(Un)Remembering Sexual Violence in South African History
In South Africa, gender-based and sexual violence has deep colonial and apartheid roots. Yet Black women* in their sixties to eighties often recall apartheid as free of rape, framing sexual violence as a “nowadays” problem. Explanations include family and police silencing, naming rape as “force”, sidelining intra-communal violence in dominant narratives, and present-day “rape crisis” discourse that fuels historical amnesia and nostalgia.

The Promises and Perils of Periodization in Global History: Lessons from the Inter-War Era
This article considers the role of periodization in global history through the lens of the inter-war era. It argues that periodizations are not neutral containers but contestable claims that have privileged Eurocentric modern eras, and suggests polycentric, polytemporal models that align multiple global periodizations to reveal diverse historical actors, dynamics and temporal rhythms.

Inter-Urban Alliances and the Archives of Legitimacy in the Southern Low Countries, 1250–1450
Makleff examines how inter-city alliances in the southern Netherlands consolidated the system of urban legitimacy, based on municipal archives and political networks from the late Middle Ages.

Liquor Rations and Labour Management in the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World
Florio shows how alcohol rations were used in the British navy and on US plantations as a method of increasing productivity—as a means that was somewhere between coercion and market control.

In Ausgabe 003/2025 von Past & Present