History

Zur historischen Analyse von Deutungs-und Handlungsmacht jenseits des Staates 1. Krise der Souveränität? Gegenwartsdiagnose und historische Analyse Seit gut einem Vierteljahrhundert konstatieren Beobachter des politischen Geschehens eine Krise des souveränen Nationalstaats und die Erosion staatlicher Souveränität. Verschiedene Entwicklungen haben die Entscheidungsgewalt europäischer Nationalstaaten in den letzten Jahrzehnten ausgehöhlt 1. Mit der Schaffung supranationaler Institutionen, wie dem Internationalen Gerichtshof in Den Haag oder der stufenweise ausgebauten Europäischen Union, wurden Kernkompetenzen nationalstaatlicher Souveränität an diese Einrichtungen übertragen und die Entscheidungsfindung der beteiligten Staaten in wesentlichen Politikbereichen auf eine kooperative, beziehungsweise multilaterale Ebene verlagert 2. Die Entscheidungsgewalt des souveränen Territorialstaats wurde weiterhin unterlaufen durch die intensivierte, grenzüberschreitende Mobilität von Kapital, Waren, Informationen und Menschen. Diese wurde seit den 1960er Jahren zunächst als globale Interdependenz, dann als Globalisierung reflektiert 3. Der Aufstieg der Menschen rechte zur universellen Norm staatlichen Handelns nach dem Ende des Kalten Krieges resultierte zudem in einer Zunahme humanitärer Interventionen zur Wahrung von Menschenrechten in Krisengebieten und sogenannten failed states.

Arenen und Akteure regionaler Weltbeziehungen seit dem 19.Jahrhundert von Johannes Paulmann Wenn Landes-und Regionalgeschichtsschreibung auf Globalgeschichte treffen, ergeben sich bedenkenswerte methodisch-theoretische Probleme: Während jene Grenzen betonen sowie Differenzen gegenüber anderen Gebieten markieren und dabei zugleich die historische Kontinuität und Identität eines Raums voraussetzen, nimmt die Globalgeschichte eine entgegengesetzte Perspektive ein. In ihr werden Grenzen überschritten, im Zusammentreffen mit Fremdem entstehen neue Formen. An die Stelle von räumlicher Kontinuität tritt die Überwindung von Räumen durch Bewegungen in der Zeit. Identität wird dabei nicht festgeschrieben, sondern immer wieder neu verhandelt. Sind die beiden historischen Ansätze folglich überhaupt vereinbar? Lässt sich im historischen Kontext einer Landesgeschichte gewinnbringend über Globalisierung nachdenken? Sind Regionen-anstelle von Nationalstaaten, imperialen Metropolen oder Netzwerken-eine sinnvolle Einheit, um die Entwicklung weltweiter Verflechtungen zu untersuchen? Welche methodischen Ansätze und theoretischen Erklärungen sind für die Analyse regionaler Weltbeziehungen fruchtbar? Will man nicht einer Mode folgen und ebenso vage wie insinuierend von der "globalen Region" reden, dann lohnt es, reflektierte Antworten auf diese Fragen zu suchen. Regionen bildeten, so das Ergebnis der folgenden Überlegungen, keinen Gegensatz zur Welt, sondern stellten eine Dimension von Weltbeziehungen dar. Die Betrachtung regionaler Weltbeziehungen macht den relationalen Charakter von Raumbildungen, das Fluide ihrer inneren und äußeren Begrenzungen und ihre Vielschichtigkeit greifbar. Einerseits kann damit der Vorstellung einer linearen Entwicklungsdynamik hin zu globalisierten Regionen, die lediglich in den Rahmen eines globalen Nationalismus eingebettet scheinen, entgegengearbeitet werden. Andererseits transzendieren Weltbeziehungen die landesgeschichtliche Territorialität, so dass dem Konzept der "föderativen Nation" (Dieter Langewiesche) eine weniger staatszentrierte Analyse an die Seite gestellt wird, welche die verschiedenen Akteure und Prozesse in Gesellschaft, Kultur und Wirtschaft in ihrer teilweise auch wi

Night on Earth is a broad-ranging account of international humanitarian programs in Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the Near East from 1918 to 1930. Davide Rodogno shows that international "relief" and "development" were intertwined long before the birth of the United Nations, with humanitarians operating in a region devastated by war and famine and in which state sovereignty was deficient. Influenced by colonial motivations and ideologies, these humanitarians attempted to reshape entire communities and nations through reconstruction and rehabilitation programs. The book draws on the activities of a wide range of secular and religious organizations and philanthropic foundations in the United States and Europe, including the American Relief Administration, the American Red Cross, the Quakers, Save the Children, the Near East Relief, the American Women's Hospitals, the League of Nations, and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Conjunctures in the History of International Humanitarian Aid during the Twentieth Century Humanity Summer 2013 foreign policy interests inherent in development projects. 3 The need to legitimize aid becomes apparent when aid is framed in judicial terms as a ''human right'' or in social policy terms as part of a ''global welfare policy.'' 4 In some circumstances assistance can only be given if military means are employed; we then speak of ''humanitarian intervention'' and the creation of ''humanitarian spaces'' in the midst of war zones. 5 Surrounding this array of overlapping and often equivalent terms, various ideas, attitudes, convictions, ideologies, or emotions can be identified which have motivated those who provide humanitarian aid. Among them are ''charity'' and ''philanthropy,'' ''humanity'' and ''solidarity,'' or, with a view toward long-term aims, ''civilizing mission,'' ''modernization,'' and ''global justice.'' 6 All of these concepts have different implications for the relationship between donors and recipients. If we look at the causes or catalysts of urgent humanitarian needs, they range from natural disaster, war, and displacement to famine, sickness, epidemics, poverty, and economic dependency. The term ''complex emergencies'' was coined in the s to distinguish conflict-generated emergencies from disasters caused by natural forces and to emphasize that there are several causes and multiple actors involved, both local and international. 7 Situating humanitarian aid among other related concepts broadens our understanding of the contexts in which various agents have argued over emergency relief. However, it is also necessary to review the term itself and its components. Although a narrow definition of aid as ''assistance given to people in immediate need resulting from natural or man-made disaster'' appears clear-cut, upon closer investigation it is imprecise. 8 ''Immediate'' unduly neglects the fact that many people who provide aid do reflect on the medium-or long-term causes and effects. The adjective disregards the practical and organizational extensions of relief into development assistance and ignores the fact that giving immediate help often implies ''witnessing'' suffering and providing succor for it in the long run. 9 While some scholars have argued that the distinction between aid and development stems from different models of humanitarianism, emergency and development aid seem to have coexisted for a long time. 10 It was only in the s that the distinction became sharper in practice as well as in academic analysis and went beyond the temporal distinction between short-and longterm. The differentiation was due to a change in policies from development aid to structural adjustment and the increased competition over funds and responsibilities between proliferating non-governmental organizations and public agencies. The most recent debates on the politicization and professionalization of humanitarian aid are partly a result of these processes. 11 Furthermore, the differentiation between ''natural'' and ''man-made'' is misleading because ''natural'' may include man-made factors-for example, a lack of preparedness, water shortages through drainage, dense population leading to settlement in dangerous areas, or the politics of relief, which allows or prevents access to relief for particular groups. 12 The very term ''emergency'' also has strong connotations. 13 It suggests that need arises suddenly and unpredictably while simultaneously locating the situation in a specific place. The disaster is thereby somehow disconnected from global interactions. Those human actions that contributed to the gradual

Ab 1933 wurden jene rund 50.000 Gewerbebetriebe, die in Berlin als jüdisch betrachtet wurden, systematisch von den lokalen Verwaltungsinstanzen vom Geschäftsverkehr ausgeschlossen sowie von Teilen der Kundschaft und Geschäftswelt geächtet. Immer wieder kam es zu teils pogromähnlichen Gewaltaktionen, die in der Regel von der NSDAP ausgingen. Nachdem auch die in der Berliner Wilhelmstraße ansässigen Zentralinstanzen, namentlich das unter Hermann Göring reorganisierte Reichswirtschaftsministerium, Ende 1937 offen in den Prozess eingriffen und als nach dem sogenannten Anschluss Österreichs und vor dem Hintergrund der Vollbeschäftigung keine Rücksichten mehr genommen werden mussten, kulminierten der verwaltungsmäßige und der gewalttätige Prozess schließlich im Novemberpogrom sowie in der nachfolgenden "Verordnung zur Ausschaltung der Juden aus dem Wirtschaftsleben". 1 Nach einem guten Jahrzehnt intensiver Forschung sind die Grundzüge der Vernichtung der jüdischen Gewerbetätigkeit in Deutschland zwar bekannt, doch fokussieren viele Beiträge auf die "Arisierung" und damit auf die Täter. Angesichts dessen fand eines der wenigen überlieferten Fotos (Abb. 1), welches während des von der NSDAP sogenannten Boykotts am 1. April 1933 aus einem jüdischen Geschäft heraus gemacht wurde, bislang nur wenig Beachtung. In dem Foto ist jedoch ein wichtiger Perspektivwechsel angelegt, nehmen wir Betrachter doch unwillkürlich die Sichtweise des unbekannten Obsthändlers ein, dessen Schaufenster von einem SA-Mann beschmiert wurde.

Montreal 1967: Als das Ausstellungsgelände für die Weltausstellung in Montreal, das auf zwei künstlich vergrößerten Inseln im St.-Lawrence-Strom lag, sich noch im Aufbau befand, fuhr ein deutsches Handelsschiff vorbei. Sein Dritter Offizier erblickte etwas, das ihn dazu veranlaßte, ein Foto zu schießen und nach seiner Heimkehr an den "Sehr geehrten Herrn Außenminister" zu schicken. Bei dem Objekt, das ihm ins Auge gesprungen war, handelte es sich, wie der Herr Außenminister sicher bemerke, um eine "deutsche Flagge", die über dem Gelände der Weltausstellung wehte. "Da es die einzige aufgezogene Nationalflagge war, fiel sie sofort auf", betonte der besorgte Offizier; Schiffe aller Nationen verkehrten dort, und er glaube kaum, "daß wir als Deutsche [damit] einen guten Eindruck hinterlassen" 1. Flagge-Zeigen als unangemessene Handlung, man sollte annehmen, daß dies im Bonner Außenministerium nicht weiter beachtet worden wäre: Tatsächlich geschah das Gegenteil. Der VLR I Dr. v. Bismarck-Osten in der handelspolitischen Abteilung des Auswärtigen Amts stellte verschiedene Theorien auf 2. Sollte es sich lediglich um eine optische Täuschung handeln? Zwei verschiedene Wimpel könnten perspektivisch verkürzt übereinander geweht haben, so daß der Eindruck entstand, es handele sich um eine deutsche Flagge. Oder hatte jemand das Schwarz hineinretuschiert? Eine Provokation, aus dem Osten gar? Das Generalkonsulat in Montreal konnte auf Anfrage den ,Fall' rasch aufklären. Zum fraglichen Zeitpunkt war für den deutschen Pavillon Richtfest gefeiert worden, und zu diesem

This introductory article discusses methodological challenges for and perspectives related to a field of study that has only recently gained importance in historical research: transnational lives. For a long time, methodological nationalism had slowed down or even prevented investigations of individual or collective lifecourses that were characterised by a high degree of mobility and internationality. We argue that a critical engagement with concepts from the social sciences related to the current interest in processes of globalisation and transnational phenomena can open up new perspectives on "mobility and biography". In doing so, we first explore how focusing on lives that crossed political, social or cultural boundaries can bring aspects of individual agency together with larger structural settings as explanatory factors. In the second part, this article attempts to conceptualise transnational lives for historical research. Introducing our own concept of "cosmobilities", we demonstrate how engaging with two sociological strands, "rooted cosmopolitanism" and "mobilities", might provide a fresh impetus for analysing transnational subjects and their practices. 2 Both assertions have also had a deep impact on the historiography of the so-called "Forty-Eighters"-a term that is highly problematic in itself. Wolfgang Hochbruck: Einführung. Das offene Ende einer Revolution, in: id. (ed.

Jerusalem im August 2015: Warum wir warten müssen, bis wir als Touristen über die Holzbrücke auf den Haram al-Sharif oder Tempelberg gelassen werden, erschließt sich uns erst, als wir oben ankommen und die schwarzgekleidete Bereitschaftspolizei sehen. Der Grund ist offenbar gewesen, dass eine Gruppe orthodoxer Juden ebenfalls hinauf will. Die Thora-Gesetze verbieten ihnen dies aufgrund der Heiligkeit des Ortes eigentlich strikt, wie eine Hinweistafel des Oberrabinats von Israel für alle sichtbar verkündet. Die Sicherheitskräfte vor Ort haben wohl nicht entscheiden wollen und warten ab, bis ihre politischen Vorgesetzten die Zustimmung erteilen. Was dann folgt, vermittelt den Eindruck eines eingespielten, aber deswegen um nichts weniger emotional aufgeladenen Rituals. Kaum betritt die jüdische Gruppe hinter uns den Haram al-Sharif, beginnen Männer und Frauen, auf der anderen Seite der von der Bereitschaftspolizei mit Schilden und verstärkt durch Tränengasgewehre gebildeten Kette, von der al-Aqsa-Moschee aus, Allahu akbar zu rufen. Schnell werden wir zum Ausgang weitergeleitet und müssen das Gelände, kaum, dass wir es betreten haben, auch schon wieder verlassen. Während wir in dem kleinen sich anschließenden Platz nun unserem arabischen Stadtführer zuhören, erheben sich die Rufe im Innern immer wieder von neuem und kurz darauf kommen jeweils einzelne Grüppchen Orthodoxer durch den Ausgang, tanzen und singen. Sie werden von Polizisten zurück in die Straßen der Altstadt geleitet, vorbei noch an einer Ansammlung arabischer Frauen, die ebenfalls unter Allahu akbar-Rufen Schilder mit dem Bild eines Babys hochhalten. Das Kind war wenige Tage zuvor bei einem Brandanschlag auf ein Wohnhaus im palästinensischen Dorf Kfar Douma im besetzten Westjordanland umgekommen, als vermutlich radikale jüdische Siedler das Gebäude mit Molotowcocktails bewarfen. Die Stimmung ist aufgeheizt. Die politischen Autoritäten suchen nicht nur mittels bewaffneter Kräfte Ruhe und Ordnung zu wahren, sondern sie bemühen sich offenkundig auch dadurch Druck abzubauen, dass sie die inszenierten Konfrontationen auf

Global humanitarianism seems self-evident against the current backdrop of refugee crises, civil wars and man-made or natural disasters, on which the media report from near and far. "Global Humanitarianism" is a ubiquitous term. 1 We hear it in the context of humanitarian practice and public debate, read about it in scholarly books and find it in the titles of courses and seminars. 2 Yet the usage of the term global humanitarianism has implications that merit more in-depth reflections. When we talk about global humanitarianism, we do not simply state a fact, namely, that humanitarian action is taking place all over the planet. Instead, global humanitarianism carries normative and political implications: it says "We should be active in all places where human beings are suffering", and "Humanitarian activities have to be regulated and coordinated". In other words, when we talk about global humanitarianism, we are dealing with moral issues and with challenges of political governance. On closer inspection, global humanitarianism is tautological. From a philosophical perspective and as an ideal, humanitarianism expresses the normative assumption that all human beings are of equal importance, 1 I thank all members of the research group on "Concepts of Humanity and Humanitarian Practice" at the Leibniz Institute of European History for the discussions we had over the past years. My special thanks are due to Fabian Klose, Mirjam Thulin and Esther Möller for their very helpful comments and Bernhard Gißibl, who at an early stage commented on this essay, and as always made me improve it. The paper benefited from questions by the audience at the lecture series on "Global History", organised by Roland Wenzlhuemer at the Cluster "Europe and Asia" at the University of Heidelberg.

The Government accept as one of their primary aims and responsibilities the maintenance of a high and stable level of employment after the war.'") Dieser Satz in der Regierungserklärung zur Beschäftigungspolitik aus dem Jahr 1944 stellte den Höhepunkt in der Entwicklung der Arbeitsmarktpolitik in Großbritannien von der Zwischenkriegszeit bis in die Zeit nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg dar. Bis der Staat in dieser Weise die Verantwortung für den Arbeitsmarkt übernahm, mußte ein langer Weg zurückgelegt werden. Mit dem hier gegebenen politischen Versprechen stand allerdings nicht fest, in welcher Weise es erfüllt werden würde, denn erst in den unmittelbaren Nachkriegsjahren erfuhr die Arbeitsmarktpolitik ihre konkrete Ausgestaltung. Arbeitsmarktpolitik ist also keine unveränderliche Aufgabe der Politik, die eindeutig umrissen wäre, sondern ein relativ neues Politikfeld, dessen Bestimmung sich gerade von der Zwischenkriegszeit bis in die Jahre unmittelbar nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg veränderte. Allgemein bedeutet Arbeitsmarktpolitik staatliche Intervention auf dem Arbeitsmarkt, deren Hauptbezugspunkte die sozial-und wirtschaftspolitischen Ziele der jeweiligen Regierung bilden 2); eine ')

25 years, sovereignty has nonetheless retained its decisionist, authoritative, exclusive and even lethal edge. Yet, there is more to sovereignty than the control of borders and mobilities. One of the major mobilising factors for Brexit supporters, for example, was the desire to restrict the freedom of movement for Central and Eastern Europe workers in the United Kingdom. This argument was, however, charged not only with the demand to regain "full" or "real" sovereignty over legislation and justice but also with imaginaries of British, or more to the point, English identity, and the desire to regain former greatness and global outreach often associated with an unspecified imperial past. 4 President Trump's blend of "making America great again" and "keeping" it great in 2020, building a wall at the southern borders towards Mexico and the withdrawal from international multilateral agreements and institutions followed a similar if more openly racist pattern. Sovereignty has, therefore, extended well beyond the agencies and institutions of modern states. Contests over migration have reverberated far beyond the geographic locality of borders and unleashed polarizing political debates over rights and citizenship, national identifications, belonging, and the degree of social and cultural plurality in virtually all European societies. The last decade has, for example, witnessed the emergence of vociferous right-wing identitarian movements across Europe who often claim the defence of "cultural identity" already in their respective denominations. 5 Adherents of these groups draw on biologically-based ideas of a so called "ethnic pluralism" that draws a sharp distinction between people of Western European descent and immigrants, particularly with a Muslim background. In what is often taken as a founding moment of the movement, French identitarian activists unfolded a banner on the rooftop of a mosque in Poitiers in 2012, invoking the year 732 when Frankish troops under Charles Martel defeated the Umayyad caliphate in the battle of Tours-Poitiers or Ma'arakat Balāṭ ash-Shuhadā'. In Germany, similar ideas became part of a

'Media' is indeed a broad term. Understood very widely, it also covers food parcels or money transfers as media of exchange and power relations between donors and recipients. 4 Th e present investigations follow a more limited defi nition as used in media and communication studies. 5 Media are (1) the material forms in which a content is presented and which carry diff erent sign systems (textual, visual, audio and audiovisual), for example, an illustrated newspaper, a poster, a fi lm or a commemorative plaque. In the sense of technologically based products, media thus form part of the history of technology. Media are (2) organizations that produce those material forms; they are, for example, broadcasting corporations, publishing and marketing companies, or humanitarian agencies themselves. Media as organizations have an institutional history and produce and publish in specifi c economic contexts. Th ey include individual employees and representatives who work as journalists or public relations offi cers. Media comprise (3) an institutionalized system with legal and ethical norms, regulations, and standards that govern production, distribution and reception, and that form a structure with its own logic. All three aspects mentioned play a role in relation to humanitarianism, and when using the term 'media', we should keep in mind that it may refer to a product, a producer or a system of production, distribution and reception. Th e volume refl ects these various dimensions of media. Part I, 'Humanitarian Imagery', focuses primarily on media forms and their content, with a particular interest in visuals, since the late nineteenth century. Humanitarian actors and journalists have since used diff erent technologies from printed texts, illustrations and photographic images to radio, cinematic fi lms, television and internet media. 6 Although technological development has consecutively added new forms

During the Second World War, the American Red Cross produced a poster entitled "Volunteer for Victory". Showing a woman in uniform posing in front of two Red Cross flags, the poster was aimed at mobilizing American women to volunteer for humanitarian war service. We have chosen a detail of this poster for the cover of our book because it concisely expresses its subject: the multiple, complex and at times paradoxical influence of gender on the history of twentieth-century humanitarianism. Indeed, the poster addresses precisely the three themes that guide this volume's conceptual approach. On one level, it promoted humanitarian war service in the 1940s by playing upon contemporary notions of femininity and masculinity. While the poster confirmed (or even exaggerated) modern, white and middle-class standards of femininity, dress (including gloves, heels, trendy blond hair and makeup) and beauty, it also flirted with the idea of

Crusading and Warfare in the Middle Ages: Realities and Representations. Essays in Honour of John France. Edited by Simon John and Nicholas Morton. Routledge. 2014. xxv + 231pp. £85.00. This Festschrift for John France is a worthy and deserved tribute to the historian's contributions to crusading scholarship. Maintaining a sharp focus, the editors have gathered together a truly impressive array of leading historians on the crusades and medieval military history, with only three of the fifteen chapters not addressing the crusades. Clifford J. Rogers's opening piece on Carolingian cavalry is a lively but friendly counter to France's emphasis on the infantryman in medieval warfare, restoring the cavalryman to his leading role in the wars of the age. He pays special attention to a close reading of Annales regni Francorum, interpreting it at variance with France and Bachrach, especially for the battle of 784 near the river Hase. He also scrutinizes the 876 battle of Andernach to argue again for the dominance of cavalry. Nicholas Morton's contribution on the first crusaders' foreknowledge of their enemies offers for the recruitment stage of the First Crusade a productive look at the usage of European terminology for the enemy: 'pagans', 'Saracens', 'gentiles' and/or 'Turks', the last being 'relatively unknown', he argues 'tentatively' (p. 68). Richard Abels and Denys Pringle examine illustrative evidence for their excellent chapters. Abels studies the glorious mid-thirteenth-century Morgan Picture Bible (the Maciejowski Bible), a wonderful source for medieval military historians, arguing persuasively that the Bible 'reflected the cultural expectations of its patron and his household knights' so that they might be 'validated and legitimated as a military elite, one in which battles predominated and knights remained supreme' (p. 14). The Bible depicts warfare as they wanted it to be portrayed, not as it was. Pringle's short but fascinating piece scrutinizes an early thirteenth-century graffito of a traction trebuchet in an Etruscan tomb in northern Italy. Another brief chapter by Benjamin Kedar, predominantly comprising quotations, assesses an early Muslim response to the first crusade. The neglected topic of military intelligence and espionage on the First Crusade is the subject of Susan Edgington's interesting explorative study, recognizing the difficulties of an area obviously clouded in secrecy. (Some useful broader context night have been supplied by Michael Prestwich's 1994 article on military intelligence under the Norman and Angevin kings.) Edgington has stated elsewhere that Ralph of Caen's Gesta Tancredi is the most overlooked of the First Crusade's major contemporary sources. Bernard and David Bachrach aim to put this right with an insightful chapter on Ralph

Cultural sovereignty-A conclusion in four theses 1 "Cultural sovereignty": Staking claims in the twentieth century Cultural Sovereignty is not a fashionable term invented recently by academics, although our utilization may be regarded as part of what some scholars have labelled the "sovereign turn". 1 It is a concept that originated in the political practice of twentieth century contestations, used by a variety of actors in different contexts, often deployed in order to make "culture" a platform to articulate broader claims of participation, recognition, and representation. The papers in this theme issue have presented some instances of such articulations: Newly independent, former colonial states who found themselves merely at the receiving end of global communication networks in the 1960s began to use UNESCO to articulate and to claim cultural sovereignty over the infrastructure and content of communication: in 1977, UNESCO experts even stated that "international cooperation depended on the assertion of the cultural sovereignty of peoples; world peace and the peaceful coexistence of peoples were directly related to the principle of cultural and political sovereignty of peoples". 2 In the very decades of decolonization, Congolese President Mobutu Sese Seko sought to restore cultural sovereignty after the end of colonial rule by promoting a politics of authenticité and the return of cultural artefacts looted or displaced by representatives of the colonial state to Belgium. 3 Starting in the 1970s, spokesmen of North American First Nations deployed the concepts of tribal, respectively cultural sovereignty to root their identity in tribal culture and confront US-American authorities with claims for the recognition of land rights, sacred places, oral traditions, wisdom teachings, and languages, all of whichthey

This Memorandum of Understanding by NFDI initiatives from the humanities and cultural studies defines the responsibilities and modes of cooperation between the undersigned partners with the aim to best address the diverse needs of the highly differentiated research landscape in the humanities in matters of research data management.

Social differentiations and human categorizationsa re subject to historical change: this applies to the arrangement into estates,c lasses or strata as well as to the division into large social fields such as politics, religion or society itself. Social entities such as groups,networks or organisations also show different historical characteristics and change. The following considerations provide an overview of the historiographicalstudyofdifferentiation processes. The introduction uses the example of religious-confessional differentiations to show the relationships between theoretical orientation, historical developments and epochaldivisions in European history (1). The essayt hen explains the perspectivesf rom which historical scholarship in Germanyhas researched bothlong-term developments and time-and space-specific forms of differentiation since the 1960s: from the perspective of the functional differentiation of social sub-areas (2.), as stratificational differentiation in the sense of social inequality of population groups (3.) and as socio-culturald ifferentiation through the formation of communities (4.). Furthermore, it has drawno nac oncept of intersectionality thatc ombines stratificational differentiation and differentiation through the formation of communities, and historicised it (5.). These perspectivesa re basedo nd ifferent assumptions regarding epochald ivisions and concepts of historicalc hange(especiallyf rom pre-modernity to modernity) and ofteno na nu nderstanding of society that assumesE uropean lines of development for all societies in the world. Moreover,t hey take into account historical processes, structures and the actions of players in different ways.And they are relevant for the interpretation of the present.F inally, historicala nthropology is presented as ar esearch perspective (6.). It opens up the view of how people in the past distinguished themselvesf rom one another by naming,m arking,e stablishinga nd trying to preservedifferencesfrom others, or-on the contrary-striving to conceal, neg-Note: This essay waso riginally appeared in German as 'Geschichtswissenschaft und gesellschaftliche Differenzierung: Überlegungen zurh istorischen Erforschung vonD ifferenzierungsprozessen',i n: Dilek Dizdar et al. (eds.), Humandifferenzierung: Disziplinäre Perspektiven und empirische Sondierungen,Weilerswist 2021, 35-57.Ithank the publisher Velbrück Wissenschaft forp ermission to publisht hist ranslation. The translation wasf unded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, GermanR esearch Foundation)-Project-ID 442261292-SFB 1482.