The Historical Institute, with expertise in various world areas, specialises in global history and the history of globalization, that is, a history of the increasing political, economic and cultural integration of the world. In contrast to dated ideas about global history as ‘big’ history or world historical accounts of the rise and fall of civilizations, historians at the institute are concerned with the manyfold entanglements between world areas, especially Western European colonial expansion in the Americas, Russian expansion in Siberia, decolonization in Latin America, the imperial scramble for Africa and Asia in the later nineteenth century, decolonization after World War I and competition for supremacy during the Cold War. In the wider framework of postcolonial studies,  historians at the institute work on power relations, knowledge production and the crafting of racial and ethnic categories. Research at the Institute is not limited to imperial history but presents a comprehensive history of relations between the Americas, Africa and Eurasia.