Since 2025, the GHI has been developing a new research focus on the history of empires and their legacies. This field complements the Institute’s global and transnational approaches, by centering empires within the political, economic, and cultural dynamics that have shaped and globalized the modern world.  Research at the Institute expands the scope of New Imperial History beyond the familiar categories of center versus periphery, colonizer versus colonized, and active versus passive. Instead, it sheds new light on the active role of men and women living under and impacting these systems of rule. As former empires seek to reclaim bygone influence and postcolonial societies battle with their past , the legacies of empire continue to shape global politics, culture, and memory today, creating new challenges that demand historical reflection.

_{^{Photo Credit: Photograph of a soldier from the colonial “Schutztruppe” sitting on the washed-out railway tracks in German Southwest Africa, ca. 1910. Inv. No.: Do2 2003/1139 (album).  © The Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin.}}