Europamodelle und imperiale Kontexte

Abstract

The European Model and Imperial Contexts

This article presents a typology of contemporary understandings for a history of Europe. It distinguishes between seven different basic models: two models for the analysis of tendencies towards homogenization; two models, which focus on cultural realms, choose as its beginning point center-periphery arguments for understanding inner-European differences; the institutional integration model, the communications model, and the «essence» model. The development of the imperial dimension can, at the same time, help avoid the danger inherent in isolationist and identity-bound tendencies in European historiography. This contribution makes it possible to thematicize a number of phenomena that bind the history of individual European nations with the history of empires and with other continents, reaching from national frontiers, inter-empire conflicts and the militarization of peripheries, to migrations, port cities, hegemonic symbolism, and selfdemarcation strategies towards outsiders. In this sense, imperial understandings include central aspects of Modern European History.