I study modern German history from a global perspective, with a focus on political economy, business, and geopolitics. My dissertation, (tentatively titled) Gateway to the World: Hamburg, Germany, and the Global Economy, 1888-1982, traces Germany’s political and economic interactions with the wider world from the advent of Wilhelmine Weltpolitik and German liberal imperialism to the Bonn Republic’s reemergence as a world power in the 1970s. Using the records of politicians, policy advisers, firms, and economic interest associations all based in the port city of Hamburg, my work offers a new interpretation of the relationship between German history and the history of the twentieth century more broadly. This interpretation comes to bear on the histories of empire, international order, and the global economy after 1945.

I graduated with University Honors from Wesleyan University in 2018, with a B.A. in history, German Studies, and Wesleyan’s interdisciplinary humanities program, the College of Letters. My undergraduate thesis investigated overseas commerce and imperial expansion in fin-de-siècle Germany and was the only thesis to receive High Honors in three departments. I have also studied at the Universität Hamburg.

In May 2020, I completed my general exams with a major field in German History since 1770 (Harold James and Yair Mintzker), and minor fields in Latin America since 1800 (Jeremy Adelman) and Empires & Internationalisms (Natasha Wheatley).

My further research interests include German imperialism in Latin America, especially Argentina and Brazil; transatlantic relations among German-speaking businesses in Hamburg, London, and New York; the long histories of empire, trade, and the “great divergence”; and the ways in which business activity can run parallel to, askew from, and perpendicularly against state policies. As of fall 2020, I am working on two article-length projects. One, “An Empire of Merchants? German Weltpolitik from Buenos Aires to Hamburg,” is under review. The second, an investigation of Hamburg’s harbor as a free port and a zone of migratory transit, is in progress.