Contact, Conquest and Colonization: How Practices of Comparing Shaped Empires and Colonialism Around the World

Contact, Conquest and Colonization brings together international historians and literary studies scholars in order to explore the force of practices of comparing in shaping empires and colonial relations at different points in time and around the globe.

Whenever there was cultural contact in the context of European colonization and empire-building, historical records teem with comparisons among those cultures. This edited volume focuses on what historical agents actually do when they compare, rather than on comparison as an analytic method. Its contributors are thus interested in the ‘doing of comparison’, and explore the force of these practices of comparing in shaping empires and (post-)colonial relations between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries.

This book will appeal to students and scholars of global history, as well as those interested in cultural history and the history of colonialism.

Eleonora Rohland is Professor for Entangled History in the Americas and Director of the Center for InterAmerican Studies (CIAS) at Bielefeld University, Germany.

Angelika Epple is Vice-Rector of International Affairs and Diversity and Professor of Modern European and Global History at Bielefeld University, Germany.

Antje Flüchter is Dean of the Faculty of History, Philosophy and Theology and Professor for Early Modern History at Bielefeld University, Germany.

Kirsten Kramer is Chair of the Department of Literary Studies and Professor for Comparative Literature and Romance Studies at Bielefeld University, Germany.