Steinmetz is the author of
Regulating the Social: The Welfare State and Local Politics in Imperial Germany (1993) and
The Devil’s Handwriting: Precoloniality and the German Colonial State in Qingdao, Samoa, and Southwest Africa (2007). ''The Devil's Handwriting
was awarded the Barrington Moore, Jr. Award for best book in the area of comparative and historical sociology, and the Mary Douglas Award for best book, awarded by the Culture Section of the American Sociological Association. Steinmetz is also the author of The Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought: French Sociology and the Overseas Empire'' (2023), which "examines the nexus of colonialism and empire in the writings of dozens of French social scientists." He is the editor of
State/Culture (1999);
The Politics of Method in the Human Sciences (2005), and
Sociology and Empire (Duke, 2013). He co-directed and co-produced a 92-minute documentary film “Detroit: Ruin of a City” (2012) with Michael Chanan. Steinmetz is also editor, with Didier Fassin, of
The Social Sciences in the Looking Glass: Studies in the Production of Knowledge (2023), a compilation of studies concerning the development of the social sciences from a reflexive viewpoint. Steinmetz has published widely in journals such as the
American Sociological Review,
American Journal of Sociology,
Comparative Studies in Society and History,
Sociological Theory,
Social Science History, and
The Journal of Modern History. ==References==