Since the late 1980s and early 1990s, the breadth and depth of research on German colonialism has expanded significantly. But according to the editors of this collection, this growth lacks “a fixed center, a leading set of academic players, or a dominant research paradigm.” In fact, they contend that “there have been few detailed attempts to define the field intellectually or to establish an institutional foundation for furthering its aims.” They nonetheless assert that “the field remains both a site of original, creative scholarship and an area of further growth” (3). The goal of this collection is to provide a conceptual framework that ultimately will reconnect German colonial research with “a long-separated historiographical branch to which it rightly belongs—with the general ebbs and flows of modern German and global history” (6). The editors propose to do this by blending colonial studies and the transnational turn with a focus on “a variety of micropolitical contexts localized in time and space…” and on “the lives and professional career paths of particular groups and individuals … across and beyond the categorical and chronological boundaries that previous generations [of scholars] had deemed it practical to impose” (9). In taking this approach, the editors make two assumptions: that there were no liminal actors and that the impact of imperialism was extensive, and that the period of actual German colonial occupation (1884–1914) constituted merely one segment in a larger continuum. The volume thus seeks to provide a paradigmatic framework for German interpretations of imperialism and colonialism, as well as to demonstrate the diversity and complexity of the imperial enterprise, by looking at places and groups previously neglected in the literature.

Contesting previous attempts to conceptualize German imperialism, the collection begins with Geoff Eley's insightful exploration of scholarly approaches to an understandings of German expansionism (of which colonialism is a part) between 1840 and 1945. The final chapter by Birthe Kundrus returns to this theme, focusing on Nazism's place within this larger colonial historiography. In her nuanced analysis, she concludes that while Nazi “foreign rule” embodied aspects of European imperialism, it ultimately “broke with core elements of imperial hegemony” (331) because it was neither imperial nor an empire. Borrowing from Frederick Cooper (Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History [2005], 194), Kundrus labels Nazi Germany a “‘would-be empire’” (343). Picking up on the theme of imperialism, Klaus Mühlhahn successfully argues in his essay that the land-lease territory of Kiaochow in China exemplified “a new form of imperial rule, one that operated outside of the classical colonial model built on territorial control and bounded space” (142).

These chapters provide a number of great insights, but they nevertheless point to one of the shortcomings of the collection: namely, the unproblematized use of the terms colonialism and imperialism. Indeed, nowhere are these terms clearly defined or distinguished; in fact, they are often used interchangeably. Several contributors do problematize the differences to some degree (e.g., Sebastian Conrad, Kundrus, Klaus Mühlhahn,), but in several essays (e.g., Eley, Jennifer Jenkins, Dirk Bönker), the authors are actually talking about imperialism—not colonialism—because they are discussing the larger process of expansion, which could take on many forms. Colonialism is a specific type of imperialism that refers to actual occupation, a situation not discussed by these authors. Given the prominence of these two terms in the collection, this is an unfortunate missed opportunity to bring greater conceptual clarity to the discussion.

The other contributors examine less well-known actors in German imperialism. These included a sociologist (in a chapter by George Steinmetz), several geographers (Jeff Bowersox), physicians (Deborah Neill), scientists (Andrew Zimmerman), as well as businessmen, settlers, and refugees (Jenkins). Drawing upon the growing literature of gender and sexuality in the study of colonialism, Heike Schmidt uses masculinity to explore German colonial power and its limitations in German East Africa. Other chapters focus on the role played in the colonial movement at home by the working class (John Phillip Short), pan-Germanists (Dennis Sweeney), and antisemites (Christian Davis).

The book's organization is not clearly articulated (i.e., why the chapters are sequenced as they are), but they are all connected by their use of the concept of “transnational transfer.” Sebastian Conrad thus places Germanization efforts in Poland prior to World War I not within the context of a specific form of German colonialism, but rather within the “framework of global modernity” (261). According to him, colonialism became part of a larger phenomenon not restricted by “a specific form of territoriality” (261), but instead affected by the particulars of a given situation. Dirk Bönker similarly contends that within the broader contexts of naval strategies and international law in a global age, both Germany and America shared a common “‘way of war’ that imposed clear boundaries on the wartime use of force” (285)—an attitude that contrasted sharply with the prevailing “extremist” interpretations (284) of the German army. For his part, Brett van Hoesen problematizes more generally earlier transnational approaches to the Rhineland: he places the stationing of French African soldiers there within the broader discourse of German colonialism but extends the timeframe to 1929–1930, thereby demonstrating the impact of the controversy on public opinion during the interwar period. This included the voices of those who opposed the racial rhetoric often employed in the popular press, as well as the anti-racial criticism made by members of the Weimar avant-garde artistic community.

The collection incorporates creative scholarship that offers insight into previously unexamined or underexamined dimensions and agents of German colonialism, an achievement not diminished by the fact that several of the essays were previously published. Moreover, the use of the concept of “transnationalism” provides a methodological framework that gives coherence to the contributions and enables many of the essays to link to broader historiographies dealing with Germany and global history more generally. A single, fixed, conceptual center is beneficial, as the editors suggest, but it is not essential for increasing our understanding of the colonial past. Because of the complexity of imperialism, multiple approaches—including, for example, Michel Foucault's concept of “governmentality”—need to be explored if one is to understand imperialism more fully. Despite these shortcomings, German Colonialism in a Global Age is a welcome addition to the growing literature on German imperialism.