Dr. Florian Wagner

About me/Zur Person

My broad interests are in colonial history, history of migration, and environmental history, all linking the history of Europe, Asia, and Africa.  My book on "Colonial Internationalism and the Governmentality of Empire, 1893-1982" is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press in 2021. It shows how self-styled colonial experts who established the International Colonial Institute in 1893 reshaped the world's colonial policies in fields as different as colonial law and labor recruitment,  the training of colonial administrators, tropical agriculture and medicine, indigenous representation in local councils and international organizations, as well as sustained development based on mutual aid and micro credits. The book is based on a dissertation defended at the European University Institute in Florence entitled "Colonial Internationalism: How Cooperation Among Experts Reshaped Colonialism 1830-1950."

My new book project is on the history of repatriations in a global perspective and examines the various attempts of European governments, NGOs, and international organizations to make migration undone. I use a critical approach to the concept of repatriation by situating it in a historical context that extends roughly from the 1960s to the 1990s. A fellowship granted by the German Historical Institue at UC Berkeley gave me the opportunity to explore various processes of repatriation that allows a comparative view on remigrations in the world.

My most recent publications explore African perspectives on the First World War and the Weimar Republic.  I also wrote on the interconnections between different empires and imperial lobby groups, and examined key concepts such as the "West" in colonial discourse

CV and Full List of Publications

Forschungsschwerpunkte

• Europäische Geschichte/History of Modern Europe (Nineteenth and Twentieth Century)
• Kolonialgeschichte/Colonial History
• Transnationale und Vergleichende Geschichte/Transnational and Comparative History
• Afrikanische Geschichte/African History
• Globalgeschichte/ Global History
• Agronomiegeschichte/History of Agriculture

Most Recent Publications/Neueste Publikationen

• Florian Wagner and Cornel Zwierlein: Special Issue: "Close Distance. Social Segregation in Trading Empires and Colonies, " Journal of Modern European History 18,2 (2020) https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/meha/18/2
• Florian Wagner and Cornel Zwierlein, "Close Distance: Social Segregation in Trading Empires and Colonies—An Introduction" Journal of Modern European History 18,2 (2020), 140-155 https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1611894420910688
• Florian Wagner, "Inventing Colonial Agronomy: Buitenzorg and the Transition from the Western to the Eastern Model of Colonial Agriculture, 1880s–1930s," in: Ulrike Kirchberger and Brett Bennett, Environments of Empire: Networks and Agents of Ecological Change (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press), 103-128: https://flexpub.com/preview/environments-of-empire
• Florian Wagner, "Naturism, the Permanent Mandates Commission and the Denial of the Violent Nature of Colonialism", in: Haakon A. Ikonomou and Karen Gram-Skjoldager (ed.), The League of Nations. Perspectives from the Present (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2019), 78-89. https://unipress.dk/media/16340/the-league-of-nations.pdf
• Florian Wagner, " Non-European Perspectives on the Weimar Republic and the German Dream of Empire (1919–1930s)", in Comparativ 26, 6 (2016), 56-72, Special Issue Citizenship in European Empires after the First World War, ed. by Sara Lorenzini. https://www.comparativ.net/v2/article/view/518/440

News

Start des Netzwerkes und Blogs transimperialhistory.com

Sammelezension zur International Organization for Migration erschienen

Florian Wagner ist Mitinitiator von HiWelt: Historiker*innen für ein Weltoffenes Thüringen

Florian Wagner im Arbeitsbericht des GHI-PRO/UC Berkeley