Global Publics Their Power and their Limits, 1870-1990

This volume combines a present-day and historical concern on the topic of global publics between the communication revolution of the 1870s and the digital age. Building on earlier theories of public spheres, Valeska Huber and Jürgen Osterhammel expand the notion of global publics not only geographically but also by charting new thematic territory, describing global publics as courts of global opinion, as market places, or as arenas for competition. As the first historical volume ever to combine different facets of global publics ranging from infrastructures, the press, film and theatre to human rights politics, it brings together established and emerging authors in the field of history and from related disciplines such as geography, sociology, and literature who explore how global publics were configured, imagined, and fragmented. In this way, Global Publics: Their Power and Their Limits not only provides a new conceptual framework and important case studies but also shows how histories of global communication might be studied in the future.

Valeska Huber, Free University Berlin,Jürgen Osterhammel, Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies

Valeska Huber is Head of the Emmy Noether Research Group Reaching the People: Communication and Global Orders in the Twentieth Century. She teaches Global History at the Free Univeristy Berlin.

Jürgen Osterhammel is Emeritus Professor of History at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies.

1. Introduction: Global Publics, Valeska Huber and Jürgen Osterhammel
Part I: Staging Global Publics
2. Media Tycoons and their Global Public: The Case of Gordon Bennett and the New York Herald, Simone M. Müller
3. 'The Local Life of the World': Theatre Publics in the Age of Empire, Christopher B. Balme
4. Reaching the Global Public: Going International in a Difficult Market for Film, 1935-1936, Gordon M. Winder
5. Asian Women and Global Publics: Interaction, Information, and the City, c.1900-1940, Su Lin Lewis
Part II: Mobilizing Global Publics
6. An International Event and its Multiple Global Publics: The Parliament of the World's Religions (Chicago, 1893) and Vivekananda, Sophie-Jung H. Kim
7. From the Leak to the League: The Japanese Drug Trade, Global Public Opinion, and Accountability, 1915-1919, Steffen Rimner
8. Re-Imaging China through Sport's Global Public, Xu Guoqi
9. The Court of World Opinion: Eastern Europe and Latin America in the Late Modern Global Public of Human Rights, Robert Brier
10. UNESCO World Heritage and Global Publics between 'Mankind', Global Minds, and World Opinion, Andrea Rehling
Part III: Conceptualizing Global Publics
11. Digital History and Global Publics, Heidi J. S. Tworek
12. Global Publics as Catalysts of Global Competition: A Sociological View, Tobias Werron
13. Global Publics: Remembering and Forgetting, Aleida Assmann
Notes on Contributors
Index