European History Web Portal

The European History Web Portal deals with the history of Europe and Europeans from the 18th century to the present, using original text, image and sound documents. Research essays accompany the primary sources to provide historical contextualization. Historians and scholars using historical methods demonstrate why and in what ways the events, structures, processes, ideas and forms of expression they examine are significant for the course of European history, the historical consciousness of Europeans and current challenges.

The checkered history of the construction of Europe, the changes in Europeans’ self-images and images of others, and finally European integration are embedded in the history of social, cultural, economic and political relations and developments. Major structures, fundamental conflicts, everyday practices, subjective experiences and collective memories are analyzed at the local, national and international levels; we examine comparative history and the history of transfers as well as interdependences. We put an emphasis on understanding the tensions between tradition and modernization and the accompanying dynamics of the spatialization of social, cultural, economic and political orders, and we analyze the interdependence of the processes of Europeanisation, nationalization and globalization.

The web portal is for all those who teach and study history and related disciplines in cultural studies, the arts, social sciences, media studies, political science and economics. The website stimulates and supports the well-established academic discourse on the history of Europe, of Europeans and of Europeanness in historical, cultural, social and legal studies, as well as European and Area Studies. We therefore follow an interdisciplinary approach to European history.

An older version of the project presentation from 2006 can be found here.