Souvenirs aus Meiji Japan

Micro-global historical narratives have mainly been told with a focus on so-called unusually cosmopolitan individuals whose lives were integrated into narratives of global change. This article proposes to expand this focus by including the field of material culture history. We test this proposal by looking at a Basel merchant and his Japanese collectibles dating back to the Meiji period. In addition to the activities of our merchant, his collectibles - in particular a special woodblock print of the Yokohama Treaty Port - had an extraordinary communicative function connecting Basel and Japan with its specific nature as a hybrid object. This woodblock print provided Basel with a window into everyday Japanese life and mediated a new image of modernising Japan rapidly catching up in the fields of technology and fashion. By telling this short story, we want to show how a micro-global history - consisting of individuals and objects - is able to challenge common imperial narratives and allows to integrate new actors into global historical models.