The department focuses on processes that were intensified in the 19th century and continued throughout the 20th century. We regard the 19th century as the epoch of the breakthrough of "modernity" and as the foundation of the "industrial world". The core themes of this period include the history of European social orders and democracies, the history of industrialisation and the associated social and cultural changes, the nation-state movements and imperialist expansions, the history of new social classes and movements.

We do not analyse the history of modernity as a narrative of progress, as has long been the case. Instead, we focus on the many ruptures, ambivalences and "dark sides" of modernity. Why was one part of Europe marked by crises and wars that led to the great "civilisational rupture" of the 20th century in the 1930s, while in other regions democratic societies defied totalitarian temptation?

From this perspective, the first half of the 20th century appears to have been characterised by uncertainty, but also by breathtaking cultural upheavals, while the second half was marked by a stabilisation of democracy and new dictatorships, the revolutionisation of lifestyles, the "Cold War" and its end in 1989.

Our research projects focus primarily on German, British and Scandinavian social history from the beginning of the 19th century to the near present and examine it from a transnational perspective.