Harald is a professor of modern global history at ETH Zürich. Before joining ETH, he was an assistant professor for extra-European history at Jacobs University Bremen. He earned his PhD from the University of Heidelberg in 2000. His research interests include global and transnational history, the history of knowledge and the social and cultural history of 19th and 20th-century South Asia. His most recent research monograph is The YMCA in Late Colonial India: Modernization, Philanthropy and American Soft Power in South Asia.

Bumpy Rides to Modernity: A Global History of Cycles and Cycling in South Asia (c. 1870 – 1990)

The project provides a fresh perspective on the transregional and transcultural history of the bicycle. Studying the symbolic and material significance of the bicycle on the Indian subcontinent complicates narratives that glorify Western techno-modernity in the Global South. The enhanced mobility provided by the new vehicle triggered fierce contestation and controversy around imperialism and decolonisation. The four case studies illuminate key moments in the first 100 years of cycling history in in South Asia and reveal the cultural meanings of the new technology in non-Western cultural and political constellations.