In The Representation of External Threats, Eberhard Crailsheim and María Dolores Elizalde present a collection of articles that trace the phenomenon of external threats in a multitude of settings across Asia, America, and Europe. The scope ranges from military threats against the Byzantine rulers of the 7th century to the perception of cultural and economic threats in the late 19th century Atlantic, and includes conceptual threats to the construction of national histories. Focussing on the different ways in which such threats were socially constructed, the articles offer a variety of perspectives and interdisciplinary methods to understand the development and representations of external threats, concentrating on the effect of 'threat communication' for societies and political actors. Contributors are Anna Abalian, Vladimir Belous, Eberhard Crailsheim, María Dolores Elizalde, Rodrigo Escribano Roca, Simon C. Kemper, Irena Kozmanová, David Manzano Cosano, Federico Niglia, Derek Kane O’Leary, Alexandr Osipian, Pedro Ponte e Sousa, Theresia Raum, Jean-Noël Sanchez, Marie Schreier, Stephan Steiner, Srikanth Thaliyakkattil, Ionut Untea and Qiong Yu.

Table of Contents:
Contents List of Illustations Notes on Contributors Introduction  Eberhard Crailsheim and María Dolores Elizalde Part 1 Conceptual Approaches  1 Representations of External Threats: Approaches and Concepts for Historical Research  Eberhard Crailsheim  2 The Opposition of Own/Alien as a Source of the External Threat: Reflections on Supra-State Sovereignization Politics and 19th-Century Pan-Slavism  Vladimir Belous Part 2: Threat Communication  3 Deus Adiuta Romanis: Threat and Threat Communication in the Eastern Roman Empire  Theresia Raum  4 Scottish Interlopers and Indigenous Resistance: Threats to the Spanish Empire in Late 17th-Century Panama  Marie Schreier  5 The Umbilical Cord of Threats: the Securitization of Infidel Attacks on the Early Modern Banten Sultanate, Indonesia  Simon C. Kemper Part 3: Representation of the Internal/External Other  6 The Enemy Within: ‘Gypsies’ as EX/INternal Threat in the Habsburg Monarchy and in the Holy Roman Empire, 15th-18th Century  Stephan Steiner  7 Performing the Ottoman Threat: Visual and Discursive Representations of Armenian Merchants in Early Modern Poland and Moldavia  Alexandr Osipian  8 The ‘Pale of Settlement’: a Particular Form of Separation of the ‘Own’ and the ‘Alien’ in the Russian Empire  Anna Abalian Part 4: The Creation of Threats in the Old World  9 Back to the Huns: the German Threat in the European Collective Imagination, 1527-1914  Federico Niglia  10 External Authority or External Threat? Thomas Hobbes and the Politically Troubled Times of Early Modern England  Ionut Untea  11 Corruption as an External Threat? Anti-Corruption Legislation During the Dutch ‘Great Assembly’ (1651)  Irena Kozmanová Part 5: Contested Conceptions in the Atlantic World  12 Translatio Imperii: the ‘Enmification’ of the United States in the Historical Imagination of Spain and Great Britain, a Comparative View (1850-1898)  Rodrigo Escribano Roca  13 Jared Sparks and Constructing the American Archive  Derek Kane O’Leary  14 Portuguese Foreign Relations in the 19th Century: the Role of External Threats  Pedro Ponte e Sousa Part 6: Threats in the Colonial Context of the Pacific World  15 A Prismatic Glance at One Century of Threats on the Philippine Colony  Jean-Noël Sanchez  16 Strategies Against External Threats to Spanish Sovereignty in a Colonial Territory: The Case of the Philippines in the 19th Century  María Dolores Elizalde  17 The Imperial Enemies of Spain in Hispanic Oceania: the Case of Japan  David Manzano Cosano Part 7: Perceptions of the Other: Chinese-European Encounters  18 Securitization of Christianity during the Period of the Qing Dynasty  Srikanth Thaliyakkattil  19 The Arrogant Chinese: Representation of the Chinese and Chinese Civilisation in Britain’s Travel Writings in the 19th Century  Qiong Yu Index