Contents

List of maps

List of contributors

Introduction

James Retallack

Continuity and rupture

‘Playing with scales’

Contesting the past

Key themes

1 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

2 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

3 Economic and social developments

Brett Fairbairn

Class society

From agrarian to industrial state

Big business, technology, and the state

Complex identities

Conclusion

4 Religion and confessional conflict

Christopher Clark

Conflict

Integration

The Jews

Religion, secularization, modernization

5 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

6 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

7 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

8 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

9 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

10 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

11 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

Maps

Index