Urban Liberalism in Imperial Germany

Urban Liberalism in Imperial Germany PDF Author: Jan Palmowski
Publisher: Clarendon Press
ISBN: 0191542849
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 406

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Book Description
Debates about Liberalism in imperial Germany have focused almost exclusively on the national level. This book investigates liberal politics in local government; the only sphere in which liberals had direct access to power throughout Germany. Through the study of one of Germany's most progressive cities, Frankfurt am Main, Jan Palmowski examines more generally the processes of politicization and policy formulation at the local level. He argues that in Frankfurt as elsewhere, local affairs had become politicized not around 1900, as is generally assumed, but by the 1870s. Once in power, the liberals' concern for religion, social policy, and education, as well as their skilful use of fiscal policy shows that liberals in Germany were as sophisticated as liberals in Britain or France. Even in the face of an authoritarian state structure, German liberals received and made use of freedom for renewal and reform. German liberalism was not inherently weak. Instead, the crucial problem lay in the country's complicated federal structure, which made it impossible to transfer innovations from the local level to the state and national levels.

Urban Liberalism in Imperial Germany

Urban Liberalism in Imperial Germany PDF Author: Jan Palmowski
Publisher: Clarendon Press
ISBN: 0191542849
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 406

Get Book Here

Book Description
Debates about Liberalism in imperial Germany have focused almost exclusively on the national level. This book investigates liberal politics in local government; the only sphere in which liberals had direct access to power throughout Germany. Through the study of one of Germany's most progressive cities, Frankfurt am Main, Jan Palmowski examines more generally the processes of politicization and policy formulation at the local level. He argues that in Frankfurt as elsewhere, local affairs had become politicized not around 1900, as is generally assumed, but by the 1870s. Once in power, the liberals' concern for religion, social policy, and education, as well as their skilful use of fiscal policy shows that liberals in Germany were as sophisticated as liberals in Britain or France. Even in the face of an authoritarian state structure, German liberals received and made use of freedom for renewal and reform. German liberalism was not inherently weak. Instead, the crucial problem lay in the country's complicated federal structure, which made it impossible to transfer innovations from the local level to the state and national levels.

Liberal Imperialism in Germany

Liberal Imperialism in Germany PDF Author: Matthew P. Fitzpatrick
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 9781845455200
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
In a work based on new archival, press, and literary sources, the author revises the picture of German imperialism as being the brainchild of a Machiavellian Bismarck or the "conservative revolutionaries" of the twentieth century. Instead, Fitzpatrick argues for the liberal origins of German imperialism, by demonstrating the links between nationalism and expansionism in a study that surveys the half century of imperialist agitation and activity leading up to the official founding of Germany's colonial empire in 1884.

The Ashgate Research Companion to Imperial Germany

The Ashgate Research Companion to Imperial Germany PDF Author: Matthew Jefferies
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317043219
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 479

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Book Description
Germany's imperial era (1871-1918) continues to attract both scholars and the general public alike. The American historian Roger Chickering has referred to the historiography on the Kaiserreich as an 'extraordinary body of historical scholarship', whose quality and diversity stands comparison with that of any other episode in European history. This Companion is a significant addition to this body of scholarship with the emphasis very much on the present and future. Questions of continuity remain a vital and necessary line of historical enquiry and while it may have been short-lived, the Kaiserreich remains central to modern German and European history. The volume allows 25 experts, from across the globe, to write at length about the state of research in their own specialist fields, offering original insights as well as historiographical reflections, and rounded off with extensive suggestions for further reading. The chapters are grouped into five thematic sections, chosen to reflect the full range of research being undertaken on imperial German history today and together offer a comprehensive and authoritative reference resource. Overall this collection will provide scholars and students with a lively take on this fascinating period of German history, from the nation’s unification in 1871 right up until the end of World War I.

Cities, Sin, and Social Reform in Imperial Germany

Cities, Sin, and Social Reform in Imperial Germany PDF Author: Andrew Lees
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 9780472112586
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 458

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Book Description
An important examination of the colorful histories of urbanization and social reform in Imperial Germany

The Price of Exclusion

The Price of Exclusion PDF Author: Eric Kurlander
Publisher: PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd.
ISBN: 9781845450694
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
Although there were some notable exceptions, this widespread obsession with "racial community" caused the liberal parties to succumb to ideological lassitude and self-contradiction, paving the way for National Socialism."--BOOK JACKET.

Left Liberals, the State, and Popular Politics in Wilhelmine Germany

Left Liberals, the State, and Popular Politics in Wilhelmine Germany PDF Author: Alastair Thompson
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191542334
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Book Description
Although often viewed as ineffectual intellectuals, or a spent political force, Left Liberals had become the third largest party in German politics by 1914 and in the German Revolution of 1918/19 it was Left Liberals who effectively wrote the new Weimar constitution. This study, based on extensive original research, investigates Left Liberals in the locality, as well as at the national level, with case studies ranging from Kiel to Kattowitz. Overturning old notions of German liberalism as the helpless victim of mass mobilization and political polarization, it is central to understanding both increasing left liberal influence and support on the eve of the First World War, and why liberal values could not be consolidated after 1918. This study has powerful general implications for the history of imperial Germany, reassessing the role of political parties, public perceptions of politics, and the impact and character of the state.

From Popular Liberalism to National Socialism

From Popular Liberalism to National Socialism PDF Author: Oded Heilbronner
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 131719456X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
’Long live liberty, equality, fraternity and dynamite’ So went the traditional slogan of the radical liberals in Greater Swabia, the south-western part of modern Germany. This book investigates the development of what the author terms ’popular liberalism’ in this region, in order to present a more nuanced understanding of political and cultural patterns in Germany up to the early 1930s. In particular, the author offers an explanation for the success of National Socialism before 1933 in certain regions of South Germany, arguing that the radical liberal sub-culture was not subsumed by the Nazi Party, but instead changed its form of representation. Together with the famous völkish fraction and the leftist fraction within the chapters of the Nazi Party, there were radical-liberal associations, ex-members of radical-liberal parties, sympathizers with these parties, and notables with a radical orientation derived from family and regional traditions. These people and associations believed that the Nazi Party could fulfil their radical - liberal vision, rooted in the local democratic and liberal traditions which stretched from 1848 to the early 20th century. By looking afresh at the relationship between local-regional identities and national politics, this book makes a major contribution to the study of the roots of Nazism.

Claiming the City

Claiming the City PDF Author: Shelton Stromquist
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1839767774
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 881

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Book Description
How workers fought for municipal socialism to make cities around the globe livable and democratic - and what the lessons are for today. For more than a century, municipal socialism has fired the imaginations of workers fighting to make cities livable and democratic. At every turn propertied elites challenged their right to govern. Prominent US labor historian, Shelton Stromquist, offers the first global account of the origins of this new trans-local socialist politics. He explains how and why cities after 1890 became crucibles for municipal socialism. Drawing on the colorful stories of local activists and their social-democratic movements in cities as diverse as Broken Hill, Christchurch, Malmö, Bradford, Stuttgart, Vienna, and Hamilton, OH, the book shows how this new urban politics arose. Long governed by propertied elites, cities in the nineteenth century were transformed by mass migration and industrialization that tore apart their physical and social fabric. Amidst massive strikes and faced with epidemic disease, fouled streets, unsafe water, decrepit housing, and with little economic security and few public amenities, urban workers invented a local politics that promised to democratize cities they might themselves govern and reclaim the wealth they created. This new politics challenged the class power of urban elites as well as the centralizing tendencies of national social-democratic movements. Municipal socialist ideas have continued to inspire activists in their fight for the right of cities to govern themselves.

Imperial Germany 1871-1918

Imperial Germany 1871-1918 PDF Author: James Retallack
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199204888
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
An international team of twelve expert contributors provides both an introduction to and an interpretation of the key themes in German history from the foundation of the Reich in 1871 to the end of the First World War in 1918.

Germany at the Fin de Siècle

Germany at the Fin de Siècle PDF Author: Suzanne Marchand
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 9780807129791
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
The phrase fin de siècle conjures up images of artistic experimentation and political decadence. The contributors to this volume argue that Wilhelmine Germany—best known for its industrial and military muscle—also shared these traits. Their essays look back to the years between 1885 and 1914 to find in Germany a mixture of sociopolitical malaise and experimental exhilaration that was similar in many ways to the better-known cases of France and Austria. Revising the view that the German Second Reich was merely a precursor to the Third, this broad-scoped study presents pre–World War I Germany in its own fascinating and often contradictory terms. The foundations of the antiliberal passions that would plague the Weimar Republic are evident, but Wilhelmine society also had a lighter, more playful and moderate spirit, one that was largely extinguished by the Great War. Blending social, cultural, and intellectual history, the contributors—a distinguished cross-section of older and younger scholars—trace changing German views on liberalism, penal reform, race, women, art, popular culture, and technology. They juxtapose better-known figures such as Max Weber, Thomas Mann, and Martin Heidegger with now-forgotten individuals like the Jewish feminist novelist Grete Meisel-Hess and the iconoclastic Swiss painter Arnold Böcklin. Their essay topics range from the esoteric and erotic poetry of Stefan George to the Jewish comedy of the Herrnfeld Theater. “Modernity” is examined from the perspectives of bourgeois cinema-goers and judicial reformers, as well as from the viewpoint of Carl Jung. The result is a variegated picture of an unsettled world, rich in its innovations, ambitious in its undertakings, and often apocalyptic in its dreams.