This volume intervenes in the growing field of transimperial history, which explores interactions across empires—European and non-European—between the mid-1800s and mid-1900s, a period of heightened imperial entanglement. It focuses on how actors from one empire came to know, interpret, and position themselves in relation to actors from other empires, emphasizing the role of socio-professional profiles, informal networks, and formal institutions. The volume is structured around three themes. First, it examines actors, including both individuals (e.g. a Chinese diplomat in Europe) and professional groups (e.g. journalists, military officers). Second, it analyzes formations of transimperial knowledge through diverse textual objects such as bank chops and travelogues, highlighting processes of commensurabilization. Third, it explores causes, noting how specific inter-imperial junctures and enabling factors—like language skills and institutional access—facilitated knowledge creation. Altogether, the volume sheds light on the concrete, situated ways in which transimperial knowledge was produced, mediated, and made meaningful in a competitive imperial world.

Table of Contents:

Cyrus Schayegh, "Introduction";

Marc-William Palen, "Economic Ideologies and Transimperialism: Friedrich List's The National System of Political Economy (1841) as Case Study";

Jenny Huangfu Day, "The Double Agent between Empires: Diplomacy, Conspiracy, and Reconnaissance during the Sino-Japanese War, 1894–1895";

Ulrike Lindner, "Transimperial Co-Operation and White Supremacy-Thinking in African Fin-De Siècle Empires - The Weekly Newspaper 'The African World and Cape-Cairo Express'";

Ulrike von Hirschhausen, "The Potential of Immobility: Silas Hardoon and Transimperial Agency in Shanghai 1874-1931";

Alexander Morrison, "'Agir à l'anglaise' - Britain, France and Russia in the Imperial Mirror, 1814 – 1914"; 

Jiajia Liu and William R. Kelson, "Transimperial Fulcrums: Financial Intermediaries in Late-Qing Shanghai";

Florian Wagner, "Institutionalizing Transimperial Transfers and Developing Corporative Colonialism, 1890s-1930s";

Patrick Bernhard, "Libya, Mussolini and the "White Race": Fascist Colonialism and its Imprint on the British Empire";

Véronique Dimier, "Recycling Colonial Comparisons: A Transimperial History"