Stefan Rinke (born December 31, 1965) is a German historian and specialist in Latin American history. Since 2005 he has been Professor at the Institute of Latin American Studies and at the Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut at Freie Universität Berlin.
Born in Helmstedt, West Germany, Rinke studied History and American Studies at the universities of Bamberg and Bowling Green (Ohio). He earned a Master of Arts at Bowling Green in 1990 and a Diploma in History at Bamberg in 1990. The Friedrich Ebert Foundation awarded him a Doctoral Fellowship from 1991 to 1993 and in 1995 he earned his doctorate at Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt with a study on German-Latin American relations in the period of the Weimar Republic from a transnational perspective. His tutor was Hans-Joachim König. The thesis was published as the first volume in the series HISTORAMERICANA edited by König and Rinke. Funded by a Postdoc Fellowship of the German Research Fund (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) he did research in Santiago de Chile and in Washington D.C. In September 1998 he was appointed Visiting Assistant Professor for the Comparative History of the Americas and Europe at Tufts University where he taught until 1999.
In that year Rinke became Assistant Professor (wissenschaftlicher Assistent) in Eichstätt. In 2003 he completed his thesis of Habilitation on North Americanization and Socio-Cultural Change in Chile. In 2005, he was appointed Professor of Latin American History at Freie Universität Berlin. From 2007 bis 2009 he served as director of the Institute of Latin American Studies.
Since 2009 he is chairman of the first German-Latin American Graduate School („Between Spaces – Entre Espacios“), a cooperation with Mexican partners, which studies globalization in past and present from an interdisciplinary angle. Rinke is also speaker of Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 700 “Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood”.
In 2014, he organized the XVII Congress of the Asociación de Historiadores Latinoamericanistas Europeos (AHILA; European Association of Historians of Latin America) and was elected president of that organization. In 2013, he was awarded a Research Fellowship by the Einstein Stiftung Berlin.
Im Sog der Katastrophe: Lateinamerika und der Erste Weltkrieg (Frankfurt a.M.: Campus, 2015). ISBN 978-3-593-50269-4. [Latin America and the First World War] (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017). ISBN 978-1-1075-6606-4.
Kolumbus und der Tag von Guanahani 1492: Ein Wendepunkt der Geschichte [Columbus and the Day of Guanahani: A Turning Point in History] (Stuttgart: Theiss, 2013). ISBN 978-3-8062-2731-4.
together with Frederik Schulze: Kleine Geschichte Brasiliens [Short History of Brazil] (München: Beck, 2013). ISBN 978-3-406-64441-2.
Lateinamerika und die USA: Eine Geschichte zwischen Räumen – von der Kolonialzeit bis heute, Geschichte Kompakt [Latin America and the United States: A History Between Spaces – from Colonial Times to the Present] (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2012), ISBN 978-3-534-24551-2. Spanish translation: América Latina y Estados Unidos: Una historia entre espacios desde la época colonial hasta hoy (Madrid/México: Marcial Pons/El Colegio de México, 2015). ISBN 978-84-15963-19-6.
Revolutionen in Lateinamerika: Wege in die Unabhängigkeit, 1760-1830 1830 [Revolutions in Latin America: Paths to Independence, 1760-1830] (München: Beck, 2010). ISBN 978-3-406-60142-2. Spanish translation: Las revoluciones en América Latina: Las vías a la independencia, 1760-1830 (México: El Colegio de México, 2011) ISBN 978-607-462-299-7.
Geschichte Lateinamerikas: Von den frühesten Kulturen bis zur Gegenwart. Beck-Wissen [A History of Latin America: From the Earliest Cultures to the Present] (München: Beck, 2010; 2. Aufl. 2014), ISBN 978-3-406-60693-9. Portuguese translation: História de América Latina: Das Culturas Pre-Colombianas até o Presente (Porto Alegre: ediPUCRS 2012), ISBN 978-85-397-0204-6.
Kleine Geschichte Chiles [Short History of Chile] (München: Beck, 2007), ISBN 978-3-406-54804-8.
Begegnungen mit dem Yankee: Nordamerikanisierung und soziokultureller Wandel in Chile, 1898-1990 [Encounters with the Yankee: North Americanization and Socio-Cultural Change in Chile, 1898-1990], Lateinamerikanische Forschungen 32 (Köln: Böhlau, 2004). ISBN 3-412-06804-7. Spanish translation: Encuentros con el yanqui: norteamericanización y cambio sociocultural en Chile 1898-1990 (Santiago de Chile: DIBAM, 2013). ISBN 978-956-244-071-4.
Cultura de masas, reforma y nacionalismo en Chile, 1910-1931 [Mass Culture, Reform, and Nationalism in Chile, 1910-1931] (Valparaíso: Universidad Católica/Centro de Investigaciones Diego Barros Arana, 2002), ISBN 978-956-244-151-3.
"Der letzte freie Kontinent": Deutsche Lateinamerikapolitik im Zeichen transnationaler Beziehungen, 1918-1933, ["The Last Free Continent“: German Latin American Relations in Transnational Perspective] (Stuttgart: Heinz, 1996), ISBN 3-88099-670-9.
Zwischen Weltpolitik und Monroe Doktrin: Botschafter Speck von Sternburg und die deutsch-amerikanischen Beziehungen, 1898-1908 [Between World Politics and Monroe Doctrine: Ambassador Speck von Sternburg and German-American Relations, 1898-1908] (Stuttgart: Heinz, 1992). ISBN 3-88099-629-6.
together with Helmut Bley, Hans-Joachim König and Kirsten Rüther, ed. of the dimension Global Interaction, Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit [Encyclopedia of the Early Modern Period], 16 vols. (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2005-2012). ISBN 978-3-476-01935-6.
together with Hans-Joachim König editor of the book series HISTORAMERICANA (Stuttgart: Heinz).
Co-editor of Geschichte und Gesellschaft (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht), ISSN 2196-9000.
Co-editor of Iberoamericana: América Latina, España, Portugal (Frankfurt a.M./Madrid: Vervuert). ISSN 1577-3388.
