Author: Eric D. Weitz
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691026824
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 468
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Book Description
This social and political history of German communism ranges from its origins in imperial Germany to the collapse of the German Democratic Republic in 1990. The Weimar period is seen as crucial is forging a style of politics that contributed to the intransigence of the GDR during its history.
Author: Eric D. Weitz
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691228124
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 465
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Book Description
Eric Weitz presents a social and political history of German communism from its beginnings at the end of the nineteenth century to the collapse of the German Democratic Republic in 1990. In the first book in English or in German to explore this entire period, Weitz describes the emergence of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) against the background of Imperial and Weimar Germany, and clearly explains how the legacy of these periods shaped the character of the GDR to the very end of its existence. In Weimar Germany, social democrats and Germany's old elites tried frantically to discipline a disordered society. Their strategies drove communists out of the workplace and into the streets, where the party gathered supporters in confrontations with the police, fascist organizations, and even socialists and employed workers. In the streets the party forged a politics of display and spectacle, which encouraged ideological pronouncements and harsh physical engagements rather than the mediation of practical political issues. Male physical prowess came to be venerated as the ultimate revolutionary quality. The KPD's gendered political culture then contributed to the intransigence that characterized the German Democratic Republic throughout its history. The communist leaders of the GDR remained imprisoned in policies forged in the Weimar Republic and became tragically removed from the desires and interests of their own populace.
Author: Eric D. Weitz
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691183058
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 496
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Book Description
"Weimar Centennial edition with a new preface by the author."--Title page.
Author: Eric D. Weitz
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691205140
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 574
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Book Description
A global history of human rights in a world of nations that grant rights to some while denying them to others Once dominated by vast empires, the world is now divided into some 200 independent countries that proclaim human rights—a transformation that suggests that nations and human rights inevitably develop together. But the reality is far more problematic, as Eric Weitz shows in this compelling global history of the fate of human rights in a world of nation-states. Through vivid histories from virtually every continent, A World Divided describes how, since the eighteenth century, nationalists have established states that grant human rights to some people while excluding others, setting the stage for many of today’s problems, from the refugee crisis to right-wing nationalism. Only the advance of international human rights will move us beyond a world divided between those who have rights and those who don't.
Author: Matthew Stibbe
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317866541
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289
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Book Description
Germany, 1914-1933: Politics, Society and Culture takes a fresh and critical look at a crucial period in German history. Rather than starting with the traditional date of 1918, the book begins with the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, and argues that this was a pivotal turning point in shaping the future successes and failures of the Weimar Republic. Combining traditional political narrative with new insights provided by social and cultural history, the book reconsiders such key questions as: How widespread was support for the war in Germany between 1914 and 1918? How was the war viewed both ‘from above’, by leading generals, admirals and statesmen, and ‘from below’, by ordinary soldiers and civilians? What were the chief political, social, economic and cultural consequences of the war? In particular, did it result in a brutalisation of German society after 1918? How modern were German attitudes towards work, family, sex and leisure during the 1920s? What accounts for the extraordinary richness and experimentalism of this period? The book also provides a thorough and comprehensive discussion of the difficulties faced by the Weimar Republic in capturing the hearts and minds of the German people in the 1920s, and of the causes of its final demise in the early 1930s.
Author: Molly Loberg
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108284868
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 341
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Book Description
Who owns the street? Interwar Berliners faced this question with great hope yet devastating consequences. In Germany, the First World War and 1918 Revolution transformed the city streets into the most important media for politics and commerce. There, partisans and entrepreneurs fought for the attention of crowds with posters, illuminated advertisements, parades, traffic jams, and violence. The Nazi Party relied on how people already experienced the city to stage aggressive political theater, including the April Boycott and Kristallnacht. Observers in Germany and abroad looked to Berlin's streets to predict the future. They saw dazzling window displays that radiated optimism. They also witnessed crime waves, antisemitic rioting, and failed policing that pointed toward societal collapse. Recognizing the power of urban space, officials pursued increasingly radical policies to 'revitalize' the city, culminating in Albert Speer's plan to eradicate the heart of Berlin and build Germania.
Author: Kenneth E. Hendrickson
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0810888882
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1145
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Book Description
As editor Kenneth E. Hendrickson, III, notes in his introduction: “Since the end of the nineteenth-century, industrialization has become a global phenomenon. After the relative completion of the advanced industrial economies of the West after 1945, patterns of rapid economic change invaded societies beyond western Europe, North America, the Commonwealth, and Japan.” In The Encyclopedia of the Industrial Revolution in World History contributors survey the Industrial Revolution as a world historical phenomenon rather than through the traditional lens of a development largely restricted to Western society. The Encyclopedia of the Industrial Revolution in World History is a three-volume work of over 1,000 entries on the rise and spread of the Industrial Revolution across the world. Entries comprise accessible but scholarly explorations of topics from the “aerospace industry” to “zaibatsu.” Contributor articles not only address topics of technology and technical innovation but emphasize the individual human and social experience of industrialization. Entries include generous selections of biographical figures and human communities, with articles on entrepreneurs, working men and women, families, and organizations. They also cover legal developments, disasters, and the environmental impact of the Industrial Revolution. Each entry also includes cross-references and a brief list of suggested readings to alert readers to more detailed information. The Encyclopedia of the Industrial Revolution in World History includes over 300 illustrations, as well as artfully selected, extended quotations from key primary sources, from Thomas Malthus’ “Essay on the Principal of Population” to Arthur Young’s look at Birmingham, England in 1791. This work is the perfect reference work for anyone conducting research in the areas of technology, business, economics, and history on a world historical scale.
Author: Konrad H. Jarausch
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 178533431X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 340
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Book Description
As much as any other nation, Germany has long been understood in terms of totalizing narratives. For Anglo-American observers in particular, the legacies of two world wars still powerfully define twentieth-century German history, whether through the lens of Nazi-era militarism and racial hatred or the nation’s emergence as a “model” postwar industrial democracy. This volume transcends such common categories, bringing together transatlantic studies that are unburdened by the ideological and methodological constraints of previous generations of scholarship. From American perceptions of the Kaiserreich to the challenges posed by a multicultural Europe, it argues for—and exemplifies—an approach to German Studies that is nuanced, self-reflective, and holistic.
Author: Adrian Webb
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443806811
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 330
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Book Description
Die Linke (the Left) is now Germany’s third largest political party and the fourth largest political grouping in the Bundestag, Germany’s parliament. Die Linke, however, is the result of a fusion in June 2007 between the left wing of the German social democratic party (SPD) and the Partei des demokratischen Sozialismus (PDS), the successor to East Germany’s former, effectively Communist, ruling party, the SED. In practice, the PDS contributed 60,000 of the new party’s 72,000 members, making Die Linke an essentially eastern German party. Moreover, the PDS had been unique in enjoying a level of electoral success denied to other Communist successor parties which had not turned themselves into mainstream social democratic parties within the new liberal democratic order. This book, employing the period 2001–03 for its detailed analysis, suggests that this uniqueness is best understood as either an expression of eastern German “national” sentiment or as deriving from a reinterpretation of Marxism attuned to the interests of a democratic, twenty-first century society, and the book explores these alternative understandings in turn. Noting both the historic distinctiveness of German capitalism and the contradictions within German communism, it concludes that the PDS, now fused in Die Linke, remains nourished by the particularism of eastern Germany.
Author: Elun Gabriel
Publisher: Northern Illinois University Press
ISBN: 1501751263
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 315
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Book Description
Over the course of the German Empire the Social Democrats went from being a vilified and persecuted minority to becoming the largest party in the Reichstag, enjoying broad-based support. But this was not always the case. In the 1870s, government mouthpieces branded Social Democracy the "party of assassins and conspirators" and sought to excite popular fury against it. Over time, Social Democrats managed to refashion their public image in large part by contrasting themselves to anarchists, who came to represent a politics that went far beyond the boundaries of acceptable behavior. Social Democrats emphasized their overall commitment to peaceful change through parliamentary participation and a willingness to engage their political rivals. They condemned anarchist behavior—terrorism and other political violence specifically—and distanced themselves from the alleged anarchist personal characteristics of rashness, emotionalism, cowardice, and secrecy. Repeated public debate about the appropriate place of Socialism in German society, and its relationship to anarchist terrorism, helped Socialists and others, such as liberals, political Catholics, and national minorities, cement the principles of legal equality and a vigorous public sphere in German political culture. Using a diverse array of primary sources from newspapers and political pamphlets to Reichstag speeches to police reports on anarchist and socialist activity, this book sets the history of Social Democracy within the context of public political debate about democracy, the rule of law, and the appropriate use of state power. Gabriel also places the history of German anarchism in the larger contexts of German history and the history of European socialism, where its importance has often been understated because of the movement's small size and failure to create a long-term mass movement.
