Caught in a Nutshell: "Islam" and the Rise of History Textbooks in Germany (1700-2005)

Abstract

In this article, I explore the dominant narratives about Islam in German history textbooks since the eighteenth century until the present day. I thereby deconstruct a longue durée script with a rather curious pattern. Until the 1980s, textbook narratives about Islam were rooted exclusively in people’s historical imagination. Only when the children of Turkish workers entered the classroom did textbook authors try to accommodate knowledge based on real encounters. By addressing the different stages of this longue durée script, I enquire into the functions of narratives as they underpinned a German and European “we.”