Papers by Benjamin Brendel
Wealth, health, and the transnational pesticide system. Tense entanglements between the USA and Germany at the end of the 19th century, Volume 36, Number 3,
Journal of World History, 2025
Conflict over pesticides, their benefits, and their dangers is as old as the use of the substance... more Conflict over pesticides, their benefits, and their dangers is as old as the use of the substances themselves. At the very least, it can be dated back to the use of arsenic as a pesticide in the last decades of the nineteenth century. The debate has taken place not only on a national but also on a transnational level, where trading is an essential element. This article examines “tense entanglements” between the United States and the German Empire at the end of the nineteenth century through analysis of public and scientific discourses and media circulation of knowledge, both of which were essential for the political evaluation of the economic benefits and health risks associated with arsenic-containing
pesticides. The article shows that deferred domestic decisions (between health protection and food production), scientific uncertainty, and a profit-driven economy paved the way for a transnational pesticide system. Conversely, this system fueled the intensification of global capitalism and continues to shape the production, use, and perception of pesticides to the present day.
In the second half of the twentieth century, West Germany was one of the largest pesticide produc... more In the second half of the twentieth century, West Germany was one of the largest pesticide producers and exporters worldwide. Among these exports were substances that were unpopular, obsolete, or entirely banned due to their health risks. The country case adds to our knowledge of global pesticide politics in three ways: First, politicians and industry used hunger in the Global South as an argument to justify export practices in the 1970s. Second, public criticism against this export was only successful when the health of German citizens was perceived to be under threat. Third, industry arguments led to creative and legal ways to export substances that have been problematised in the Global North. In view of this, the current EU initiative to regulate banned pesticide trade, though important, appears to remain tentative or ineffective.
Linking the Global to the Nation: Dams and Political Legitimacy in Spain from the 1930s to the 1960s
Article in Special Issue: Vincent Lagendijk, Frederik Schulze:Dam Internationalism. Rethinking Power, Expertise and Technology in the Twentieth Century (Bloomsbury), 2024
https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/dam-internationalism-9781350367906/
Pasado y Memoria, 2024
Francoist Spain was based on a regime of large power inequality in the society. By
focusing on Sp... more Francoist Spain was based on a regime of large power inequality in the society. By
focusing on Spanish dam constructing engineers, this article seeks to investigate how
a technical core elite established and maintained this power structure in an international setting and how the Government profited from this constellation. The article
shows how engineers’ habitus was central for their social position, how international
contacts were part of this. Furthermore, it shows how this core elite claimed a special
political and social role by using a power laden language of success and a staged masculinity. This strategy was a model of success, to that extent that Franco himself publicly presented himself frequently as engineer from the 1960s onwards, which helped
the Spanish regime to stabilize its power which was transferred from pure military to
a more ‘civil’ legitimation.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), Jul 27, 2022
Es sind die Stiefkinder der Architektur: Straßen, Tunnel und Versorgungsbauten. Dabei ginge ohne ... more Es sind die Stiefkinder der Architektur: Straßen, Tunnel und Versorgungsbauten. Dabei ginge ohne die Orte der Infrastruktur (nicht nur) in der modernen Stadt gar nichts. Grund genug, diesem verborgenen Nervensystem ein eigenes moderneREGIONAL-Themenheft zu widmen. Denn viele dieser Zeugnisse der Moderne sind uns erst aufgefallen, als sie ausgefallen sind Und nun stellt sich die Frage nach ihrer Erhaltung.
Rezension: Michael Bohnet: Geschichte der deutschen Entwicklungspolitik. Strategien, Innenansichten, Zeitzeugen, Herausforderungen (rezensiert von Benjamin Brendel)
Rezension: Frank Uekötter, Von Vögeln, Mächten und Bienen. Die Geschichte des Landesbunds für Vogelschutz in Bayern. Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2020
Historische Zeitschrift, 2021
Rezension: Ewald Blocher: Der Wasserbau-Staat. Die Transformation des Nils und das moderne Ägypten 1882-1971 (rezensiert von Benjamin Brendel)
In Werkstatt Geschichte 87, 2023
Smells issuing from chemical production gave a focal point to the abstract terms in which the pub... more Smells issuing from chemical production gave a focal point to the abstract terms in which the public and the media discussed questions of emissions, contaminated sites, pesticides, and dioxin-all burning issues in Germany between the late 1970s and the mid-1980s. Residents of the city of Darmstadt who lived close to a chemical plant belonging to the local Merck corporation reacted emotionally to the odors it gave off, fearing health risks. These odors and the criticism they provoked gave the wider protest a local momentum and potency. The link between emotion and smell became, on the one hand, an argument of counter-knowledge, one that challenged established sovereignty over interpretation, (male) expert roles and social power distribution. On the other hand, experts questioned the rational character of critique with reference to emotions, faith, or femininity. Yet the protest was at least partly successful. It transformed a backroom discussion of experts into public, it challenged established systems of knowledge and control successfully, and it raised political pressure. A fundamental change in chemical production or the question of pesticides, however, did not occur. A contributing factor to this failure may have been that the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 diverted the focus of environmental movements elsewhere.
Artikel/Articles Moderne-Macht-Morbid Dammbau, Gesundheitshilfe und die Konstruktion von Macht im... more Artikel/Articles Moderne-Macht-Morbid Dammbau, Gesundheitshilfe und die Konstruktion von Macht im Kontext der Bilharziosebekämpfung im Ägypten der 1960er und frühen 1970er Jahre Benjamin Brendel Side Effects of Modernity. Dam Building, Health Care, and the Construction of Power in the Context of the Control of Schistosomiasis in Egypt in the 1960s and early 1970s This article analyzes the modernization campaigns in Egypt in the 1960s and early 1970s. The regulation of the Nile by the Aswan High Dam and the resulting irrigation projects caused the rate of schistosomiasis infestation in the population to rise. The result was a discourse between experts from the global north and Egyptian elites about modernization, development aid, dam building and health care. The fight against schistosomiasis was like a cipher, which combined different power-laden concepts and arguments. This article will decode the cipher and allow a deeper look into the contemporary dimensions of power bound to this subject. The text is conceived around three thematic axes. The first deals with the discursive interplay of modernization, health and development aid in and for Egypt. The second focuses on far-reaching and long-standing arguments within an international expert discourse about these concepts. Finally, the third presents an exemplary case study of West German health and development aid for fighting schistosomiasis in the Egyptian Fayoum oasis.
Geruch im Verzug? Ein chemischer Gefahrendiskurs zwischen Wissen, Emotion und Genderzuschreibung in Darmstadt um 1980, in: Brendel (Hg.): Geruchliche Reize, Themenheft, in: Werkstatt Geschichte, 87 Nr. 1 (2023), S. 71–84.
WerkstattGeschichte, 2023
Abstract
Smells issuing from chemical production gave a focal point to the abstract terms in whi... more Abstract
Smells issuing from chemical production gave a focal point to the abstract terms in which the public and the media discussed questions of emissions, contaminated sites, pesticides, and dioxin – all burning issues in Germany between the late 1970s and the mid-1980s. Residents of the city of Darmstadt who lived close to a chemical plant belonging to the local Merck corporation reacted emotionally to the odors it gave off, fearing health risks. These odors and the criticism they provoked gave the wider protest a local momentum and potency. The link between emotion and smell became, on the one hand, an argument of counter-knowl-edge, one that challenged established sovereignty over interpretation, (male) expert roles and social power distribution. On the other hand, experts questioned the rational character of critique with reference to emotions, faith, or femininity. Yet the protest was at least partly successful. It transformed a backroom discussion of experts into public, it challenged established systems of knowledge and control successfully, and it raised political pressure. A fundamental change in chemical production or the question of pesticides, however, did not occur. A contributing factor to this failure may have been that the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 diverted the focus of environmental movements elsewhere.
FACHBEITRAG: Staudämme
in Moderne Regional, 2017
'Von Läusen und Menschen‘. Das politische Sozialdrama der Entgrenzung der Seuchen- und Schädlingsbekämpfung seit dem Kaiserreich
Malte Thießen, Andrea Wiegeshoff (eds.): Themenheft ‚Seuchen‘, in: Christoph Cornelißen, Michael Sauer (Hgg.): Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht (GWU), 73 No 7/8 (2022), pp. 417–430, 2022
Ist die Moderne Geschichte? ‚Fortschritt‘ und ‚Moderne‘ als Gegenstände der Kulturgeschichte
Benjamin Brendel, Corinne Geering and Sebastian Zylinski (eds.): Perspektiven der Kulturgeschichte: Gegenstände, Konzepte, Quellen , 2018
Perspektiven der Kulturgeschichte: Gegenstände, Konzepte, Quellen
Benjamin Brendel, Corinne Geering and Sebastian Zylinski (eds.): Perspektiven der Kulturgeschichte: Gegenstände, Konzepte, Quellen , 2018
Saeculum
During the twentieth century, big dams were imagined and presented as sacred spaces. One of the m... more During the twentieth century, big dams were imagined and presented as sacred spaces. One of the most famous examples of this phenomenon are the words of India's first Prime Minister, Jawahar Nehru, at the inauguration ceremony of the Bhakra Nangal Dam in 1954. Nehru told the assembled crowd that dams were akin to holy temples or mosques, with some accounts reporting that he whispered to himself: "These are the temples of modern India where I worship ." 2 Spiritual claims such as these, however, did not occur in an empty or meaningless space. The construction sites of these 'hydro-modern' buildings were situated on rivers that often had a mythical, spiritual, or even religious dimension for the people living close by. Therefore, dam construction sites became spaces loaded with varying concepts of sacredness. Media reporting on such large-scale projects centered on their construction and immediately after their completion turned dams into stages. Here, conflicts over competing connotations of sacredness were performed and negotiated in front of a wider audience. In this article, I ask how discourses concerning the spaces where dams were constructed, or the spaces constructed by dams, were loaded with overlapping or contradictory attempts to make them appear sacred within the media spotlight. By focusing on the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam, built in Washington State, USA from 1933 to 1941, I will show how competing belief systems, which I take as a basis for the attribution of sacredness to a space, interacted and intersected. This approach offers insight into the underlying power structures of dams as large-scale infrastructures. It can be used to analyze competing concepts of sacred spaces in order to understand how various agents claimed authority over certain interpretations of a place and how they interacted. One thing is certain, the construction of large-scale infrastructure alters the notion of place and space profoundly. This transformation becomes readable by tracing the changes and conflicts that result from it, which in turn enables us to interpret the hidden power-constellations behind these notions. 3 1 The argumentation and scope of this article are expanded upon in Benjamin Brendel, Konvergente Konstruktionen: Eine Globalgeschichte des Staudammbaus, Frankfurt a .M. etc .: Campus (2019). Thanks to Stephen Foose for proofreading this article and for his insightful comments .
Constructing Dams’ Global Success Story
in: Eike-Christian Heine, Martin Meiske (eds.): Beyond the Lab and the Field. Infrastructures as Places of Knowledge Production Since the Late Nineteenth Century (University of Pittsburgh Press), 2022
is a doctoral candidate in Comparative Literature at Justus Liebig University Giessen. In her dis... more is a doctoral candidate in Comparative Literature at Justus Liebig University Giessen. In her dissertation thesis she explores geographical references in alternate histories and future scenarios in contemporary fiction. Further academic interests include (Critical) Medical Humanities, Narrative Medicine and academic approaches to teaching writing. She is also a staff member of JLU's International Office. Silvia got her MA in Comparative Literature and Art from Potsdam University and spent time abroad in Italy and Ukraine studying and teaching.
Historia y Política: Ideas, Procesos y Movimientos Sociales, 2020
Cómo citar/Citation Brendel, B. (2020). Conexiones energéticas. Los ingenieros constructores de l... more Cómo citar/Citation Brendel, B. (2020). Conexiones energéticas. Los ingenieros constructores de los pantanos de Franco como actores políticos y agentes del Estado en el contexto internacional.
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Papers by Benjamin Brendel
pesticides. The article shows that deferred domestic decisions (between health protection and food production), scientific uncertainty, and a profit-driven economy paved the way for a transnational pesticide system. Conversely, this system fueled the intensification of global capitalism and continues to shape the production, use, and perception of pesticides to the present day.
focusing on Spanish dam constructing engineers, this article seeks to investigate how
a technical core elite established and maintained this power structure in an international setting and how the Government profited from this constellation. The article
shows how engineers’ habitus was central for their social position, how international
contacts were part of this. Furthermore, it shows how this core elite claimed a special
political and social role by using a power laden language of success and a staged masculinity. This strategy was a model of success, to that extent that Franco himself publicly presented himself frequently as engineer from the 1960s onwards, which helped
the Spanish regime to stabilize its power which was transferred from pure military to
a more ‘civil’ legitimation.
Smells issuing from chemical production gave a focal point to the abstract terms in which the public and the media discussed questions of emissions, contaminated sites, pesticides, and dioxin – all burning issues in Germany between the late 1970s and the mid-1980s. Residents of the city of Darmstadt who lived close to a chemical plant belonging to the local Merck corporation reacted emotionally to the odors it gave off, fearing health risks. These odors and the criticism they provoked gave the wider protest a local momentum and potency. The link between emotion and smell became, on the one hand, an argument of counter-knowl-edge, one that challenged established sovereignty over interpretation, (male) expert roles and social power distribution. On the other hand, experts questioned the rational character of critique with reference to emotions, faith, or femininity. Yet the protest was at least partly successful. It transformed a backroom discussion of experts into public, it challenged established systems of knowledge and control successfully, and it raised political pressure. A fundamental change in chemical production or the question of pesticides, however, did not occur. A contributing factor to this failure may have been that the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 diverted the focus of environmental movements elsewhere.