Research on German Merchants by Lars Maischak
This thesis examines the experience of a group of long-distance, wholesale merchants from the Han... more This thesis examines the experience of a group of long-distance, wholesale merchants from the Hanseatic city-republic of Bremen who dominated American-German trade during the nineteenth century. It places their history in the context of the emergence of bourgeois conservatism, and of the dialectical tension between modernization and tradition that characterized this transnational political current. As members of a trans-Atlantic community, Hanseats mediated in their ideas and practices the influences of German home-town traditions, of an Anglo-American critique of liberalism and democracy, and of the Hamiltonian idea of improvement that inspired United States conservatives. American Whigs, in their cooperation with Hanseats, are cast in a new light as promoters of international improvement, and as driven by ideas and concerns that represented a transnational bourgeois response to the French Revolution that rejected democracy but embraced technology in an attempt to make capitalism safe for Protestant Christian traditions. While unique at the time, democratic suffrage in the United States did not create an exceptional ideological landscape. From Hanseats' vantage point, the Second Party System appeared as a specifically American variant of a familiar political division between elite politics and mob rule, allowing them to adopt ideas and emulate practices that they found in America. This dissertation is based on extensive family and business correspondence, newspapers, and parliamentary, diplomatic, and court records from multiple archives in Baltimore, Bremen, and New York. It combines family and gender history, the history of political ideas and institutions, and political economy in a transnational approach to ii social history that reconstructs the life-world of historical actors in all its facets and relates it to their political and economic activities. This work comes to the conclusion that the history of modern conservatism presents an irony. Conservatives pursued policies intended to safeguard traditional values and practices from the challenges of capitalism and democracy. These policies, in turn, contributed to the consolidation of an industrial-capitalist world economy and of the power of nation-states, both of which undermined the very values and practices conservatives hoped to preserve.
Political Advocacy by Lars Maischak
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Capital, by its support of... more (The preview is broken, but downloading the file works fine. Sorry!)
Capital, by its support of fascist ideas, organizations, and politics, has shown its determination to end democracy. Whatever the fine distinctions and theoretical caveats; in practice, today, to save democracy and to oppose capital are one and the same. If you want democracy, fight for socialism.
On June 8, 2020, several faculty members of the College of Social Sciences (COSS) at Fresno State... more On June 8, 2020, several faculty members of the College of Social Sciences (COSS) at Fresno State sent out an appeal for signatures on a document "in support of current (BLM) protests + support for Ethnic Studies".
I replied with a polemic, which I make available to the general public as a contribution to the ongoing debate of the best way for scholars to support the goals of the Black Lives Matter movement, broadly understood.
Scholars have a duty to speak loudly, clearly, truthfully, and in a manner that makes the comfort... more Scholars have a duty to speak loudly, clearly, truthfully, and in a manner that makes the comfortable uncomfortable.
This is the first time since before 1776 that the United States is governed by a group of people who reject Jefferson's self-evident truth, that all men are created equal.
In the full awareness of the social and professional responsibility of a Historian, I therefore see it as my duty to sound the alarm for democracy and constitutional rule in this country.
At this moment, Fresno State is on course to take its place in the history books as the university that did the bidding of the right-wing death threat machine, to the resounding silence of its faculty.
Faculty at this university would do well to redeem themselves for their evident cowardice and shame by speaking up now. There's worse that can happen to you than to get sued or lose your job.
Documentation of neo-McCarthyist attack on me by Lars Maischak
Papers by Lars Maischak
This thesis examines the experience of a group of long-distance, wholesale merchants from the Han... more This thesis examines the experience of a group of long-distance, wholesale merchants from the Hanseatic city-republic of Bremen who dominated American-German trade during the nineteenth century. It places their history in the context of the emergence of bourgeois conservatism, and of the dialectical tension between modernization and tradition that characterized this transnational political current. As members of a transAtlantic community, Hanseats mediated in their ideas and practices the influences of German home-town traditions, of an Anglo-American critique of liberalism and democracy, and of the Hamiltonian idea of improvement that inspired United States conservatives. American Whigs, in their cooperation with Hanseats, are cast in a new light as promoters of international improvement, and as driven by ideas and concerns that represented a transnational bourgeois response to the French Revolution that rejected democracy but embraced technology in an attempt to make capitalism sa...
German Merchants in the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic, 2013
German Merchants in the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic, 2013
German Merchants in the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic, 2013
German Merchants in the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic, 2013
German Merchants in the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic, 2013
German Merchants in the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic, 2013
German Merchants in the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic, 2013
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Research on German Merchants by Lars Maischak
Political Advocacy by Lars Maischak
Capital, by its support of fascist ideas, organizations, and politics, has shown its determination to end democracy. Whatever the fine distinctions and theoretical caveats; in practice, today, to save democracy and to oppose capital are one and the same. If you want democracy, fight for socialism.
I replied with a polemic, which I make available to the general public as a contribution to the ongoing debate of the best way for scholars to support the goals of the Black Lives Matter movement, broadly understood.
This is the first time since before 1776 that the United States is governed by a group of people who reject Jefferson's self-evident truth, that all men are created equal.
In the full awareness of the social and professional responsibility of a Historian, I therefore see it as my duty to sound the alarm for democracy and constitutional rule in this country.
At this moment, Fresno State is on course to take its place in the history books as the university that did the bidding of the right-wing death threat machine, to the resounding silence of its faculty.
Faculty at this university would do well to redeem themselves for their evident cowardice and shame by speaking up now. There's worse that can happen to you than to get sued or lose your job.
Documentation of neo-McCarthyist attack on me by Lars Maischak
Papers by Lars Maischak
Capital, by its support of fascist ideas, organizations, and politics, has shown its determination to end democracy. Whatever the fine distinctions and theoretical caveats; in practice, today, to save democracy and to oppose capital are one and the same. If you want democracy, fight for socialism.
I replied with a polemic, which I make available to the general public as a contribution to the ongoing debate of the best way for scholars to support the goals of the Black Lives Matter movement, broadly understood.
This is the first time since before 1776 that the United States is governed by a group of people who reject Jefferson's self-evident truth, that all men are created equal.
In the full awareness of the social and professional responsibility of a Historian, I therefore see it as my duty to sound the alarm for democracy and constitutional rule in this country.
At this moment, Fresno State is on course to take its place in the history books as the university that did the bidding of the right-wing death threat machine, to the resounding silence of its faculty.
Faculty at this university would do well to redeem themselves for their evident cowardice and shame by speaking up now. There's worse that can happen to you than to get sued or lose your job.