Krise als Dauerzustand. Die Corona-Pandemie in der Geschichte der Gegenwart

The essay engages with two historiographical outlines of the COVID-19 pandemic. After a portray and comparison of the two books, the essay explores how they may enhance our understanding of the time between 2020 and 2021 and discusses the challenges and risks of a crisis historiography. The notion of crisis, the essay claims, has become ubiquitous—a development history writing has played a role in. As I argue, the narrative conventions of historical scholarship tend to generate a sense of rupture and discontinuity that has often been perceived as crisis. The article outlines possible counterstrategies that could sharpen our understanding of present and future challenges.