Laura Rischbieter teaches and writes about modern economic history in a global context. Her research areas include the history of capitalism, consumer societies, and the history of sovereign debt markets.

Taking the example of coffee, one of the most important international traded commodities of the 19th and 20th centuries, her phd-thesis addressed the questions of how globalization processes work and how individuals can influence global economic processes.

Her current research project, entitled The Janus head of capitalism. Sovereign debt as a norm and point of crisis after 1945, focuses on economic crises triggered by illiquidity of states. However, the objects of inquiry are first the expectations and concepts, on which the contemporaries tried to reorganize the global economy, secondly the conflicts around their normative and power-political arrangement and thirdly the attempts of the international financial players to handle the economic consequences. Thus, sovereign debt and individual debt crises will not merely be analyzed as the result of macroeconomic constraints or exceptional social and economic events, but will be conceptualized as a history of economic thoughts, political decisions, power relations, and social repercussions.

Prof. Dr. Laura Rischbieter

Profiles & Affiliations

Department of History

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > Forschung > Department of History > Bereich Neuere und Neueste Geschichte > Geschichte des Kapitalismus (Professur Rischbieter) | Professorship / Head of Research Group

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences >
Forschung >
Department of History >
Bereich Neuere und Neueste Geschichte >
Geschichte des Kapitalismus (Professur Rischbieter) | Professorship / Head of Research Group