Wolfgang Reinhard

Wolfgang Reinhard (born April 10, 1937) is a German historian of modern history who has held professorships at the universities of Augsburg and Freiburg. He has published on the history of the papacy and patronage in the early modern period, on European expansion, and on the history of state power. Influential is his thesis of confessionalization, developed in parallel with Heinz Schilling, which is considered a paradigm of German-language early modern studies.

Biography

Wolfgang Reinhard studied history, English and geography at the Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg and the Ruprecht Karls University of Heidelberg. He received his doctorate under Erich Hassinger in 1963 in Freiburg. In 1977, he was appointed professor of modern and non-European history at the University of Augsburg, was visiting professor at Emory University in Atlanta (1985/1986), and was full professor of modern history in Freiburg im Breisgau from 1990 until his retirement in 2002. In 1997/1998, he was a research fellow at the Historical College in Munich. In 1986, he declined a call to a highly endowed Woodruff Chair at Emory University for private reasons. In 2003/2004, he was Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence; in 2004, guest of the rector at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in Wassenaar. From 2005 to 2010 he was Fellow in History at the Max Weber center and has been an Associate Fellow since then.

Reinhard devoted himself in particular to historical anthropology, the comparative constitutional history of Europe, European expansion, and the history of the papacy. With the help of social network analysis, which he introduced into historical scholarship, he examined above all the patronage system at the Curia. As early as 1979, Reinhard had demanded as a prerequisite "for the reconstruction of the Roman network [...] the creation of a prosopography for the curial prelate class." Using a case study, Reinhard showed that without knowledge of the constantly changing networks of relationships, a realistic assessment of European politics and the influence of the papacy and the curia is not possible. He is one of the creators of the theory of confessionalization. Reinhard co-edited the journals Periplus and Saeculum, the series Historiae, Historische Anthropologie, Menschen und Kulturen, and Päpste und Paptum. His most important publications include the standard four-volume History of European Expansion (1983-1990), the History of State Power (1999), and the cultural anthropology History of Life Forms in Europe, published in 2004. He became known to a wider audience in 2006 with the publication of his book Unsere Lügengesellschaft ("Our Society of Lies").

Reinhard has been awarded numerous scientific honors and memberships for his research. He is a member of the British Academy, a member of the Accademia di San Carlo di Milano and the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. From 1988 to 2002, he was a member of the Advisory Board of the German Historical Institute in Rome. In 2001, he received the prestigious Prize of the Historical College ("Historikerpreis") for his complete works by the President of Germany, Johannes Rau. On October 19, 2012, Reinhard was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Konstanz. In 2018, he received the Dimitris Tsatsos Prize.

Works

Major publications

• Die Reform in der Diözese Carpentras unter den Bischöfen Jacopo Sadoleto, Paolo Sadoleto, Jacopo Sacrati und Francesco Sadoleto 1517–1596 (= Reformationsgeschichtliche Studien und Texte, Vol. 94) (1966)
• Papstfinanz und Nepotismus unter Paul V. (1605–1621): Studien und Quellen zur Struktur und zu quantitativen Aspekten des päpstlichen Herrschaftssystems (Päpste und Papsttum, Vol. 6) (1974)
• Geschichte der europäischen Expansion (1983–1990; 4 volumes)
• Kleine Geschichte des Kolonialismus (1996)
• Geschichte der Staatsgewalt: Eine vergleichende Verfassungsgeschichte Europas von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart (1999)
• Lebensformen Europas. Eine historische Kulturanthropologie (2004)
• Glaube und Macht: Kirche und Politik im Zeitalter der Konfessionalisierung (2004)
• Unsere Lügengesellschaft: Warum wir nicht bei der Wahrheit bleiben (2006)
• Geschichte des modernen Staates: Von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart (2007)
• Die Nase der Kleopatra: Ein Spaziergang durch die Weltgeschichte (2011)
• Die Unterwerfung der Welt. Globalgeschichte der europäischen Expansion 1415–2015 (2016)
• Staatsmacht und Staatskredit. Kulturelle Tradition und politische Moderne (2017)

As editor

• Sakrale Texte: Hermeneutik und Lebenspraxis in den Schriftkulturen (2009)
• Verstaatlichung der Welt? Europäische Staatsmodelle und außereuropäische Machtprozesse (= Schriften des Historischen Kollegs, Kolloquien, Vol. 47) (1999)
• Geschichte der Welt. Weltreiche und Weltmeere 1350–1750 (2014; with Peter C. Perdue, Iriye Akira, Jürgen Osterhammel)

External links

• Works by Wolfgang Reinhard at German National Library