ABSTRACT
This chapter questions postcolonial approaches which integrated the ‘precoloniality’ of 18th-century Germany into a more subtle version of the German ‘Sonderweg’ by blending ‘colonial fantasies’ with colonialist thinking and by blowing the historical range and relevance of these fantasies for actual colonialism out of proportion. Assuming that colonialism is not a time-transcending ubiquitous phenomenon, but a historically demanding way of thinking about colonization and colonies, the following investigation deals with the German perception of the European expansion in the political and economic literature of the 18th century. Although Germany had no colonies yet, European colonialism was already the subject (albeit minor) of theoretical reflections among scholars of mercantilism, cameralism and commerce. Practising the methodological approach of Reinhart Koselleck’s ‘conceptual history’, the investigation is centred upon the changing contemporary definitions of the term ‘colony’ as a ‘basic historical concept’ [Geschichtlicher Grundbegriff]. Its semantic shift in the course of the 18th century indicates a discursive change in the German perception of the European expansion that spawned colonialism as a specific way of thinking and as a theory of political economy. The history of this colonial concept shows a strong convergence to the corresponding colonial discourse in English political and economic literature. German colonialism in the Age of Enlightenment, however, still remained a contemplative and for the most part critical discursive phenomenon on the margins of political economy.
