Global Conceptual History

Margrit Pernau is Senior Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany. She is the author of Ashraf Into Middle Classes: Muslims in Nineteenth-Century Delhi (2013) and co-author of Family and Gender: Changing Patterns of Family and Gender Values in Europe and India (2002).Dominic Sachsenmaier is Professor of Modern China with a Special Emphasis on Global Historical Perspectives at Georg-August-University Göttingen. He is the author of Global Perspectives on Global History (2011) and co-editor of Competing Visions of World Order: Global Moments and Movements (2007).

Moving from classic essays on the contours of conceptual history to the prospect of the globalization of this approach — and challenges it must surmount — this excellent volume provides readers a superlative introduction to how a field is adapting itself for a new historiographical moment. Margrit Pernau and Dominic Sachsenmaier deserve considerable thanks for so artfully curating a collection that will inform scholars and educate students about what makes Reinhart Koselleck’s Begriffsgeschichte distinctive, just as it will prompt them to reflect on whether the approach is up to the challenge of a necessarily multilingual global space.

• Introduction: Global History, Translation and Semantic Changes Margrit Pernau (Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany), Dominic Sachsenmaier (Jacobs University, Germany)Part One: Classical Texts in Conceptual History1. "Introduction", in Basic Concepts of History, Reinhart Koselleck (University of Bielefeld, Germany)2. Social History and Conceptual History Reinhart Koselleck3. "Introduction", in Handbook of Sociopolitical Basic Concepts, Rolf Reichardt (University of Giessen, Germany)Part Two: Challenges4. Conceptual History or Discursive History? Some Remarks on the Theoretical Foundations and Methodological Questions of Historically Semantic Epistemologies Dietrich Busse (University of Düsseldorf, Germany)5. Rhetoric and Conceptual Change Quentin Skinner (Queen Mary, University of London, UK)Part Three: Translations of Concepts6. Translation as Cultural Transfer and Semantic Interaction: European Variations of Liberal between 1800 and 1830 Jörn Leonhard (University of Freiburg, Germany)7. Translation, Politics and Conceptual Change Kari Palonen (Academy of Finland)8. The Question of Meaning-Value in the Political Economy of the Sign Lydia Liu (Columbia University, USA)9. The Resonance of 'Culture': Framing a Problem in Global Concept-History Andrew Sartori (New York University, USA)10. The Conceptualization of the Social in Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-century Arabic Thought and Language, Ilham Makdisi (Northeastern University, USA)11. Ustaarabu: A Conceptual Change in Tanganyikan Newspaper Discourse in the 1920s Katrin Bromber (Center for Modern Oriental Studies, Berlin, Germany)12. Pictures, Emotions, Conceptual Change: Anger in Popular Hindi Cinema Imke Rajamani (Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany)Part Four: Outlook13. 40 Years of Conceptual History: The State of the Art Willibald Steinmetz (University of Bielefeld, Germany)Index