Integration and Collaborative Imperialism in Modern Europe
At the Margins of Empire, 1800-1950
Will be published approx. on 23. July 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
248 pages
978-1-350-37734-9 (ISBN)
Description
This open access book provides a thought-provoking new perspective on European imperialism in the 19th and 20th centuries. It does so by inquiring how smaller European powers and regions at the margins of the continent integrated into a globally interconnected world that was heavily shaped by their more powerful European neighbours. Case studies on Nordic, Eastern and Central European regions uncover how countries such as Sweden, Serbia or Switzerland became imperial, despite having no or only short-lived overseas colonies of their own. By uncovering the structures and networks that enabled these regions to actively participate in and benefit from the imperial world around them, these case studies also reveal a crucial dynamic of European imperialism that has rarely been analysed in extant historiographies of Empire and Europe: the fact that 19th-century European imperial subjugation of almost the entire planet was driven not only by undeniable rivalry and competition among the greater European powers, but also necessarily depended on collaboration and exchanges across national and imperial boundaries.
The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).
The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Illustrations
20 bw illus
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
454 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-350-37734-9 (9781350377349)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Bernhard C. Schaer is Eccellenza Professor at University of Lausanne, Switzerland. He specializes on 19th-century global and imperial history of Europe with a focus on entanglements in South and Southeast Asia, Southern Africa, and Brazil.
Mikko Toivanen is a research fellow at Freie Universitaet Berlin, Germany. His work deals with the Dutch and British Empires in 19th-century Southeast Asia, with a focus on transimperial connections and the development of colonial cities.
Mikko Toivanen is a research fellow at Freie Universitaet Berlin, Germany. His work deals with the Dutch and British Empires in 19th-century Southeast Asia, with a focus on transimperial connections and the development of colonial cities.
Content
List of Contributors
Introduction - Expansion alongside integration: a new history of imperial Europe? Bernhard C. Schaer, University of Lausanne, Switzerland & Mikko Toivanen, Freie Universitaet Berlin, Germany
European entanglements in overseas colonial networks across imperial borders
1. Preacher, trader, soldier, spy: studying transimperial individuals through their occupational roles, John Hennessey, Lund University, Sweden
2. Small numbers - lasting impact. 'Marginal' Europeans in Brazil's slave-based economy, 1808-1888, Andre Nicacio Lima, Brazil
3. A villa for the world: prefabricated houses, national romanticism and Norwegian colonial entanglements, Tonje Haugland Sorensen, University of Bergen, Norway
4. Swiss colonial business in the Transvaal: the involvement of the DuBois family, watchmakers in Neuchatel (late nineteenth century) Fabio Rossinelli, University of Lausanne, Switzerland
5. Imperial entanglements: Poles and Serbs in colonial East and Southeast Asia in the long nineteenth century, Tomasz Ewertowski, Shanghai International Studies University, China
Constructing and negotiating European identities in a colonial world order
6. Three days from civilization: transnational scientific imagination and nineteenth-century Iceland, Kristin Loftsdottir, University of Iceland, Iceland
7. Orientalist knowledge from the margins: the colonial entanglement of nineteenth-century Hungarian research on Inner Asia Szabolcs Laszlo, Institute of History, Hungary
8. Collections of a rural empire: museums, colonial ethnography, and the European countryside, Corinne Geering, Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe, Germany
9. Traveling the Arctic margins: promoting and experiencing Petsamo as a colonial frontier, Janne Lahti, University of Helsinki, Finland
10. Collective colonialism for European integration: the rise of the Paneuropean movement in post-imperial Austria, Lucile Dreidemy, University of Vienna, Austria & Eric Burton, University of Innsbruck, Austria
Afterword, Manuela Boatca, University of Freiburg, Germany
Bibliography
Index
Introduction - Expansion alongside integration: a new history of imperial Europe? Bernhard C. Schaer, University of Lausanne, Switzerland & Mikko Toivanen, Freie Universitaet Berlin, Germany
European entanglements in overseas colonial networks across imperial borders
1. Preacher, trader, soldier, spy: studying transimperial individuals through their occupational roles, John Hennessey, Lund University, Sweden
2. Small numbers - lasting impact. 'Marginal' Europeans in Brazil's slave-based economy, 1808-1888, Andre Nicacio Lima, Brazil
3. A villa for the world: prefabricated houses, national romanticism and Norwegian colonial entanglements, Tonje Haugland Sorensen, University of Bergen, Norway
4. Swiss colonial business in the Transvaal: the involvement of the DuBois family, watchmakers in Neuchatel (late nineteenth century) Fabio Rossinelli, University of Lausanne, Switzerland
5. Imperial entanglements: Poles and Serbs in colonial East and Southeast Asia in the long nineteenth century, Tomasz Ewertowski, Shanghai International Studies University, China
Constructing and negotiating European identities in a colonial world order
6. Three days from civilization: transnational scientific imagination and nineteenth-century Iceland, Kristin Loftsdottir, University of Iceland, Iceland
7. Orientalist knowledge from the margins: the colonial entanglement of nineteenth-century Hungarian research on Inner Asia Szabolcs Laszlo, Institute of History, Hungary
8. Collections of a rural empire: museums, colonial ethnography, and the European countryside, Corinne Geering, Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe, Germany
9. Traveling the Arctic margins: promoting and experiencing Petsamo as a colonial frontier, Janne Lahti, University of Helsinki, Finland
10. Collective colonialism for European integration: the rise of the Paneuropean movement in post-imperial Austria, Lucile Dreidemy, University of Vienna, Austria & Eric Burton, University of Innsbruck, Austria
Afterword, Manuela Boatca, University of Freiburg, Germany
Bibliography
Index