The historian rejects the idea that his book has had a direct influence on Merkel’s policies. But many sections of the work – on globalisation, migration and technology, to name a few pertinent topics – read differently in the light of decisions she has made since reading it, such as the treatment of Greece at the height of the eurozone crisis.
If Europe was able to pull ahead of China economically in the 19th century, Osterhammel argues, it was because the Chinese empire was hampered by a “chaotic dual system” of silver and copper coins, while much of Europe had created a “de facto single currency” with the Latin monetary union of 1866.
From a few brief conversations with Merkel, Osterhammel says he can see “she is very serious about the way world order (or disorder) has been evolving in the long run. She seems to understand, for instance, that migration and mobility have a historical dimension.”
The 19th century is often described as an era of rising nationalism, a period in which states across Europe first began to develop distinct ideas about their identity. Osterhammel, a professor at Konstanz University, who wrote his dissertation on the British empire’s economic ties with China, instead recasts the century as one marked by globalisation, with 1860-1914 in particular “a period of unprecedented creation of networks” that were later torn apart by two world wars.
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