2026/01/02 by Mona Rudolph, Nina Kleinöder · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #German Colonialism and Identity Studies #European history and politics #Culture, Economy, and Development Studies
paper · doi:10.1080/03086534.2025.2608271
This introduction surveys and critically reassesses the development of German colonial historiography over recent decades. It traces how a field long regarded as marginal within German historical scholarship has moved to the centre of academic and public debate since the early 2000s. The introduction reconstructs this historiographical shift by identifying key thematic, methodological and political impulses that have shaped research on German colonialism, including postcolonial critiques, debates on colonial violence and genocide, global-history perspectives, and renewed interest in continuities beyond 1918. A central aim is to show how questions of economy, business and labour have re-emerged as crucial analytical lenses. While earlier generations of scholars already examined the profitability of colonies, corporate actors and economic exploitation, these perspectives lost visibility during the cultural turn. However, in recent years business history and labour history have gained new momentum, driven by global-history approaches, microhistorical methods and heightened societal debates about colonial responsibility, restitution and inequality. The introduction argues that the combined use of business history and labour history offers a particularly productive approach to colonial history. Labour serves as a key connective category that links economic interests, corporate strategies and state power with everyday practices, migration regimes and the lived experiences of colonised societies. At the same time, it demonstrates how global and transimperial perspectives challenge national, temporal and spatial boundaries traditionally used in the study of German colonialism. In doing so, the introduction positions this special issue as a contribution to the renewed dialogue between global history, business history and labour history. It argues that their combination not only addresses long-standing research gaps but also provides a powerful framework for understanding German colonialism as an economic, social and political system whose legacies continue to shape present-day debates.