The Reaching the People team are excited to announce the publication of a new volume edited by Valeska Huber and Jürgen Osterhammel. The volume, entitled Global Publics: Their Power and their Limits, 1870-1990, is part of a series by the German Historical Institute, London for Oxford University Press and combines a present-day and historical concern on the topic of global publics between the communication revolution of the second half of the nineteenth century and the digital age.

Building on earlier theories of public spheres, Huber and Osterhammel expand the notion of global publics not only geographically but also by charting new thematic territory, describing global publics as courts of global opinion, as market places, or as arenas for competition. This is the first historical volume to combine different facets of global publics ranging from human rights activism, newspaper empires, religion, film, and sport. It brings together established and emerging authors in the field of history, including the research group's very own Sophie-Jung Kim, and from related disciplines such as geography, sociology, and literature who explore how global publics were constituted, imagined, and used for different purposes. In this way, Global Publics: Their Power and Their Limits not only provides a new conceptual framework and important case studies but also shows how histories of global communication might be studied in the future.

The book was released on the 28 May 2020. For more information, see the Oxford University Press website.