Moritz Mihatsch completed a Licentiatus Philosophiae in History, Modern German Literature and International Relation at the University of Zürich in 2006. He completed his Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) at the University of Oxford in 2014, where he wrote a dissertation titled “Stories of a Failed Nation. Sudanese Politics, 1945-1969”.

Moritz Mihatsch is a German global historian, born in Switzerland, who has studied and taught at universities in ten countries on three continents. He has lived for many years in Egypt where he taught at the British University in Egypt (BUE). Most recently he was an Assistant Professor in World History at the University of Cambridge. He has published on history in a variety of places including Sudan, Liberia, the Emirates, Palestine, and Kurdistan. In 2025 he was elected as Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Moritz Mihatsch research focus developed from the theme of nationalism and decolonisation to sovereignty, and now the history of historiography. After having completed a Licentiate in Zürich about the evolution of the political system in Liberia, he wrote a DPhil in Oxford with Jan-Georg Deutsch on nationalism and political parties in late-colonial and early postcolonial Sudan. By analysing the cleavages and the difficulties of overcoming them, the dissertation suggested that Sudan should be understood as failed nation, rather than as failed state. This was published in several articles and chapters. He also have published on nationalism with reference to other case studies, such as nation-branding in the UAE, written together with an anthropologist, and the position of the Afro-Palestinian community in Jerusalem. An edited volume on memory, commemoration and the nation in Africa has been described by one of its reviewers as “pioneering”.

Over the last years, Mihatsch’s focus has been a project on different notions of sovereignty. The project traces the practical manifestations of sovereignty from the invention of the term to the Anthropocene, focussing on the eighteenth to twentieth centuries. By looking at the interplay of experiences of sovereignty between Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Europe, it destabilises overly neat theoretical notions of the concept. It shows that in practice sovereignty is far from absolute, perpetual, indivisible and supreme, but rather fuzzy, compromised, fragmented, and layered. The main output of this project is a book, co-authored with Michael Mulligan who is a lecturer in law, which has come out with De Gruyter Brill in January 2025. Prof. Jeremy Adelman (Princeton) said about the book that it “helps chart a pathway to a global history of the moment that we are in.” Mihatsch has also published on extraterritoriality, the position of Liberia in the nineteenth century, and the Kurdish question during the Versailles peace negotiations.

In his most recent research Mihatsch cooperates with Casper Andersen from Aarhus University. It revolves around the History of Mankind: Cultural and Scientific Development (HoM), a large public history project by UNESCO completed between 1945 and 1976 to write a universal history. The project’s aim was to unite humanity after World War II. Importantly, the HoM is more than just a history: It was an attempt to establish a collectively-agreed understanding of the past as a basis for future cooperation and peace — a challenge which is still central for international organisations and the global community today. So far, the work has resulted in the submission of a special issue to Itinerario, based on a conference Mihatsch and Andersen organised in 2023.

Monograph:

Mihatsch, Moritz, and Michael Mulligan. Shifting Sovereignties: A Global History of a Concept in Practice. De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111447117.

Edited Volume:

Mark-Thiesen, Cassandra, Moritz A. Mihatsch, and Michelle M. Sikes. The Politics of Historical Memory and Commemoration in Africa; Essays in Memory of Jan-Georg Deutsch. De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2022. https://www.degruyter.com/document/isbn/9783110655315/html.

Peer Reviewed Chapters and Articles:

Mihatsch, Moritz A. ‘The Afro-Palestinians of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Nation’. In A Transdisciplinary Study of Global Mobilities: Identities on the Move, edited by Eduardo Tasis Moratinos, Ti-han Chang, and Alicia Moreno Giménez. Springer Nature Switzerland, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-74539-3_10.

Mihatsch, Moritz A. ‘The Permanent Transition of Postcolonial Constitution Writing in Sudan’s First and Second Republics’. In The Making, Unmaking and Remaking of Africa’s Independence and Post-Independence Constitutions, edited by Nicodemus Fru Awasom and Hlengiwe Portia Dlamini. Springer International Publishing, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-66808-1_7.

Mihatsch, Moritz A., and Richard Gauvain. ‘Branding the United Arab Emirates as Nation Building? Constructing Unity versus Acknowledging Diversity’. In Branding the Middle East: Communication Strategies and Image Building from QOM to Casablanca, 1st edn, edited by Steffen Wippel. Studies on Modern Orient 38. De Gruyter, 2023.

Mihatsch, Moritz A. ‘Liberation from Fear: Regional Mobilisation in Sudan after the 1964 Revolution’. In Ordinary Sudan, 1504–2019: From Social History to Politics from Below, edited by Elena Vezzadini, Iris Seri-Hersch, Lucie Revilla, Anaël Poussier, and Mahassin Abdul Jalil. Africa in Global History 6. De Gruyter, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110719611.

Mihatsch, Moritz A. ‘Nationalism Without Nation: Sudanese Decolonization and Its Aftermath’. In Histories of Nationalism beyond Europe: Myths, Elitism and Transnational Connections, edited by Jan Záhořík and Antonio M. Morone. Palgrave Studies in Political History. Springer International Publishing, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92676-2_5.

Mihatsch, Moritz A., and Michael Mulligan. ‘Sovereignty in Africa and the Specter of Wilson’. In The End of Western Hegemonies?, edited by Marie-Josée Lavallée. Vernon Press, 2022.

Sikes, Michelle M., Cassandra Mark-Thiesen, and Moritz A. Mihatsch. ‘Public Memorialisation & the Politics of Historical Memory in Africa’. In The Politics of Historical Memory and Commemoration in Africa; Essays in Memory of Jan-Georg Deutsch, edited by Cassandra Mark-Thiesen, Moritz A. Mihatsch, and Michelle M. Sikes. De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2022. https://www.degruyter.com/document/isbn/9783110655315/html.

Mihatsch, Moritz A., and Michael Mulligan. ‘The Longue Durée of Extraterritoriality and Global Capital’. Culture, Theory and Critique 62, nos 1–2 (2021): 7–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/14735784.2021.1894960.

Mihatsch, Moritz A. ‘Dependence after Independence: Sudan’s Bounded Sovereignty 1956–1958’. Journal of Eastern African Studies 15, no. 2 (2021): 236–54. https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2021.1904705.

Mark-Thiesen, Cassandra, and Moritz A. Mihatsch. ‘Liberia an(d) Empire?: Sovereignty, “Civilisation” and Commerce in Nineteenth-Century West Africa’. The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 47, no. 5 (2019): 884–911. https://doi.org/10.1080/03086534.2019.1677339.

HIST 1062 Worlds of History

HIST 4000 Special Topics in History (Africa’s Long 20^th Century)