Comparativ (E-Journal)

della Santa, Roberto

252 | Rezensionen | Reviews
the book: Does Weber describe the reform 
of a socialist system, the transformation of 
China into a state capitalist system, or the 
early days of the development of a new so-
cioeconomic system? How China Escaped 
Shock Therapy adds a new depth to this de-
bate and opens a field of research for years 
to come. 
Notes:
1 B. Naughton, The Chinese Economy : Transi-
tions and Growth, Cambridge, MA 2007; J. 
Fewsmith, Dilemmas of Reform in China : Po-
litical Conflict and Economic Debate, Armonk, 
NY 1994.
2 E. F. Vogel, Deng Xiaoping and the Transforma-
tion of China, Cambridge, MA 2011.
3 J. Gewirtz, Unlikely Partners: Chinese Reformers, 
Western Economists, and the Making of Global 
China, Cambridge, MA 2017; F. Wemheuer 
(ed.), Machterhalt durch Wirtschaftsreformen. 
Chinas Einfluss auf die sozialistische Welt (Jahr-
buch für historische Kommunismusforschung), 
Berlin 2020.
Jan Lucassen: The Story of Work: A 
New History of Humankind, New 
Haven: Yale University Press, 2021, 
544 pp.
Reviewed by 
Raquel Varela /
Roberto della Santa, Lissabon
Jan Lucassen – in The Story of Work: A New 
History of Humankind – offers us an ex-
citing history of humanity, with human 
work as its central point. The intention is 
to place work as the central place – that is 
to say, its vital protoform – of both history 
and humanization of humans themselves, 
in a truly global, multinational, and tran-
schronological perspective. But all knowl-
edge, as Professor Gaston Bachelard once 
said, is the answer to a question. In this 
case, the author asks us point-blank: “what 
does the historical record suggest about 
what needs to be done — in order for us 
to better control our collective future” (p. 
423).
In an attempt to answer this, Lucassen – 
who was the director of the International 
Institute of Social History (Amsterdam) 
and one of the founding exponents, to-
gether with Marcel van der Linden, of the 
Global Labour History[1] –systematizes his 
exposition throughout history (with abun-
dant concrete examples and case studies 
from around the whole world) of forms 
of work and production. He argues that, 
contrary to prevailing theories in the field 
(Adam Smith, Max Weber, Karl Marx, and 
even authors such as Alexander Chayanov 
Rezensionen | Reviews | 253
or Karl Polanyi), there is no drift towards 
forms of work that can divide history 
along the lines of social production modes 
(primitivism, slavery, feudalism, capital-
ism, etc. or, eventually, socialism). Even 
if we cannot develop this much more, we 
are all indebted, in this particular sub-
ject, to the historical or theoretical work 
of Leon Trotsky (the idea of “uneven and 
combined”); Daniel Bensaïd (the project 
of the “discordance of times”); and, more 
recently, Neil Davidson, with all his po-
tent contribution to the deteleologization 
of modern, contemporary history: there is 
a whole line of critical thought that openly 
rocks the core of historical stagetism.
Then, in that direction, what is observed 
is that the forms of work appear, without 
others disappearing. Market economies 
functioned for a millennium in Western 
Europe and ancient India between 500 
BC and 500 AD to then die out for a mil-
lennium. and forced labour was used on a 
mass scale in the twentieth century in Nazi 
Germany, in Joseph Stalin’s Union of Sovi-
et Socialist Republics (USSR), in Japan, or 
partially in China. These examples demon-
strate that not only are there no irreversible 
patterns in the forms of work throughout 
history, but they also are, according to the 
author, unpredictable. It would not be un-
feasible to establish standards, but, in his 
opinion, it would be too early to do so if 
we consider that the history of modern hu-
manity represents less than 98 per cent of 
the life span of all the humankind around 
the globe.
For Lucassen, attempts to establish such 
standards failed for a lack of empirical 
support and proper treatment. Here the 
author situates himself in his fixed critique 
of Marx, explicitly moving away from con-
cepts such as class struggle, capital, or even 
modernity (Introduction, p. xv).
The book begins with a summary – quite 
clear, synthetic, and even didactic – of the 
history, theories, and methodologies of 
work, and then it is divided into chron-
ological-thematic chapters: “Humans at 
Work” (700,000–12,000), “Farming and 
the Division of Labour” (10000–5000), 
“Emerging Labour Relations” (5000–
500), “Working for the Market” (500–
1500), “Globalization of Labour Rela-
tions” (1500–1800), “Converging Labour 
Relations” (1800 to now), and finally “The 
Changing Significance of Work” (1800 
to now). We believe that clarifying the 
distinction between “labour” and “work” 
would be helpful – for the English version 
– in order to expand global comprehen-
sion and conceptual rigor. The conclusion 
summarizes the main thesis and challenges 
for the future of both work and human-
kind – as the old bard once inscribed, the 
lies the rug: What can one expect?
Lucassen’s work – admittedly – is influ-
enced by the field of interests of Global 
Labour History; in a simultaneously bril-
liant and very comprehensive way, draws 
on an enviable social knowledge of em-
pirical data and advanced methodologies 
published in the field of the social his-
tory of work all over the world in the last 
two decades (a bibliography of dozens of 
pages that he handles with unparalleled 
mastery). The book further brings us this 
history of work, looking at five inhabited 
continents and the forms of unpaid work, 
domestic work, reciprocal work, convict 
labour, forced labour, and so on. On the 
other hand, the conclusions are largely 
influenced by the general taxonomy de-
veloped through the research programme 
254 | Rezensionen | Reviews
of the Global Collaboratory on the His-
tory of Labour Relations (IISH) – where, 
with the project Historical International 
Classification of Occupations (HISCO), 
Lucassen and his colleague researchers 
seek to make a social history of work in 
the modern world as an authentic form of 
“the unity in the diversity”, as old school-
ers would name it.
From this database, the author argues (the 
illustrative table on p. 13 summarizes the 
entire thread of the argument) that the 
different historical periods were marked 
by forms of work much more complex 
than the most classical history of work 
predicted: the reciprocal work has always 
existed until today; independent work has 
been around since 1000 BC to this day; 
the tributary redistribution exists from 
400 BC to 1500 AD; slavery is on the face 
of the Earth since 3000 BC until 1900 
AD; and modern wage labour would not 
exactly be new under the Sun, at least until 
2,000 years ago.
Lucassen also highlights in his work the 
role of cooperation in the evolution of 
human work, laying out with instigating 
examples the theories of the “competitive 
man”; monetization and the role it played 
in defining labour relations; and the trend 
towards what he considers a worldwide 
convergence of various forms of work 
(with European decay and transformation 
in Asia). As a staunch critic of social in-
equality from an author who was guided 
by the firm defence of immigrants’ rights 
in the public sphere and who seems to ap-
proach it from a somewhat Kantian point 
of view (a “moral imperative” of universal 
justice), the author uses Thomas Piketty’s 
data records to reflect on the cause of the 
lack of reaction of the workers’ movement, 
the end of the social pact, and the erosion 
of modern democracies. The rise of iden-
tity politics is also a subject of critical re-
flection in the piece.
He also does a remarkable job in criticizing 
the “progressive” perspectives, which de-
fend idleness (Otium) as an alternative to 
work. Although we find a reference miss-
ing to some authors in the field that must 
be mentioned such as Georg Lukács[2], 
just to cite a canonical illustration, and the 
“meaning of work” in philosophical terms, 
Lucassen defends the centrality of work as 
a vital locus of social recognition and the 
very meaning of life. With this, he radi-
cally opposes the replacement of full em-
ployment by focusing on social assistance 
programmes.
In this founding question, so to say, the 
recent “rescue” that people like Bellamy 
Foster[3] and István Mészáros[4] have 
made of the Marx-Engel concept of the 
metabolic-social nexus, from the central-
ity of work to the history of humankind 
itself, is of vital importance. How a his-
torian with such a wide-open and critical 
mind, so affectionate and erudite about 
pre-history, for example – among natural 
history, paleo-anthropology, and genetic-
cultural coevolution – could not mention 
pivotal works such as Frederick Engels[5] 
and Jay Gould[6], or say hardly anything 
about young Marx himself [7], in the “on-
tological leap” made within the history of 
humanity? How did “the transition from 
ape to man” occur? How did the metamor-
phic conversion, of human-into-Human, 
take place – and how does it take place? 
The contributions of paleolithic anthro-
pology through the critical lens of Marx-
ian ontology leads us to recognize the 
evolutionary historicity of social beings, 
Rezensionen | Reviews | 255
highlighting the transition from a merely 
biological-causal environment to a his-
torical-conscious universe and the central 
category that differentiates humanity from 
other animals: freedom. This radically his-
toricist-humanist assumption was penned 
in the most striking manner by Lev Vygot-
sky: we are born biological candidates to 
humankind. Paraphrasing the old feminist 
statement: “one is not born, but rather 
becomes […] a human being”. A very 
thought-provoking, guiding hypothesis is 
pedagogically presented by this paramount 
Soviet psychologist – in a little-known text 
from the beginnings of the 1930s:
Scientific psychology has established as its 
basic thesis the fact that the modern psycho-
logical human-type is a product of two evolu-
tionary lines. On the one hand, this modern 
type of human being developed in a lengthy 
process of biological evolution from which the 
biological species Homo Sapiens has arisen, 
with all its inherent characteristics from the 
point of view of body structure, the functions 
of various organs, and certain types of reflexes 
and instinctive activity, which have become 
hereditarily fixed, and which are passed on 
from generation to generation. But together 
with the beginning of social and historical 
human life and the fundamental changes 
in the conditions to which he had to adapt 
himself, the very character of the subsequent 
course of human evolution also changed very 
radically. […] the essential factors which di-
rected the process of biological evolution have 
receded to the background and have either 
completely fallen away or have become a 
reduced or sub-dominant part of new and 
more complex tendencies governing human 
social development. Indeed, the struggle for 
existence and natural selection, the two driv-
ing forces of biological evolution within the 
animal world, lost their decisive importance 
as soon as we pass on to the historical develop-
ment of Man. New tendencies, which regu-
late the course of human history and which 
cover the entire process, of the material and 
mental advance of human society, now take 
their place.[8] 
The part played by work is, therefore, 
quintessential in the humanization of hu-
mankind. In addition to the confrontation 
of theories of work – which the author ex-
plicitly assumes, in an intellectually honest 
way, not to want to do in this book – we 
also fail to note a more in-depth debate 
with critical theories, especially Marx-
ist ones, which are, somewhat, simplified 
here. There are oeuvres that today have 
brought a non-Eurocentric and/or non-
stagetist Marx (like Kevin Anderson) [9], 
in addition to a whole wide field of criti-
cal Marxism that strongly opposes the idea 
of the “locomotive of history” (like Walter 
Benjamin)[10], together with an entire 
debate about the origins of capitalism in 
contemporary Marxism[11] that argues 
that the existence of commodity markets, 
bourgeoisie class, and modern cities does 
not lead to the capitalist system, per se. 
This debate is crucial for the matters at 
stake.
Capitalism would not be a mode of so-
cial production waiting to be unchained 
from feudal social relations, a “market” in 
itself, but the commodification of the en-
tire way of life. On the other hand, there 
is no debate on industrial relations that 
explicitly examines the de iure taxonomy 
by de facto reality – can one talk about 
self-employment 3,000 years ago as the 
same as self-employment today? These are 
remarks that in no way diminish the great-
ness of this tome. It is a magnum opus – or 
256 | Rezensionen | Reviews
masterpiece – in the old sense that Morris 
attributed to the craftsmanship of medi-
eval guilds or the arts brotherhoods.[12] 
The author, finally, dares to make a new 
history of humanity, let us say, which puts 
the homonymous Sapiens[13] in a posi-
tion that – shall we say it? – is not at all 
very flattering. For those who had not read 
this book, we will leave just one clue of its 
significance: one of its main theses is that 
wheat colonized Sapiens, and not the other 
way around. In the very own words that 
concluded the same alluring article written 
by Vygotsky:
In this sense, Engels, who had examined the 
process of evolution from the ape to man, said 
that it is work which created man. Proceed-
ing from this, one could say that new forms of 
work will create the new man and that this 
new man will resemble the old kind of man, 
“old Adam”, in name only, the same way as, 
according to Baruch Spinoza’s great asser-
tion, a “dog”, the barking animal, resembles 
the heavenly constellation named “Dog”.[14]
If the readers who love both domestic 
animals’ milieux and outer-space settings 
allow us, the rather friendly pet is, to the 
epic astral conformation, what the Sapiens 
compiling is to The Story of Work oeuvre. 
Lucassen’s new edition makes it feasible, 
finally, to aim higher: the author does not 
compromise popular reach with any eru-
dite depths but combines both. In one sin-
gle verdict: there is no work without hu-
mans, there are no humans without work.
Notes:
1 Prolegomena for a Global Labour History, Org. 
by M. van der Linden and J. Lucassen, Amster-
dam 1999.
2 G. Lukács, The Ontology of the Social Being 
[1964–1970], London 1978.
3 J. Bellamy Foster, The Return of Nature: Social-
ism and Ecology, London 2020.
   4 I. Mészáros, Beyond Capital: Towards a Theory 
of Transition, London 1995.
   5 F. Engels, Dialectics of Nature [1876], London 
1939.
   6 S. J. Gould, Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in 
Natural History, London 1977.
   7 K. Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manu-
scripts [1844], London 1959.
   8 L. Vygotsky, The Socialist Alteration of Man 
[1930], in: Vygotsky Reader, ed. by R. van der 
Veer and J. Valsiner, London 1994, pp. 175–184.
   9 K. Anderson, Marx at the Margins: On Ethnic-
ity, Nationality, and Non-western Societies, Chi-
cago 2016.
10 W. Benjamin, Selected Writings, vol. IV, Cam-
bridge, MA 2006.
11 Among others E. Wood, The Origin of Capital-
ism: A Longer View, London 2017.
12 W. Morris, News from Nowhere and Selected 
Writings and Designs, ed. by A. Briggs, London 
1986.
13 Y. Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Human-
kind, London 2015.
14 Vygotsky, The Socialist Alteration, p. 183.
Julian Germann: Unwitting Architect: 
German Primacy and the Origins of 
Neoliberalism, (Emerging Frontiers in 
the Global Economy), Stanford:  
Stanford University Press, 2021,  
304 pp.
Reviewed by 
Max Trecker, Leipzig
When German reunification between the 
Federal Republic of Germany and the 
German Democratic Republic suddenly 
appeared possible in late 1989, leading 
Western European politicians feared the 
power of unified Germany. Germany 
could become too powerful on the inter-


English

Jan Lucassen: The Story of Work: A New History of Humankind, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021, 544 pp.

Engel, Ulf

270 | Rezensionen | Reviews
von Künstler:innen und Aktivist:innen 
ist, verhandelt die Ausstellung eben keine 
europäische oder nationale Perspektive, 
sondern muss als eine lokalhistorische In-
tervention gelesen werden kann, in die der 
entsprechende Berliner Bezirk eng einge-
bunden war.
Dieses Beispiel verweist auf das grund-
legende Desiderat der Studie, die etwas 
hinter den Erwartungen zurückbleibt, 
die eingangs geweckt werden. Schließlich 
gelingt es mit den gewählten Beispielen 
kaum, systematisch zu beantworten, wie 
europäische Museen ihre Dekolonisierung 
umsetzen. Flankierende und vertiefende 
Analysen aus Frankreich, Belgien oder Ita-
lien wären hierzu nötig. Bemerkenswert ist 
zudem, dass Sieg – auch vor dem Hinter-
grund der Pandemie – den digitalen Raum 
in ihrer Analyse weitestgehend ausklam-
mert, obwohl gerade in der Vermittlungs-
arbeit seit Jahren betont wird, welche Rol-
le ihm in der partizipativen und kritischen 
Museumsarbeit zukommt. Dennoch 
bleibt die Arbeit all jenen empfohlen, die 
sich theoretisch und praktisch mit der Fra-
ge beschäftigen, wie eine kritische, dekolo-
niale Erinnerungskultur etabliert und der 
Prozess „of unlearning imperial history” 
(S. 20) gestaltet werden kann. 
Anmerkungen:
1 Vgl. F. Bajohr/R. O’Sullivan, Holocaust, Kolo-
nialismus und NS-Imperialismus. Forschung im 
Schatten einer polemischen Debatte, in: Vier-
teljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 70 (2022) 1, S. 
191–202.
2 Hierzu auch der jüngst erschienen Sammel-
band: Brücke-Museum/Stiftung Deutsches 
Technikmuseum Berlin/Stiftung Stadtmuseum 
Berlin/D. Bystron/A. Fäser (Hrsg.), Das Mu-
seum dekolonisieren? Kolonialität und museale 
Praxis in Berlin, Bielefeld 2022.
Bram Büscher: The Truth About 
Nature: Environmentalism in the Era 
of Post-Truth Politics and Platform 
Capitalism, Oakland, CA: University 
of California Press, 2021, 239 pp.
Reviewed by 
Ulf Engel, Leipzig
The Truth About Nature departs from 
how since c. 2016 post-truth politics un-
dermine facts about ecology and climate 
change by making use of social media 
and digital technologies. Bram Büscher’s 
book engages with the online campaigns 
by environmental actors to counter these 
activities. Geographically focusing on 
Southern Africa, the author demonstrates 
how the struggle for environmentalism is 
shifting gears and, by doing so, is feeding 
new forms of capitalism. In its empirical 
sections, the book follows several online 
environmental campaigns.
Büscher is a professor and the chair of the 
Sociology of Development and Change 
Group at Wageningen University & Re-
search (Netherlands). He also holds ap-
pointments as a visiting professor at the 
Department of Geography, Environmen-
tal Management and Energy Studies of the 
University of Johannesburg and a research 
associate at the Department of Sociology 
and Social Anthropology of Stellenbosch 
University (both South Africa). From 
2008 to 2014, he was as an assistant and 
later associate professor of environment 
and sustainable development at the In-
stitute of Social Studies, Erasmus Univer-
sity in Rotterdam (Netherlands). He is the 
Rezensionen | Reviews | 271
author of Transforming the Frontier: Peace 
Parks and the Politics of Neoliberal Conser-
vation in Southern Africa and co-author of 
The Conservation Revolution: Radical Ideas 
for Saving Nature Beyond the Anthropocene. 
Following an introduction on “The Truth 
about Nature?”, this book comes in three 
parts. The first part addresses what the au-
thor refers to as “(meta)theoretical bear-
ings” and “truth tensions” (pp. 13–31). 
The second part dissects the political econ-
omy of digital platforms, post-truth, and 
power (pp. 35–78). And the third part em-
pirically details four different dimensions 
of “environmentalism 2.0” (pp. 81–166). 
This is followed by conclusions. Some ide-
as contributing to The Truth About Nature 
have been developed in articles published 
between 2016 and 2017.
Büscher aims to connect in a narrative way 
three interwoven layers of the overall de-
bate: “the level of everyday environmental 
politics, the more structural level of politi-
cal economy and the level of (meta)theory 
or epistemology, and how all these and 
their relations are changing due to the rise 
of new media and online platforms” (p. x). 
Notions of post-truth clearly relate to the 
UK Brexit referendum in June 2016 and 
the election of Donald Trump as US presi-
dent in November that year. However, 
these events certainly did not start a world 
in which “alternative facts” compete with, 
or even replace, established knowledge but 
are rather an expression of a global break-
through of post-truth politics and power 
with more complex roots. This has led to 
new dynamics in environmentalism: activ-
ists have started countering the spread of 
“alternative truth”. These efforts, in turn, 
are met by a new logic of capital accumu-
lation that Büscher – and based on Nick 
Srnicek and Shoshana Zuboff, respec-
tively – refers to as “platform capitalism”, 
“surveillance capitalism”, and their algo-
rithm logic. This new variant of capitalism 
“thrives on the sharing, cocreation, and in-
dividualization of products and informa-
tion online […] while turning all these 
into commodifiable data” (p. 7, original 
emphasis).
To some extent, following the German 
philosopher Hannah Arendt,[3] Büscher 
develops a transformative notion of truth 
– a political ecology of truth “that opens 
up space for structural change” (p. 10). 
Expanding on his notion of truth tensions 
– the need to be critical of any truth claim 
– the author recalls debates from science 
and technology studies and the sociology 
of knowledge to conclude that “truth dis-
tinguishes itself from fact by incorporating 
history, context, [and] positionality” (p. 
21). Following these conceptual consider-
ations, Büscher then investigates the actors 
using environmental online platforms, 
starting with an interview-based investiga-
tion into the rise and professionalization 
of social media in conservation organiza-
tions. Illustrations draw on the practices of 
well-established global organizations such 
as the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), in-
cluding the development of mobile phone 
games, such as Rhino Raid for WWF 
South Africa. In the following chapters, 
and with a view to disentangling further 
examples from Southern Africa, Büscher 
analyses online platforms “for good” and 
protecting elephants, how the South Afri-
can Kruger National Park (a game reserve) 
is used to develop new wildlife platforms 
and forums on social media, and finally 
how the issue of rhino poaching is dealt 
with in this context. 
272 | Rezensionen | Reviews
To conclude, Büscher’s book on the digi-
talization of conservation efforts offers 
fascinating insights into the challenges 
and pitfalls of engaging with the con-
temporary crisis of environmentalism in 
Southern Africa and beyond. He dissects 
the mechanisms of how this form of activ-
ism, on the one hand, is producing narra-
tives to counter post-truth politics but, on 
the other hand, also is strengthening new 
forms of platform capitalism. The repeated 
emphasis of the latter is owed to Büscher’s 
own normative positionality (“structural 
change is necessary”, p. 169). Neverthe-
less, he certainly has developed a critical 
argument about the embeddedness of con-
servation politics in Southern Africa in a 
very particular history and context. The 
way in which he relates these dynamics to 
a discussion of Foucauldian truth, power, 
and change policies certainly makes it 
worth reading this book. 
Notes:
1 N. Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, London 2016. 
2 Sh. Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: 
The Fight for a Human Future at the New Fron-
tier of Power, London 2019. 
3 In der anglophonen Rezeption meist mit Bezug 
auf Hannah Arendt (H. Arendt, Essays in Un-
derstanding 1930–1954, New York 1994). 
Richard Němec (ed.):  Raumkon-
struktionen: Digital Humanities und 
die “Messbarkeit” des NS-Regimes, 
Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2021, 
175 pp. 
Reviewed by
Ihor Doroshenko, Leipzig
Eastern Europe always held a special place 
in Nazi ideology. It was an arena for im-
plementation of different crucial Nazi 
policies such as Lebensraum, Generalplan 
Ost, Blood and Soil, and so on. An es-
sential role in all these plans and policies 
was dedicated to the spatial practices that 
were used to measure, to describe, and in 
the end to colonize the new occupied ter-
ritories. The book Spatial Constructions: 
The Digital Humanities and the “Measur-
ability” of the Nazi Regime demonstrates 
how modern interdisciplinary methods of 
digital humanities can offer new perspec-
tives and bring new insights into the ques-
tion of, basically, how the Nazis dealt with 
space in Eastern Europe. 
The book consists of seven chapters, each 
dealing with different aspect of the spatial 
constructions of the Nazi regime. For in-
stance, in the introduction, “The Digital 
Humanities and the ‘Measurability’ of 
the Nazi Regime”, the author, Richard 
Němec, describes the challenges of trac-
ing Nazi history through architecture. He 
argues that standardized planning data 
for different regions can be traced within 
the extensive territory of the National 
Socialist sphere of rule – from occupied 


Bram Büscher: The Truth About Nature: Environmentalism in the Era of Post-Truth Politics and Platform Capitalism, Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2021, 239 pp.

Tyitende, Rui

Conceptualizing Populist Politics in Contemporary Namibia: For the People, or for the Leader?

Freudenfeld, Leonie

Zwischen Weltkrieg, Epidemie und Herrschaftslegitimation: Samoa in den Tagebüchern von Ernst Heinrich D. 1914–1919

Wimmler, Jutta

490 | Rezensionen | Reviews
Rassismen“) öffnet in ihrem Anspruch den 
Blick auf die lange und verflochtene Ge-
schichte von Rassismen. Der Aufsatz der 
Kultur- und Religionswissenschaftlerin 
Ulrike Brunotte verdient in dieser Sektion 
besondere Aufmerksamkeit, bietet er doch 
zahlreiche interessante Impulse, europä-
ische Auseinandersetzungen zu „Jewish-
ness“ und der „construction of otherness“ 
(S. 239) zu verknüpfen. Brunotte konzen-
triert sich auf die im europäischen Mit-
telalter kursierenden Hypothesen zu den 
„zehn verlorenen Stämmen Israels“. Im 
Kontext der Kolonisierung Amerikas wur-
de dieses Mysterium von den Puritanern 
aufgegriffen, welche die „Native Ameri-
cans“ nun als Abkömmlinge der „Zehn 
verlorenen Stämme Israels“ identifizierten. 
Durch diese Erzählung konnten die Puri-
taner auf der einen Seite die Native Ameri-
cans als „vagabond race“ und unzivilisiert 
darstellen und gleichzeitig die Konversion 
der vermeintlichen Juden zum Christen-
tum betreiben. Brunotte zeigt mit ihren 
Ausführungen nicht nur, dass eine Tren-
nung in (Kolonial-)Rassismus und Anti-
semitismus unhistorisch ist (etwa auch in 
der Bedeutung und dem Transfer des Kan-
nibalen-Topos, S. 239), sie macht auch auf 
mythische und religiöse Versatzstücke auf-
merksam, die für die Etablierung von ras-
sistischen Denkmustern bedeutsam sind. 
Gleichzeitig zeigt diese Analyse exempla-
risch, dass der zeitlich festgelegte Rahmen 
des Sammelbands „ab 1700“ für eine tief-
gründige Erforschung von Rassismus eher 
hinderlich ist.
So bleibt der Gesamteindruck nach der 
Lektüre des Sammelbands insgesamt 
recht ambivalent. Positiv hervorzuheben 
ist besonders der Versuch, die internatio-
nale Rassismusforschung mit dem Blick 
auf transnationale und verflechtungsge-
schichtliche Perspektiven zu erweitern 
und mit Hilfe von „Dimensionen von 
Verflechtungs- und Transferprozessen“ (S. 
9) ein Analyseraster aufzustellen, welches 
wiederum den Blick auf Rassismus und 
dessen Akteure im Transfer richtet. In die-
sem Sinne stellt der Sammelband einen 
wichtigen Beitrag auch zur Diskussion um 
historische Perspektiven von Rassismus in 
der deutschen Rassismusforschung dar. Es 
bleiben jedoch konzeptionelle Fragen (vor 
allem zum Rassismusverständnis und zur 
zeitlichen Eingrenzung der Thematik) und 
inhaltliche Ungenauigkeiten (etwa zum 
Bereich „Kolonialrassismen“ und zur Be-
griffsgeschichte des Rassismus), die einer 
weiteren Auseinandersetzung bedürfen. 
Als Geschichtslehrer würde ich mir wei-
tere solch ambitionierte wissenschaftliche 
Studien zu Rassismus in historischer Per-
spektive wünschen, die noch konkreter die 
„nationalstaatlichen Verengungen“ (S. 9) 
aufbrechen können. 
Emily Clark / Ibrahima Thioub / Cécile 
Vidal (Hrsg.): New Orleans, Louisiana 
& Saint-Louis, Senegal. Mirror Cities 
in the Atlantic World, 1659–2000s, 
Baton Rouge: Louisiana State  
University Press, 2019, 253 S.
Rezensiert von 
Jutta Wimmler, Bonn
Der Sammelband von Cécile Vidal, Emi-
ly Clark und Ibrahima Thioub zeigt einen 
Rezensionen | Reviews | 491
konkreten Weg auf, gegen die zunehmend 
beklagte Marginalisierung afrikanischer 
Historiographie innerhalb der Atlantic 
Studies aufzutreten – und dabei beide For-
schungsfelder zu bereichern. Die Dyna-
miken von Kolonialismus, Imperialismus, 
Sklavenhandel und Sklaverei greifbarer 
zu machen, indem die jeweils sehr un-
terschiedlichen, aber eben doch überlap-
penden und verflochtenen Prozesse und 
Erfahrungen in Nordamerika und West-
afrika einander gegenübergestellt werden 
– das ist der Ansatz dieses Buches. Opera-
tionalisierbar gemacht wird dies durch den 
Fokus auf die beiden Hafenstädte New 
Orleans (Louisiana) und Saint Louis (Se-
negal), die auf je unterschiedliche Weise 
eine wichtige Position innerhalb des fran-
zösischen Empire einnahmen. Das Unter-
nehmen gelingt erstens durch die sehr aus-
gewogene Zusammenstellung der Beiträge 
(drei zu Saint Louis, drei zu New Orleans, 
drei übergreifend), zweitens durch eine ge-
lungene thematische Anordnung der Auf-
sätze und drittens durch die Querbezüge 
der einzelnen Beiträge zueinander. Die 
Herausgeber:innen sprechen nicht von 
einem Vergleich, sondern von einer Kon-
frontation der Geschichte beider Städte: 
Prozesse, Ereignisse, Erfahrungswelten der 
einen Stadt sollen im Spiegel der anderen 
betrachtet werden.
Die Beiträge sind in drei thematische Blö-
cke aufgeteilt. Teil I „Negotiating Slavery 
and Freedom“ beginnt mit einem Beitrag 
von Martin Klein, der für Saint Louis 
des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts von einer 
„slave economy“ spricht, die von lokalen 
Unternehmer:innen kontrolliert wurde – 
und zwar insbesondere von Frauen, allen 
voran den signares. Dass der Atlantikhan-
del für lokale Akteure in Saint Louis – ge-
rade für Frauen – auch Handlungsmög-
lichkeiten eröffnete, postuliert auch Jessica 
Marie Johnson in ihrem Artikel über das 
Schicksal der senegal-stämmigen Marie 
Baude, die ihrem französischen Mann 
nach New Orleans folgte, nachdem dieser 
im Zuge eines kuriosen Mordfalls zu einer 
Gefängnisstrafe in Nantes verurteilt und 
schließlich nach Louisiana versetzt worden 
war. Die Frage nach dem rechtlichen und 
sozialen Status der freien Frau aus dem Se-
negal, die sich mit der Überquerung des 
Ozeans in einem schwer fassbaren „Zwi-
schenstatus“ wiederfand, steht im Zent-
rum dieses Beitrags. Die Sektion schließt 
mit Cécile Vidals Analyse des angespann-
ten Verhältnisses zwischen Soldaten und 
Sklav:innen in New Orleans. Indem sie 
verschiedene Momente des Konflikts her-
vorhebt, hinterfragt sie erfolgreich den 
historiographischen Konsens, wonach die 
ähnliche soziale Stellung von Soldaten und 
Sklav:innen zu einer „Solidarität“ zwischen 
den beiden Gruppen geführt habe. Dieser 
erste Teil des Buches verkompliziert unser 
Verständnis von „Sklaverei.“ Klein und 
Johnson gewähren uns auf ihre je eigene 
Weise Einblick in das soziale Leben der 
beiden Städte – und mit Johnsons Kapitel 
zur Biographie der Marie Baude verfolgen 
wir die Unsicherheiten und Grauzonen, 
die sich bei einem „Übertritt“ von dem ei-
nen in den anderen Raum auftaten.
Teil 2 „Elusive Citizenship“ beinhaltet 
zwar kein Kapitel, das explizit zwischen 
den beiden Städten navigiert und verbin-
det, funktioniert aber umso besser in der 
Zusammenschau der hier versammelten 
Beiträge. Die Aufsätze von Marieke Pol-
fliet, Rebecca Scott und Larissa Kopytoff 
zeigen gemeinsam auf, wie im 19. und 20. 
Jahrhundert Zugehörigkeit in Form von 
492 | Rezensionen | Reviews
Staatsbürgerschaft verhandelt wurde. Alle 
drei Beiträge illustrieren, dass Nationali-
tät und Staatsbürgerschaft im (erweiterten) 
französischen Empire Verhandlungssache 
waren – je nach lokaler Situation wurden 
Regelungen angepasst oder schlicht nicht 
umgesetzt. Polfliet berichtet über franzö-
sisch-stämmige Sklavenhalter in New Or-
leans, die nach der Abschaffung der Sklave-
rei durch die französische Regierung 1848 
um ihre französische Staatsbürgerschaft 
bangen. Rebecca Scott betrachtet die Be-
völkerung afrikanischer Herkunft in New 
Orleans, die sich im 19. Jahrhundert mit 
ihren staatsbürgerlichen Rechten ausein-
andersetzte und dabei in Frankreich und 
ihren karibischen Kolonien geführte Dis-
kurse sowie dort formulierte rechtliche Be-
stimmungen aufgriff. Mit Larissa Kopytoff 
begeben wir uns wieder in den Senegal, wo 
Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts ebenfalls eine 
komplexe Debatte um Staatsbürgerschaft 
geführt wurde. Es geht um den Status der 
sogenannten originaires – die Bewohner 
von Saint-Louis, Gorée, Dakar und Ru-
fisque. Auch Polfliet hatte kurz Richtung 
Senegal geblickt und wie Kopytoff festge-
stellt, dass hier eine Unterscheidung zwi-
schen Nationalität und Staatsbürgerschaft 
eingeführt wurde, um die Eroberung skla-
venhaltender Gesellschaften in das Empire 
möglich zu machen, ohne sich mit einer 
„Abschaffung“ dieser Praktiken (und da-
mit auch potentiellen Konflikten) ausein-
andersetzen zu müssen.
Der Beitrag von Ibra Sene fügt sich nicht 
ganz so nahtlos in diese Sektion ein, wirft 
aber nichtsdestoweniger Fragen der Zu-
gehörigkeit und des kolonialen Verwal-
tungsapparates auf. Sene untersucht die 
Entwicklung des Gefängnisses von Saint 
Louis von 1830 bis 1890 als zentrales – 
und oft übersehenes – Werkzeug eines be-
ginnenden Kolonialismus. Wie Sene auf-
zeigt, waren die Insassen des Gefängnisses 
häufig „freigelassene“ Sklav:innen, die 
einerseits im Gefängnis zu Zwangsarbeit 
verpflichtet, andererseits auch in andere 
französische Kolonien verschickt wurden. 
Hier ergeben sich wichtige Anknüpfungs-
punkte zu der Debatte, inwiefern der ko-
loniale Staat in Afrika Sklaverei nach de-
ren offizieller „Abschaffung“ durch andere 
Praktiken munter weiterführte bzw. durch 
„Freilassung“ andere Formen der (Arbeits)
ausbeutung überhaupt erst möglich mach-
te. Parallelen zu den USA drängen sich auf.
Im dritten und letzten Teil des Buches 
„Mythic Persistence“ stehen imaginierte 
Vergangenheiten im Zentrum. Emily 
Clark und Hilary Jones betrachten in 
ihrem gemeinsamen Beitrag die Genese 
des Mythos der exotisierten „mixed-race 
woman“, am Beispiel der senegalesischen 
signares und der New Orleans quadroons. 
Dabei verweisen sie auf Einflüsse des ori-
entalistischen Diskurses und ähnlicher 
Topoi aus dem karibischen Raum. Sie po-
stulieren keine direkte und lineare Beein-
flussung zwischen dem Bild der quadroon 
und jenem der signare, sondern wollen auf 
eine komplexere Verflechtung aufmerk-
sam machen. Diese Sektion schließt mit 
dem Beitrag von Bruce Boyd Raeburn, 
welcher weniger der „reellen“ als der ima-
ginierten Verbindung zwischen Senegam-
bien und New Orleans im Bereich des Jazz 
nachgeht. Unabhängig davon, ob dem 
berühmten Jazz von New Orleans sene-
gambische Wurzeln nachgewiesen werden 
können, sei doch die mythische Konstruk-
tion einer solchen Verbindung für ein 
Verständnis der Entwicklung dieser Musi-
krichtung höchstrelevant. Diese stärkt das 
Rezensionen | Reviews | 493
„afrozentrische Image“ des New Orleans-
Jazz bis heute.
In diesem Buch geht es nicht darum, für 
oder gegen eine Ähnlichkeit der beiden 
Städte zu argumentieren. Vielmehr scheint 
eine Art Dezentrierung oder vielleicht bes-
ser eine Öffnung regional begrenzter histo-
riographischer Perspektiven stattzufinden. 
Wichtig ist diese Art der Konfrontation, 
weil die afrikanische Geschichtswissen-
schaft allgemein schlecht in die Atlantic 
History integriert ist. Die Kategorien 
„Kolonialismus,“ „Sklaverei/Sklavenhan-
del“ und „Imperialismus“ finden in bei-
den Historiographien Anwendung, doch 
ihr Inhalt unterscheidet sich – ebenso wie 
die Wechselwirkung zwischen den dreien. 
Durch die „Konfrontation“ schärfen die 
Autor:innen den Blick auf diese Wechsel-
wirkungen und tragen damit zu einem bes-
seren, regional übergreifenden Verständnis 
dieser drei verwobenen Prozesse bei (etwa 
zu der Frage, wie sich „Staatsbürgerschaft“ 
zu „Kolonialismus“ verhält).
Während Saint Louis und New Orleans 
in diesem Buch mit Leben gefüllt und in 
ihrer Dynamik beleuchtet werden, bleibt 
der dritte atlantische „Pol“ insgesamt auf-
fallend blass. Frankreich ist keineswegs 
abwesend, aber es erscheint im Vergleich 
zu den dynamischen „Peripherien“ fast 
ein wenig schwerfällig, in jedem Fall recht 
weit entfernt. Vor allem ist Frankreich ein 
Staatsapparat, ein Gesetzgeber, vielleicht 
ein Diskursraum. Was wäre passiert, hät-
te man als dritte Hafenstadt etwa Nantes 
einbezogen? Wenn man Martin Kleins 
Analyse der lokalen Akteure im Atlantik-
handel von Saint Louis mit einer ähnlich 
gelagerten Untersuchung für Nantes „kon-
frontiert“ hätte? Wenn man in Frankreich 
geführte Staatsbürgerschaftsdebatten nicht 
nur bezüglich kolonialer Territorien, son-
dern in Hinblick auf Frankreich und Euro-
pa in den Blick genommen hätte? Oder die 
französische Erinnerungskultur zum tran-
satlantischen Sklavenhandel in Nantes „im 
Spiegel“ der Inszenierung von Saint Louis 
und New Orleans als „kreolische Städte“ 
betrachtet hätte? Eine „Konfrontation“ 
mit afrikanischer und amerikanischer/at-
lantischer Historiographie würde auch der 
europäischen Geschichte guttun – und ein 
sehr notwendiges Gespräch eröffnen.
Die Herausgeber:innen und Beiträger: 
innen dieses Sammelbandes haben ein 
überraschend kohärentes Werk vorge-
legt, dass zu ebensolchen Gedankenspie-
len einlädt. Sicherlich lässt sich über be-
stimmte Aussagen der einzelnen Beiträge 
diskutieren – sei es Martin Kleins resolut 
vorgebrachter Standpunkt, dass wir es im 
Senegal definitiv mit „Sklaverei“ zu tun 
haben (S. 48), Ibra Senes Annahme, dass 
das Gefängnissystem in Frankreich (im 
Gegensatz zu jenem im Senegal) auf Reha-
bilitation ausgerichtet war (S. 115); oder 
Bruce Boyd Raeburns recht eigenwilliger 
Einsatz des Orientalismus-Begriffs. Doch 
das schmälert weder den Wert der ein-
zelnen Beiträge, noch jenen des Buches 
insgesamt. Es ist beeindruckend, wie zwei 
– bei allen Ähnlichkeiten – doch sehr un-
terschiedliche Hafenstädte, und vor allem 
deren Historiographien nicht nur zusam-
mengebracht, sondern auch argumentativ 
zusammengehalten werden. Es bleibt zu 
hoffen, dass dieses Buch zu ähnlich ange-
legten Studien anregt – hier liegt Poten-
zial, Fachrichtungen zusammenzubringen 
und dadurch neue Perspektiven für die 
Geschichtswissenschaft insgesamt zu er-
öffnen.


Emily Clark / Ibrahima Thioub / Cécile Vidal (Hrsg.): New Orleans, Louisiana & Saint-Louis, Senegal. Mirror Cities in the Atlantic World, 1659–2000s, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2019, 253 S.

Vries, Peer

Andrew B. Liu: Tea War. A History of Capitalism in China and India, New Haven / London: Yale University Press, 2020, 335 pp.

Kocsev, Bence

Sara Lorenzini: Global Development. A Cold War History. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019, 296 pp.

Rezensionen | Reviews | 701
such as civil society organisations, parlia-
ments, or private companies with a view to 
discuss their roles as norm entrepreneurs 
and contributors to international problem 
solving. The debate has just begun.
At the very end just a few technical obser-
vations on the editing of this volume: Un-
fortunately, no background information 
on the authors is provided. And sometimes 
more attention to detail should have been 
given: The Constitutive Act of the African 
Union was adopted in 2000 (and not in 
2001, back page), the presidential elec-
tions in Côte d’Ivoire were held in Octo-
ber and November 2010 (and not in 2011, 
p. 8), to give but two examples.
Notes
1 W. Brown/S. Harman (eds.), African Agency in 
International Politics, London 2013.
2 P. Bischoff, African Foreign Policies: Selecting 
Signifiers to Explain Agency, London 2020; A. 
Aloa, A New Narrative for Africa: Voice and 
Agency, London 2020; K. P. Coleman/T. K. 
Tieku, African Actors in International Security: 
Shaping Contemporary Norms, Boulder CO 
2018.
3 A. Ylönen, On State, Marginalization, and Ori-
gins of Rebellion: The Formation of Insurgencies 
in Southern Sudan, Trenton NJ 2016.
4 At least in this case, this is quite far from the dy-
namics unfolding after Laurent Gbagbo tried to 
clinch to power: The AU engaged in preventive 
diplomacy early on and the AU Peace and Secu-
rity Council got seized with the matter far earlier 
than implied in this chapter. The authors’ un-
derstanding of the operations of the Continental 
Early Warning Systems is fairly limited, to put it 
mildly. The important study commissioned by 
the AU Panel of the Wise on electoral violence 
(2010) is not referenced. Some of the other ref-
erences are incomplete or simply wrong. Many 
of the relevant sources have not been consulted.
Paul J. Kohlenberg / Nadine Godehardt 
(eds.): The Multidimensionality of 
Regions in World Politics (= Routledge 
Series on Global Order Studies),  
London/New York: Routledge, 2021, xii 
+ 228 pp.
Reviewed by 
Ulf Engel, Leipzig
Since the end of the Cold War, the role of 
regions in global politics has been signifi-
cantly changing. For many nation-state ac-
tors in the Global South, regions promised 
to be a sovereignty-boosting device that 
would help deal with accelerated globali-
sation processes, while at the same time 
emerging global players such as China, but 
also the recovering Russian Federation, 
pursue regional projects to create new 
meta-geographies. Regions are not a given, 
and they take multiple forms. This is the 
general theme of a timely edited collection 
on The Multidimensionality of Regions in 
World Politics. The volume is published 
in the Routledge Series on Global Order 
Studies which, so far, has focused much on 
Europe only. Clearly, this collection liter-
ally extends the boundaries of this series. 
It is located at the intersection of what the 
editors perceive as “political geography” 
and “critical” international relations. 
The two editors bring an interesting set of 
perspectives to the table. Nadine Gode-
hardt is a research fellow at the German 
Institute for International and Security Af-
fairs (or Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, 
SWP), a Berlin-based think tank which 
is funded by the Federal Chancellery. 
702 | Rezensionen | Reviews
She did her Master’s in political science 
and sinology at Tübingen University and 
her PhD in political science at Hamburg 
University. Paul J. Kohlenberg holds post-
graduate degrees from Oxford University 
(Modern Chinese Studies) and Warwick 
University (Development Law & Human 
Rights), respectively. In May 2018, he de-
fended his PhD thesis on “Institutional 
Logics in an Authoritarian State. Why The 
Chinese Communist Party’s Command 
Mechanisms Have Remained Unaffected 
by Legal Reforms” at Humboldt Univer-
sity Berlin, Germany – which somewhat 
must have prepared him for his current 
position as representative of the German 
political party foundation Heinrich Boell 
Stiftung in Beijing, China. This volume is 
one of the products of a collaborative re-
search effort on “Which region? The poli-
tics of the UN Security Council (UNSC) 
P5 in international security crisis”. It was 
jointly run by the Center for Security 
Studies (CSS), ETH Zurich (with Andreas 
Wenger, Stephen Aris, and Aglaya Snetkov 
in the lead), the Department of Geogra-
phy and Environment at the University of 
Geneva (UNIGE, Juliet Fall), and the two 
editors who were both at SWP at this time. 
The volume on the Multidimensionality of 
Regions is structured into three parts and 
ten chapters. The editors assemble an il-
lustrious group of contributors from fairly 
different epistemological backgrounds. 
The first part on the historicity of regions 
offers two perspectives: The geographer 
Anssi Paasi (University of Oulu, Finland) 
reflects on the development of bounded 
spaces to relational social constructs, 
thereby introducing a constructivist, re-
lational understanding of space which is 
at the heart of the spatial turn in the hu-
manities and social sciences. In the same 
section, Karoline Postel-Vinay (Centre 
d‘études et de recherches internationals, 
Sciences Po), Paris) juxtaposes “regional-
ity” and “globality” to conclude that his-
torically they are representing two sides of 
a single narrative. 
In the second part of the volume, four 
chapters discuss how “regions” are being 
reconfigured through processes of bor-
dering/ordering, security discourses and 
modes of crisis. First, Matthias Albert 
(Faculty of Sociology, Bielefeld University) 
contextualises regions in “the system of 
world politics”. Second, similarly inspired 
by Luhmann’ian thinking, Jan Busse (Uni-
versity of the Federal Forces, Munich) dis-
cusses the Ottoman space in world society. 
Third, referring to the recent European 
Union interventions in West Africa, Elisa 
Lopez Lucia (Université Libre de Bruxelles) 
reflects on the “remaking” of this world 
region. And finally, Pinar Bilgin (Depart-
ment of Political Science and Public Ad-
ministration, Bilkent University) dissects 
the persistence of the “Middle East” as a 
geographical security intervention. 
In the third part of the collection, another 
four chapters are focusing on the construc-
tion of meta-geographies. First, Juliet J. 
Fall and Carinne Domingos (both UNI-
GE, Geneva) look at how the Ukraine has 
been discussed at the UN Security Coun-
cil 2014–2018. Second, the geographers 
Klaus Dodds (Royal Holloway University 
London) and Chih Yuan Woon (National 
University of Singapore) review arctic re-
gionalism. Third, Stephen Aris and Aglaya 
Snetkov (CSS at ETH Zurich) revisit the 
“Eurasia” meta-geography in Russian state 
discourse. This is followed by a discourse-
theoretical chapter by the editors on Chi-
Rezensionen | Reviews | 703
na’s global connectivity, or its own meta-
geography in-the-making. 
In their conclusions, the editors dis-
cuss the relative importance “of multiple 
forms of globality in their relationship 
to regional constructs” (p. 215) vis-à-vis 
a state-centred international system and 
the co-constitution of different forms of 
regionalism. They highlight the interdis-
ciplinary synergies flowing from their col-
laboration and as expressed in this volume. 
Looking at Karoline Postel-Vinay’s contri-
bution on how regions “always” have been 
part of global order, the editors emphasize 
the dynamic factors in this relationship. 
Finally, they develop an argument on how 
“time” relates to the changing nature of 
regional-global dynamics. These observa-
tions clearly sketch the parameters of a 
future research agenda.
It could be productive to interrogate fur-
ther the claimed co-constitutive relation-
ship between regions and globality. His-
torically, regions preceded the emergence 
of what global historians call the global 
condition, i.e., a state of worldwide con-
nectedness which has only emerged in the 
last third of the nineteenth century. If con-
sidering the historicity of regions in this 
light, different perspectives on the global 
and notions of processes of globalisation 
are possible. They relate to how exactly 
the dialectic processes of deterritorialisa-
tion and reterritorialisation which are at 
the heart of “globalisation” are explained. 
How should one account for the agency 
involved in these processes? And how can 
one frame more precisely what the editors 
call “regions as rhetorical devices” (p. 5), 
or the spatial semantics of regionalism? 
Often this is simply a question of which 
disciplines are brought into a dialogue, for 
instance which kind of new political geog-
raphy or critical political geography, which 
kind of global history, which kind of criti-
cal international studies, and which kind 
of critical area studies. Against this back-
ground, regions can be conceived as spatial 
formats (i.e., models, visions, blueprints) 
which may develop into material spatial 
orders. They are actively negotiated and 
contested by specific spatial entrepreneurs. 
And in this context the term “region” it-
self serves as a floating signifier that allows 
for easy intersubjective communication. It 
can be loaded with different meanings by 
different spatial entrepreneurs and under 
different historical circumstances. This is 
basically what the volume demonstrates 
through different cases studies. Yet, the 
broader historical narrative still needs 
to be developed through more system-
atic comparative research settings. In this 
sense, the bracket of “multidimensional-
ity” is descriptive, and not yet explanatory. 
In any case this volume clearly demon-
strates the potential of interdisciplinary di-
alogue on “global order”, especially when 
challenging and decentring the epistemo-
logical foundations of mainstream interna-
tional relations – a sub-discipline of politi-
cal science which has put up considerable 
resistance to the innovations coming from 
the spatial turn in the humanities and so-
cial sciences. 
N.B. A section on the contributors’ back-
ground would have come in handy.


Paul J. Kohlenberg / Nadine Godehardt (eds.): The Multidimensionality of Regions in World Politics (= Routledge Series on Global Order Studies), London/New York: Routledge, 2021, xii + 228 pp.

Dietze, Antje

Annotationen | 141
Stefan Haas / Michael C. Schneider / Nico-
las Bilo (Hrsg.): Die Zählung der Welt. 
Kulturgeschichte der Statistik vom 18. bis 
20. Jahrhundert, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner 
Verlag, 2019, 261 S.
Dieser Sammelband reiht sich ein in eine 
wachsende Zahl von Studien zur Geschich-
te der Statistik, die neue Einblicke in den 
Wandel von Wissensordnungen und mo-
derner Staatlichkeit eröffnen. Aus kultur-
historischer Sicht legt er den Schwerpunkt 
auf die Frage, welchen Einfluss statistische 
Praktiken auf die Etablierung und Neudefi-
nition gesellschaftlicher Kategorien hatten. 
Die Herausgeber geben in der Einleitung 
einen nützlichen Überblick zur Geschich-
te der Statistik und betonen deren Rolle 
in Politik und gesellschaftlichen Aushand-
lungsprozessen sowie in der Erzeugung kul-
tureller Wirklichkeiten. 
Die Beiträge untersuchen statistische Prak-
tiken vor allem im Kontext der Heraus-
bildung moderner Nationalstaaten im 19. 
und frühen 20. Jahrhundert und sollen zu-
gleich transnationale Vergleichsperspekti-
ven eröffnen. Der Fokus liegt auf Deutsch-
land, Österreich und der Schweiz, hinzu 
kommen einige Aufsätze zu China und den 
USA sowie zur Entwicklung internationa-
ler Arbeits- und Wirtschaftsstatistiken. Die 
Kapitel zeigen einerseits, dass die Einfüh-
rung statistischer Erhebungen nicht selten 
mit Umsetzungsproblemen, Widerständen 
gesellschaftlicher Gruppen sowie Konflik-
ten um ihre Ausrichtung und Anwendung 
einherging. Medizinalstatistiken, Volks-
zählungen, meteorologische Messungen 
oder Bildungsstatistiken erschlossen neue 
Wissensbestände und Aufgabenbereiche, 
die für die Verwaltung moderner Staaten 
unerlässlich wurden. Sie waren häufig mit 
Modernisierungs- und Reformprojekten 
verbunden, wobei Steuerungskompeten-
zen auch zwischen verschiedenen Ebenen 
– kommunal, bundesstaatlich oder inter-
national – neu austariert werden mussten. 
Die Beiträge untersuchen darüber hinaus 
die weitreichenden Auswirkungen statisti-
scher Erfassung und Normierung auf ge-
sellschaftliche Vorstellungen von Erwerbs-
tätigkeit (z.B. im Hinblick auf die Arbeit 
von Frauen), von schulischer Bildung (im 
Hinblick auf die Rolle des Staates im Schul-
wesen und die Kategorisierung von Schul-
kindern) oder demographischer Entwick-
lung (im Hinblick auf Familienplanung 
und Überbevölkerung).
Auch wenn die Synthesearbeit weitgehend 
den Lesern überlassen bleibt, werfen die 
Beiträge interessante Schlaglichter auf die 
jüngere Forschung zum Thema. Sie analy-
sieren, wie Statistiken zum unerlässlichen 
Mittel der Evidenzerzeugung und gesell-
schaftlichen Steuerung wurden und neh-
men zugleich das Verhältnis von Staat und 
Wissenschaft in den Blick. 
Antje Dietze, Leipzig
Jeffrey D. Sachs: The Ages of Globaliza-
tion. Geography, Technology, and Insti-
tutions, New York: Columbia University 
Press, 2020, 262 pp.
The renowned sustainable development 
scholar and advisor Jeffrey Sachs published 
a concise history of mankind, organized 
along seven distinct ages of globalization 
since the emergence of the modern man 
(homo sapiens sapiens). He character-
izes each of these ages at the intersection of 
physical geography, institutions, and tech-
nology. Although the book appeared in the 


Stefan Haas / Michael C. Schneider / Nicolas Bilo (Hrsg.): Die Zählung der Welt. Kulturgeschichte der Statistik vom 18. bis 20. Jahrhundert, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2019, 261 S.

Robertson, Emma

Rezensionen | Reviews | 129
clopédie, Bd. V, S. 934a–939a), Édition numé-
rique collaborative et critique de l’Encyclopédie, 
20.4.2020, http://enccre.academie-sciences.fr/
encyclopedie (Zugriff 4.5.2021).
Irene Fattacciu: Empire, Political  
Economy and the Diffusion of 
Chocolate in the Atlantic World (Early 
Modern Iberian History in Global 
Contexts: Connexions), London: 
Routledge, 2021, 220 pp.
Reviewed by
Emma Robertson, Melbourne
Empire, Political Economy and the Diffu-
sion of Chocolate in the Atlantic World is a 
detailed history of the complex economic, 
social, cultural, and political processes by 
which chocolate took hold as a distinctly 
“Spanish” commodity in eighteenth-cen-
tury Spain. Irene Fattacciu addresses the 
fascinating, but perhaps ultimately impos-
sible, question of precisely how consump-
tion of a “new” foodstuff is able to spread 
across geographical and social spaces. In 
doing so, she brings together, in innovative 
ways, cultural histories of representation, 
with economic analysis and the study of 
material culture. 
The diffusion of “exotic” foods and drinks 
in Europe in the wake of the so-called Co-
lumbian Exchange, especially the adop-
tion of medicinal discourses around early 
modern consumption practices, is well 
established in existing literature. However, 
Fattacciu’s specific focus on Spain, and her 
obvious language skills in translating Span-
ish sources into English, brings to light the 
particular significance of Spain in this dy-
namic process. Some of the familiar texts 
such as Philippe Dufour’s Traitez nouveaux 
et curieux du café, du thé et du chocolate 
(New and curious treatises on coffee, tea, 
and chocolate, 1693) are linked to earlier 
Spanish sources. Fattacciu stresses the con-
struction of “chocolate Spanishness” and 
illuminates how foodstuffs from the Span-
ish Empire were key to the formation of 
national identities in the Bourbon era.
There are five central chapters. The first 
examines the nature of Atlantic trade, es-
pecially the creation of Spanish monopo-
listic companies and their relationship 
to increasing chocolate consumption. In 
this part, Fattacciu specifically draws on 
the history of the Guipuzcoan Company 
(1728–1785), being the organization that 
held the monopoly over the cocoa trade. 
She argues that the economic structure 
of the industry at this time was “both 
the product and the agent of chocolate’s 
demand”. The focus is not solely on Eu-
ropean markets for “New World” goods; 
discussions in this chapter also focus on 
cocoa as an “everyday reality” within “New 
Spain”.
Much of the book is devoted to chang-
ing practices of chocolate consumption 
through the development of rituals of 
sociability and associated material cul-
ture in an increasingly secularized Span-
ish society. Gender and public sociability 
are key themes. Chapter 2 explores the 
cultural appropriation of chocolate in the 
Spanish imperial context and the ways 
in which cocoa consumption became di-
vorced from the practices of Mesoameri-
can elites. Chapter 4 and chapter 5 pick up 
this story of the spread of consumption, 
130 | Rezensionen | Reviews
shifting the focus to Europe. The role of 
the Bourbon regime in determining, even 
prescribing, new forms of sociability (and 
the position of chocolate in these debates) 
is the focus of chapter 4. Chapter 5 details 
the ways in which chocolate consumption 
in Spain spread to all social classes during 
the eighteenth century (certainly earlier 
than it did in the British context). The 
democratization of chocolate, despite its 
continued relatively high cost, is linked 
to its increasingly important place in eve-
ryday ritualized routines. These chapters 
do not always feel clearly delineated; it is 
sometimes hard to determine in terms of 
chocolate consumption exactly what was 
changing and when, and the way in which 
such consumption was understood. The 
epilogue provides a useful overview and 
moves the story clearly forward to the end 
of the eighteenth century.
Chapter 3, “The Making of a Spanish Ar-
tisanal Industry (1720s–1770s)”, is one 
of the most original sections of the book. 
It provides a fascinating discussion of the 
development of chocolate manufacturing 
in the region, comparing the differing fates 
of trade guilds in Madrid and Barcelona. 
It is particularly interesting to learn of the 
Spanish women requesting licences to sell 
cocoa. Fattacciu makes a number of key 
points here about the nature of urban so-
ciety, the particular regional characteristics 
of Madrid and Barcelona, and the distinc-
tion from provincial Spain. This allows for 
a more nuanced analysis of the position of 
chocolate across Spanish society.
The book makes helpful comparisons with 
the fate of linked commodities – tea, cof-
fee, and sugar – across eighteenth-centu-
ry Europe. This will be especially useful 
for anyone teaching food history survey 
courses; however, the book may be chal-
lenging for some undergraduates due to its 
heavy use of theory. For scholars of choco-
late in particular, this book pays attention 
to the fates of the different cocoa varietals 
in specific geographical and historical con-
texts: particularly criollo and forastero. The 
type of cocoa did have implications for its 
production, trade, and consumption, and 
this is mapped out in the case of a “well-
differentiated market” in Spain. Fattacciu 
positions chocolate as an especially signifi-
cant commodity – the first, for example, to 
have sugar added. There are some strident 
claims about chocolate’s overall impor-
tance: for instance, “chocolate was at the 
heart of the restructuring of sociability” 
(p. 111). Nevertheless, Fattacciu presents 
some compelling evidence – in particular, 
the volumes of chocolate being consumed. 
One disappointing element of the book is 
that the publisher has not provided better 
quality images and tables to illustrate the 
detailed quantitative analysis. It may have 
been the ebook format, but these were 
hard to decipher. 
Underpinning this history of the diffusion 
of chocolate in eighteenth-century Spain 
is the broader shift from mercantile capi-
talism to free trade capitalism. Fattacciu 
argues that free trade should not be given 
credit for the spread of chocolate con-
sumption. Rather, it was earlier monopo-
listic conditions that laid the groundwork 
for chocolate’s hold on Spanish society 
and culture. The role of the Spanish state 
in controlling both trade and consump-
tion, even down to people’s behaviour in 
cafes, was highly influential in determin-
ing the particular character of “chocolate 
Spanishness”. Unfortunately, the over-
arching mechanisms of political economy 
Rezensionen | Reviews | 131
sometimes lead to an absence of individual 
human agents in the story presented here. 
Chocolate effectively becomes an actor in 
its own right. Ordinary people are briefly 
seen as consumers (through the house-
hold inventories of chocolate pots), and as 
workers in the early manufacturing indus-
try, but individual human agency is often 
invisible.
Through her detailed case study of the 
dramatic economic, cultural, and politi-
cal fortunes of chocolate in early modern 
Spain and the Spanish Empire, triangu-
lating a range of different primary docu-
ments, Fattacciu recounts a fascinating 
national and transnational story of an im-
perial commodity that has maintained its 
appeal up to the present day. Her work is 
extremely valuable in making Spanish lan-
guage sources accessible to a new audience. 
Empire, Political Economy and the Diffusion 
of Chocolate in the Atlantic World is a wel-
come addition to food history scholarship.
Janet M. Hartley: The Volga.  
A History, New Haven, CT/London: 
Yale University Press, 2021, 379 S.
Rezensiert von
Lutz Häfner, Bielefeld
Die Überschrift ist ein Etikettenschwin-
del: Die vorliegende Darstellung ist 
keine Geschichte eines Stromes, gesch-
weige denn eine Flussbiographie, wie sie 
beispielsweise Terje Tvedt unlängst über 
den Nil oder vor wenigen Jahren bereits 
Roman A. Cybriwsky über den Dnepr 
vorgelegt haben. Der Titel rückt – offen-
bar aus marktstrategischen Gründen – die 
Wolga in den Mittelpunkt, die sich aber 
in der dann präsentierten Story nicht als 
gestaltendes Subjekt erweist, die Leben 
und Räume strukturierte, an die sich die 
Menschen anpassten, lernten, mit ihr zu 
leben, sie als Transportarterie oder Res-
source des alltäglichen Bedarfes zu nutzen. 
Die Wolga ist vielmehr, sofern sie über-
haupt thematisiert wird, bloßes Objekt, 
das die Menschen „eroberten“ oder mit 
spezifischen Wasserinfrastrukturen „kolo-
nisierten“. Das Buch trägt „wasserland-
schaftlichen“ Praktiken und Projekten wie 
Begradigung, Vertiefung, Bewässerung, 
Trinkwasserversorgung und Kanalisation 
der an der Wolga gelegenen Siedlungen, 
Kanal- oder Staudammbauten nur in ger-
ingem Maße Rechnung.
Welches Ziel verfolgt Janet Hartley, Emer-
ita an der London School of Economics, 
eine durch zahlreiche Monographien aus-
gewiesene Spezialistin der Russländischen 
Geschichte des 18. und frühen 19. Jahr-
hunderts mit ihrer Untersuchung? 
Die Einleitung gibt nur bedingt Auskunft. 
Sie beginnt gefällig mit einem längeren 
Zitat aus einer 1839 erschienenen englis-
chen Reisebeschreibung über die Wolga 
bei der Stadt Nižnij Novgorod, formuli-
ert aber weder eine Fragestellung noch 
eine Arbeitshypothese. Rückschlüsse auf 
die Intentionen der Verfasserin erlauben 
der „Waschzettel“ und vor allem – und in 
dieser Klarheit einzig – die Homepage des 
Verlages, auf der es heißt: „Janet Hartley 
explores the history of Russia through the 
Volga from the seventh century to the pre-
sent day“.[1] Hartley gibt an, in ihrer Syn-


Irene Fattacciu: Empire, Political Economy and the Diffusion of Chocolate in the Atlantic World (Early Modern Iberian History in Global Contexts: Connexions), London: Routledge, 2021, 220 pp.

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