Expeditions in the Long Nineteenth Century: Discovering, Surveying, and Ordering

This book examines the processes of scientific, cultural, political, technical, colonial and violent appropriation during the 19th century.

The 19th century was the century of world travel. The earth was explored, surveyed, described, illustrated, and categorized. Travelogues became world bestsellers. Modern technology accompanied the travelers and adventurers: clocks, a postal and telegraph system, surveying equipment, and cameras. The world grew together faster and faster. Previously unknown places became better known: the highest peaks, the coldest spots, the hottest deserts, and the most remote cities. Knowledge about the white spots of the earth was systematically collected. Those who made a name for themselves in the 19th century are still read today. Alexander von Humboldt or Charles Darwin made the epoch a scientific heyday. Ida Pfeiffer or Isabelle Bird (Bishop) traveled to distant continents and took their readers at home on insightful journeys. Hermann Vámbéry or Sir Richard Burton got to know the most remote languages and regions. There are countless travel reports about a fascinating century, which, with surveying and exploration, also brought colonial conquest and exploitation into the world. In ten individual studies, the authors explore travelers from all over the world and analyze their successes. The unifying element of all the studies is the experience of distance and its communication by means of travelogues to the armchair travelers who have stayed at home.

This volume will be of value to students and scholars both interested in modern history, social and cultural history, and the history of science and technology.

Jörn Happel has been Professor of Eastern European History at Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg since 2020. He received his PhD from the University of Basel in 2009 with a thesis on the anti-Russian colonial uprising in Central Asia in 1916. In 2016, he received his Habilitation in Basel with a study on German-Soviet relations in the 20th century. He is currently researching the history of the Aral Sea in the 19th century.

Melanie Hussinger M.A. has been a research assistant at the chair of Eastern European History at Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg since 2021. Her research focuses on memory culture and politics in Eastern Europe, practices of remembering and commemoration in post-socialist states, Stalinism and its reappraisal. She is the author of Russia’s Last Address. Social commemoration of the victims of Stalinism (2020).

Hajo Raupach M. A. works as a research assistant at the chair for Eastern European and East-Central European History at the Helmut-Schmidt-University Hamburg (Germany). He is writing his PhD thesis about economic experiments in the late Soviet Union. Other research interests include the cultural history of apocalypse and socialist architecture.