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This article explores the colonial roots of Fernand Braudel's „La Méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen à l'époque de Philippe II“ and situates the study within current debates on the spatial turn. First published in 1949, „La Méditerranée“ is still regarded as a manifesto of Mediterranean studies, and as a prelude to the spatial turn. Recently, the work has been criticized as a document of colonialist discourse and –coevally – celebrated as an antecedent of post-colonial thought. The article explains this ambivalence by reconstructing connections of Braudel's academic and private life in Algeria and France between 1923 und 1984. By analyzing his publications on North Africa and the Mediterranean, mostly unknown ego documents, letters, television broadcastings, and oral history interviews with his family relatives, the article shows that „La Méditerranée“ was not only a seminal scholarly work but also a personal expression of post-imperial nostalgia. However, despite its colonial roots, „La Méditerranée“ remains an inspiring text and a powerful reminder of the physical dimension of space that recently has been neglected by some followers of the spatial turn.

‚Security? as a collective value occurs quite often in the political discourse of classical Athens, but is not generally appreciated here. This phenomenon is not to be interpreted by general characteristics of pre-modern societies in which ‚security? is normally supposed to be less relevant than in modern ones, but primarily by the specifics of the political organization of Athenian democracy.

During the 1950s, the Federal Constitutional Court became a site where West German national identity was negotiated. Between 1951 and 1958 in particular, its judges prominently aided the formulation of legal arguments in support of the “provisional” West German state. They helped codify the concept of state continuity between the German Reich and the Federal Republic. They enshrined in law legal concepts of nation, state, and society. In doing so, they helped describe the nature of the West German domestic political system and became actors in prominent public discussions of crucial concepts such as the freiheitlich-demokratische Grundordnung and streitbare Demokratie. In the legal battle with the German Democratic Republic, the Constitutional Court strengthened notions of a legitimate West German claim to German statehood against an allegedly illegitimate socialist opponent. Controversial landmark verdicts promoted the integration of the Federal Republic into the Western Cold War alliance and served to protect state institutions against enemies of the state. The decisions of the Constitutional Court therefore played a crucial role in shaping the political culture of the young republic. At the same time, through their verdicts the judges increasingly expanded the court's judicial influence, sparking much public debate about what role the court should assume in post-war Germany.

After the Second World War, Germany's national socialist past compromised population policy and West German policy makers were reluctant to integrate demography into new approaches towards public welfare. However, this break was not as absolute as it looked. Starting in the early 1950s, demographic expertise started again to play a certain, albeit limited role in West German social policies, above all in the field of family politics. But it was not before the 1960s that the fields underwent a real new boost, which was not primarily the result of social politics in Germany but of new development activities outside Germany, through the global threat of the population explosion. Here, I argue that these questions experienced an ever-growing attention in the 1960s and that the Federal German government used it to reconstruct their approaches towards overseas development. On the one hand, the field allowed demographic experts to find a new career. On the other hand, it pushed for a new political discourse and institution building in the field of demographics. Paradoxically, this strengthened the position of ‘population' as an element of welfare politics and influenced debates over the legalization of abortion as well as the establishment of a German institute of population studies. In spite of radical opposition to the threats of global overpopulation and German population decline, both elements had an important share in reintegrating population into the catalogue of West German welfare policy.