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Print Price: $84.99

Format:
Paperback
344 pp.
3 maps, 138 mm x 216 mm

ISBN-13:
9780199204878

Copyright Year:
2009

Imprint: OUP UK


Imperial Germany 1871-1918

Edited by James Retallack

Series : Short Oxford History of Germany

James Retallack is a 2011 Fellow of The Royal Society of Canada.

The German Empire was founded in January 1871 not only on the basis of Chancellor 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.

With contributions from an international team of twelve experts in the field, this volume offers an ideal introduction to this crucial era, taking care to situate Imperial Germany in the larger sweep of modern German history, without suggesting that Nazism or the Holocaust were inevitable endpoints to the developments charted here.

Readership : Students and general readers interested in the history of modern Germany, modern Europe, and the First World War.

James Retallack: Introduction
1. Katharine Anne Lerman: Bismarckian Germany
2. Mark Hewitson: Wilhelmine Germany
3. Brett Fairbairn: Economic and social developments
4. Christopher Clark: Religion and confessional conflict
5. Celia Applegate: Culture and the arts
6. Angelika Schaser: Gendered Germany
7. Edward Ross Dickinson: The bourgeoisie and reform
8. Thomas Kühne: Political culture and democratization
9. Roger Chickering: Militarism and radical nationalism
10. Sebastian Conrad: Transnational Germany
11. Jeffrey Verhey: War and revolution
12. James Retallack: Looking forward
Further Reading
Chronology
Index

There are no Instructor/Student Resources available at this time.

James Retallack is Professor of History and German Studies at the University of Toronto. He has held visiting professorships at the University of Göttingen and the Free University, Berlin, and has published widely on German history from the late eighteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries.

Writing History - William Kelleher Storey and Towser Jones

Special Features

  • The ideal introduction to German history between the founding of the Reich in 1871 and its collapse at the end of the First World War
  • Thematic contributions from an international team of experts covering all aspects of Germany in this period, including political and economic developments, society, religion, culture and the arts, and gender
  • Combines a clear narrative of the main events with a survey of the main contending interpretations of these events