117 Hoerder, Dirk, 10 Hollywood, 11 Holocaust, 8, 105, 109, 110–111 Holy Roman Empire, 18, 20 Hooft, Willem Adolph Visser ‘t, 107 Hroch, Miroslav, 5 Huguenots, 20, 41–58 Humphrey, James L. 84 Hungary, 1, 134, 151 Huntington, Samuel, 175, 181 Hynd, Peter, 82 Iberian Peninsula, 43 India, 53, 74, 77, 79–81, 82, 86 British, 78, 80, 81 Indian Ocean, 50, 53, 183 Indian Office House, 82 indigo, 53 Indonesia, 53 intercultural transfer, concept of, 12, 23, 55, 73–89 international relations, field of, 10–11, 175 internationalism, 180 proletarian, 150, 152 Ireland, 17, 52, 54 Irish Catholics, 51, 52, 56 Iriye, Akira, 11, 177

Index

Isfahan, 54 Israel, Jonathan, 53 Italy, 1, 4, 7, 20, 53, 82 Northern, 101 Jacobite wars, 54 Jamaica, 51, 53 Jesus Christ, 114–115 Kaiser, Karl, 175, 177, 181 Kaldor, Mary, 187 Kapp Putsch, 104 Kean, Dr., 82 Keohane, Robert O., 175, 181 Klooster, Wim, 7, 53 Knappen, Marshall, 106 Kohn, Hans, 7, 175, 180 Kozol, Wendy, 176 Krause, Monika, 153 Kunkel, Karl, 101 Labrador, 53 Lachenicht, Susanne, 20 La Réunion, 52 Lavigne, Mayra, 135 League of Nations, 180 Leiper, Henry Smith, 113 Leipzig, 150 Lennox, Sarah, 175, 176 Ley, M., 81–82 Liberia, 52 Libya, 138 Lichtenstein, Nelson, 11 Lilje, Hans, 119 Lima, 44 Lisbon, 43 Loewenstein, David, 18 London, 43, 47, 49, 50, 51, 53, 56, 81, 82 Lorke, Christoph, 132 Lorraine, 47 Los Angeles Times, 112 Lowery, Katherine T., 113 Ludlow, Fitzhugh, 85–86, 87 Luebken, Uwe, 175, 177

199

Mahamad, 49 Malays, 81 Manning, Patrick, 184 Marlowe, Christopher, 16 Marranos, 43 Martin, Terry, 5 Marung, Steffi, 15 Mauritius, 52 McCarter, Jeremy, 179 McKinnon, Dr., 81 Medical College of Calcutta, 80 Medical College of Carolina, 84 Meiser, Hans, 119 Merseburg, 149 Mezzrow, Milton, 88 Michelfelder, Sylvester Clarence, 107–109 Middell, Matthias, 13, 15 Middle East, 54, 180 migration, 11 history of, 10 labor, 131–157 studies, 10 Miller, Basil, 102 Milton, John, 18, 19, 43 Ministry of State Security (GDR), 136, 139, 146, 149–152, 154 Mintz, Sidney, 75, 89 modernization, 6–8 theories, 21 molasses, 53 Mongolia, 54 Morgenthau Plan, 118 Moriscos, 43, 54 Morocco, 53 Motadel, David, 187 Mozambique, 131–133, 148 Muccio, John J., 110 Mussolini, Benito, 111 Nance, Susan, 76, 85–87 Naples, 101–104, 106–112 Napoleonic Wars, 79 nation-building, 3, 6, 8, 20, 23, 41, 49, 55, 57

200

Index

Soviet, 6 nation-state building, 5, 6, 20, 48, 57 National Socialism. See Nazism National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), 141 nationalism, Pan-African, 55, 56 Pan-Indian, 56 nations in exile, 20, 41–58 Nazism, 102–103, 106, 108–109, 111– 113, 114, 119 resistance to, 102–106, 108, 110–113, 120 Neisse, river, 117 Nepal, 81 Neuhäusler, Johannes, 101 Newfoundland, 53 New Julfa, 54 New York, 53 New York City, 86, 87, 111 New York Times, 104, 111, 118 Nicaragua, 133, 157 Niemöller, Martin, 101–120 nihilism, 116, 118 9/11 attacks, 184 Nolan, Mary, 11 Normandy, 47 North Carolina, 114 N.W.A., 89 Nye, Francis Marion, 84 Nye Jr., Joseph S., 175, 181 Oder, river, 117 Olivera, García, 140 opium, 80, 85 Orient, 76–77, 81, 87 Oriental Orders, 87 Orientalism, 74, 76–77, 80, 85–89 Atlantic, 74, 76 O’Shaughnessy, William Brooke, 80–85 Osterhammel, Jürgen, 11, 13, 178, 187 Ottoman Empire, 8, 47, 53–54, 55 Oxnam, Garfield Bromley, 110

pacifism, 104 Palmer, Robert R., 6–7 Paris, 56 Pastors’ Emergency League, 101 Pegler, Westbrook, 112 Persia, 86 pharmacology, 77 cult of, 77 Philadelphia, 87 Philippines, 10 Phoenix, 114 Pittsburgh, 176 Plessner, Helmuth, 7 Poitou, 47 Poland, 1, 134 Portuguese Empire, 43, 54 Portuguese nation. See Sephardi Jews post-commodity studies, 74, 75 Potsdam Conference, 117 Poughkeepsie (New York), 85 Pries, Ludger, 10 Protestant Church in Germany (EKD), 106–107, 110, 113 Protestant Federal Council of Churches (FCCoC), 110, 112, 113, 116–120 Protestantism, 17 English, 102 German, 103 Provence, 47 Puritan Revolution, 43 Puritans, English, 53, 55 Quakers, 53 Quincey, Thomas de, 85 Rabenschlag, Ann-Judith, 132 Raleigh, Walter, 16 Randolph, Paschal Beverly, 86–87 Ranger, Terrence, 8 Rathge, Adam, 83 Rawson, Albert L. 87 refugees, 116–117 Revolutions of 1848/49, 5 rice, 53 Río, Ramiro del, 140

Index

Rochefort, Charles de, 44 Rodríguez, Carlos Rafael, 151 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 110–114, 117, 120 Roxburgh, William, 79 Royal Medico-Botanical Society, 82 Royal Society of the Arts (RSA), 79 Russia, 54, 79 Russian Empire, 8 Saale, river, 149 Sachsenhausen (concentration camp), 101 Safavid Empire, 53–54, 55 Said, Edward, 76 Saint Petersburg, 53 Saunier, Pierre-Yves, 175, 177–178 Schengen Accords, 9 Schiebinger, Londa, 80 Schiller, Nina Glick, 10, 15 Schönebeck, 154 Schwenkel, Christina, 133 Seattle, 112 Sephardi Jews, 20, 41–58 Seton-Watson, Hugh, 4 Shakespeare, William, 16 Shrank, Cathy, 16–19 Sierra Leone, 52 silk trade, 54, 55 Silver, Abba Hillel, 111 Sinclair, George, 79 slave trade, transatlantic, 78 slavery, 86 abolition of, 52 African, 52, 78 Atlantic, 45, 53 slaves, African, 45–46, 48, 78 American Indian, 48 Smith, Henry, 82 Smith, Thomas, 82 Snyder, Sarah B., 183 Social Darwinism, 5 Sonderweg. See exceptionalism, German South Africa, 53 Soviet Union. See USSR

Spain, 1, 2, 43, 54, 86, 180 Spanish Civil War, 175, 180 Spanish Empire, 43, 44, 47, 54 Spenser, Edmund, 16 Squire, Peter, 81 Stafford, Thomas, 115 Stalin, Josef, 6 state-building, 22, 52, 58 State Department (US), 110 State Secretary of Labor (GDR), 136, 138 Stein, Leo, 102 Sternberger, Estelle, 113 Stevens, Paul, 18, 19 Storm, Eric, 185 Stovall, Tyler, 183 Strange, Susan, 175, 177, 181 Stuttgart Declaration of Guilt, 105 sugar, 53 trade of, 134 Suriname, 48, 51, 52 Sweden, 53 Tagesspiegel, 111 Taylor, Bayard, 84, 85 Taylor, Charles, 79, 86 tea, 53, 86 Thelen, David, 13 Theosophical Society, 87 tobacco, 53, 80, 86 totalitarianism, 112, 114–115, 116, 117, 119 Tractenberg, Marc, 10 transnational borrowing. See intercultural transfer Treaty of Paris (1763), 42 Treaty of Versailles (1919), 8 Treysa, 110 Trivellato, Francesca, 53 Trouillot, Michel-Rolph, 89 Trump, Donald, 1 Turkey, 80, 86 Turner, Ewart E., 112 Tyrell, Ian, 12–13, 175, 182

201

202

Index

UKIP, 2 Unión de Juventud Comunista (UJC), 134–136, 139, 144–145, 151, 153 United Kingdom, 55, 78–80, 83, 86, 107 United Nations, 41, 180 United Provinces, 53 United States, 5–6, 10–12, 22, 41, 50, 55, 73–74, 76–79, 82–83, 86–87, 89, 102–103, 107, 110–118, 120, 141, 178–179, 182–184 universities, German, 43 USSR, 2, 5–6, 9, 41, 101, 115, 118–120, 134 Vatican, 118 Venice, 20, 43 Vietnam, 131, 134, 137, 148, 152, 154, 157 Wales, 17 Warhol, Andy, 11 Washington, D.C., 118 Wehler, Hans-Ulrich, 8 Wells, Jack, 184 Wierling, Dorothee, 178

Wilhelmine Empire, 106 William of Orange, 54 Wissett, Robert, 80 WLIB (Brooklyn), 113 World Council of Churches, 107, 119 world, Atlantic, 53, 74, 76, 80–81, 85, 87–88 socialist, 131–157 collapse of, 157 globalization of, 156 inter-nationalization, 156 World War I, 104, 113, 175, 178, 180 World War II, 102, 103, 106, 113–114, 180 Wu-Tang Clan, 89 xenophobia, 132, 152, 156 Yugoslavia, 2, 5 Zeuske, Max, 147 Zeuske, Michael, 147 Zionism, 56 Zwengel, Almut, 133

About the Editors and Contributors

Thomas Adam is associate professor at the University of Arkansas. From 2001 to 2020, he taught transnational and transatlantic history at the University of Texas at Arlington. He has published and edited more than twenty-five books. He specializes in the study of intercultural transfer and philanthropy. Among his most recent publications are Deutschland in der Welt (2021), The History of College Affordability in the United States (2020), and Approaches to the Study of Intercultural Transfer (2019). Adam is also the editor of the book series on Intercultural Transfer Studies. Email: [email protected]   Bradley J. Borougerdi is professor of history at Tarrant County College (TCC) and co-founder/executive board member for the Tarrant County Coalition for Peace and Justice (TCCPJ). He received BAs in history and philosophy (2003), an MA in world history (2006), and a PhD in transatlantic history (2014) from the University of Texas in Arlington. He teaches courses in world civilizations, African American history, and US history from a transnational perspective at TCC, and his research interests include commodities and culture, transnationalism, the philosophy of history, intercultural transfers, and the history of gardening. His first book, Commodifying Cannabis, was published with Lexington Books in 2018, and his current book project deals with the history of subversive gardening in the United States. Email: [email protected]   Volker Depkat is professor of American studies at the University of Regensburg, Germany. He received his PhD from the University of Göttingen in 1996, and his habilitation (second dissertation) from the University of Greifswald in 2003. He has written six books and edited eight, among them Amerikabilder in politischen Diskursen: Deutsche Zeitschriften 1789–1830 (1998), Lebenswenden und Zeitenwenden: Deutsche Politiker und die Erfahrungen des 20. Jahrhunderts (2007), and most recently American Exceptionalism (2021). He has published widely on US history in continental, hemispheric, and transatlantic perspective, the history of European–American 203

204

About the Editors and Contributors

relations, biography and autobiography studies, visual culture studies, and US federalism in comparative perspective. Currently, he is working on a history of the visual culture of the American presidency. Email: [email protected]   J. Laurence Hare is associate professor and chair of the Department of History at the University of Arkansas. He earned a PhD in modern European history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and he specializes in the history of modern Germany and Scandinavia, with an emphasis on cross-border intellectual and cultural exchange in Northern Europe. He is the author of Excavating Nations: Archaeology, Museums, and the German-Danish Borderlands (2015) and Essential Skills for Historians: A Practical Guide to Researching the Past, with Jack Wells and Bruce E. Baker (2020). At the University of Arkansas, Hare has served as director of the European Studies Program and the International and Global Studies Program, and he currently holds the Cleveland C. Burton Professorship in International Programs. Email: [email protected]   Susanne Lachenicht is professor of early modern history at Bayreuth University, Germany. She works on Europe and the Atlantic world with a special focus on diasporas, religious migrations, knowledge transfer and transformation as well as temporalities in the early modern world. She has been a visiting fellow/professor at the Université de Toulouse II, the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, the Université d’Angers and at All Souls College, Oxford. She is the co-founder of the Summer Academy of Atlantic History and was, from 2012 to 2014, president of the European Early American Studies Association. Her recent publications include The TransAtlantic Reconsidered, coedited with with Charlotte Lerg and Michael Kimmage (2018), Nations et empires, coedited with Mathilde Monge (a thematic issue of Diasporas: Migrations, circulations, histoire 34, no. 2 [2019]), and Négocier l’accueil / Negotiating asylum and accommodation, coedited with Marianne Amar, Isabelle Lacoue-Labarthe, Mathilde Monge, and Annelise Rodrigo (a thematic issue of Diasporas: Migrations, circulations, histoire 35, no. 2 [2020]). Email: [email protected]   Austin E. Loignon is an adjunct professor at the University of Texas at Arlington. He received his PhD in transatlantic history from the University of Texas at Arlington in 2019. He was trained by Thomas Adam in the methodology of intercultural transfer. His dissertation focused on the health reformer and physician John Harvey Kellogg (the inventor of cornflakes) as a transatlantic agent of transfer between the health reform movements of Europe and the United States. Loignon specializes in transfers within the transatlantic world, the history of honor and violence in Renaissance and early modern

About the Editors and Contributors

205

European society, and relics and pilgrimage within European and American societies. He is currently developing his next research project on transatlantic light therapy and its use and disuse within the transatlantic world. Email: [email protected]   Berthold Unfried is associate professor at the Institute of Economic and Social History of the University of Vienna. He is the author of several books in the field of Global History. He is preparing for publication a book on the comparative history of the development policies of the two German States in the era of development (1960–1990). His main current research interests are politics of “development” and “solidarity” as forms of moral politics (Moralpolitik) and political economies. He is currently working on a research project on Cuba and the GDR in the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance as a development organization (https://socialist-entanglements. univie.ac.at/). Email: [email protected]   Ky Woltering is an assessment specialist with Educational Testing Services in Princeton, New Jersey, working with the world history team on the advanced placement world history exam. He is also an adjunct associate professor at New York University and Hunter College in New York City and teaches classes in European, world, and American history. He completed his PhD at The Graduate Center, CUNY, in 2018. His dissertation, “‘A Christian World Order’: Protestants, Democracy and Christian Aid to Germany, 1945–1961,” examined the relationship between German and American Protestantism and the construction of postwar democracy from 1945 to 1961. Email: [email protected]