• EN   The Research Unit “Social History since 1750” places
social change at the centre of its analyses and relates history
to contemporary society. Social history calls for a pre-
eminently integrated approach that aims to interconnect
circumstances, structures and processes with human agency and
experiences, discourse and perception, ideas and practices.
Social history transcends history in compartments -  economy,
politics,  culture  - and aims at historical synthesis and
interdisciplinarity.  Our research unit studies the nineteenth
and twentieth century. How did the long nineteenth century
result in the ‘age of catastrophe’, despite of its optimism over
progress and characteristic emancipatory movements? The impact
of both World Wars is assessed against the double question of
how people deal with dramatic social change and how the
(painful) past affects the present.  In geographical terms, the
research unit “Social History since 1750” focuses mainly, but
not exclusively on European history, going beyond t