Susanna Burghartz / Madeleine Herren,
Building Paradise. A Basel Manor House
and its Global Residents, Basel 2021
During the mid-eighteenth century, silk ribbon manufacturer Achilles Leisler (1723-1784) commissioned a baroque summer palace outside the city walls of Basel, one room furnished with genuine Chinese wallpapers. An examination of the Leisler family, the Chinese-style room and the subsequent internationally operating residents of the house offer fascinating insights into a Global Microhistory of an urban society and its manifold family ties and connections. Today home to the University’s Institute for European Global Studies, the Sandgrube mansion unfolds a rich history of Basel’s integration into an increasingly global market. Its former residents mirror the long-term impact the production and trade of global goods had on the city and its self-image.
Content
- Globally Connected. The Sandgrube as a Focal Point of Basel’s Global History
- The Leislers in Basel. Cosmopolitan Migrants, 1658–1795
- The Great Transformation. Economy, Society and the Urban Space, 1670–1800
- The Chinese Room — Cosmopolitan Consumption. Emergence of a Global Style, 1700–2021
- Related Locally, Connected Globally. Arcadia in a Vibrant City, 1790–1931
- Lost in Transformation. From Private Ownership to Public Discourse, 1931–2021
Acknowledgments