German Dreams of Empire in the Far East: The German Expeditions to the East and Ferdinand von Richthofen’s Encounters with Asia, 1850–1880

Abstract

AbstractThe article explores German encounters with East Asia in the rise of German nation-state building and imperial ambitions since the Revolutions of 1848 until the inner consolidation of Imperial Germany in the 1880s. It focuses on the scientific explorer Ferdinand von Richthofen and his curiosity and knowledge creation in his writings in relation to the German public debates on Asia. In physically travelling through Asia, Japan, and China in particular, Richthofen observed and constructed a transnational German image of Asia that went beyond crude racial stereotypes or sweeping assumptions of exclusive Eurocentric superiority while drawing upon his own identification of scientific observation and Prussian Kultur. Curiosity even under the guidance of Eurocentric imperial assumptions was open for social observations to construct differentiated images of Asia as spaces of interaction and change.