Imperial Germany 1871-1918

Short Oxford History of Germany

 

Edited by James Retallack

 

Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, April 2008 

 

 

Abstract

 

The German Empire was founded in January 1871 not only on the basis of Otto von Bismarck’s ‘blood and iron’ policy but also with the support of liberal nationalists. Under Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm II, Germany became the dynamo of Europe. Its economic and military power were pre-eminent; its science and technology, education, and municipal administration were the envy of the world; and its avant-garde artists reflected the ferment in European culture. But Germany also played a decisive role in tipping Europe’s fragile balance of power over the brink and into the cataclysm of the First World War, eventually leading to the empire’s collapse in military defeat and revolution in November 1918. This book situates Imperial Germany in the larger sweep of modern German history without suggesting that Nazism or the Holocaust were inevitable endpoints to developments charted here.

 

This volume offers a comprehensive overview of this crucial era. The opening chapters provide a narrative of the major political and diplomatic events of the period. They are then followed by original thematic studies of Germany’s economic transformation, social conflict, religion, culture and the arts, gender, the bourgeoisie and reform, party politics and democratization, militarism and radical nationalism, and ‘total war’. The contributors, drawn from the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and Germany, are all actively engaged in archival research and undergraduate teaching: this allows them to synthesize existing scholarship, take stock of new findings, and identify open questions for future research.

 

 

Contents

 

List of contributors

 

List of maps

 

Introduction, James Retallack

            Continuity and rupture

            ‘Playing with scales’

            Contesting the past

            Key themes

 

Bismarckian Germany, Katharine Anne Lerman

            The new empire

            Germany in Europe

            Bismarck’s foreign policy

            The task of national consolidation

            Bismarck’s domestic policies

            The end of the Bismarckian era

 

Wilhelmine Germany, Mark Hewitson

            Social traditions and conflicts in a nervous age

            Domestic politics

            World empires and European politics

            The First World War

            Imperial Germany’s place in history

 

Economic and social developments, Brett Fairbairn

            Class society

            From agrarian to industrial state

            Big business, technology, and the state

            Complex identities

            Conclusion

 

Religion and confessional conflict, Christopher Clark

            Conflict

            Integration

            The Jews

            Religion, secularization, modernization

           

Culture and the arts, Celia Applegate

            Institutions of the cultural world

            Amateurs and art culture

            Serious art and the art establishment

            Art for entertainment

            German Modernism and the avant-garde

           

Gendered Germany, Angelika Schaser

            The gendered distribution of life’s opportunities

                        Childhood and youth

                        Education and training

                        Employment

                        Ways of life

                        Old age and death

            The women’s movement and anti-feminism

            Nationalism, ‘high politics’, and war

            Conclusion

 

The bourgeoisie and reform, Edward Ross Dickinson

            Identity, politics, values

            The range and diversity of reform

            The potentials and dynamics of bourgeois reform

            Unity in diversity: assumptions, orientations, strategies

           

Political culture and democratization, Thomas Kühne

            The authoritarian state and its historians

            Nation building and social pillarization

            New departures at the fin de siècle

            Paths towards democracy

 

Militarism and radical nationalism, Roger Chickering

            Soldiers and policy

            The militarization of culture

            War and the discourse of politics

            Populist militarism

            The national opposition and the military

           

Transnational Germany, Sebastian Conrad

            Transnational historiography

            Actors, media, public spheres

            ‘World politics’, world markets, mobility

            Politics of the nation

            Subjectivities, representations, knowledge

            Germany in the world

            Taking stock

 

War and revolution, Jeffrey Verhey

            The spirit of 1914: public opinion in July and August

            Military developments

            The home front

            Propaganda: giving meaning to the war

            Making peace, making revolution

            The legacy of the war

 

Looking forward, James Retallack

 

Further reading

 

Chronology

 

Index

 

This information is provided by the Department of History at the University of Toronto.
All contents © 2007-8 James Retallack and the University of Toronto. All rights reserved.
Last Updated: 3 April 2008.