GHIL Lecture

Johannes Paulmann

How Close is the 19th Century?

Contemporary Reflections on a History of Europe

Narrating the 19th Century: New Approaches

31 May 2016

(0:51 h)

GHIL Lecture

Johannes Paulmann

How Close is the 19th Century?
Contemporary Reflections on a History of Europe

The nineteenth century has just passed from being a memory of the living into the cultural memory of Europe. To some, it seems to have become a very distant past. This talk shows how historians have interpreted the period facing their own contemporary issues. It discusses the changing frames which bring the nineteenth century close to us, or, indeed, have turned it into a foreign country.

Johannes Paulmann is Director of the Leibniz Institute of European History in Mainz. His publications include Pomp und Politik: Monarchenbegegnungen in Europa zwischen Ancien Régime und Erstem Weltkrieg (2000); The Mechanics of Internationalism: Culture, Society, and Politics from the 1840s to the First World War (2001); and Dilemmas of Humanitarian Aid in the Twentieth Century (2016).