Abstract

A comprehensive history of German society in this period, providing a broad survey of its development. The volume is thematically organized and designed to give easy access to the major topics and issues of the Bismarkian and Wilhelmine eras. The statistical appendix contains a wide range of social, economic and political data. Written with the English-speaking student in mind, this book is likely to become a widely used text for this period, incorporating as it does twenty years of further research on the German Empire since the appearance of Hans-Ulrich Wehler's classic work.

Volker Berghahn is the Seth Low Professor of History at Columbia University where he moved in 1998 from Brown University, after a longer spell of teaching at the University of Warwick in England. The author of more than a dozen books, he has long been interested in the challenges of modern biography. In 1993, he published a study of the industrialist Otto A. Friedrich and his role in the reconstruction of West German industry after 1945. His America and the Intellectual Cold Wars in Europe uses Shepard Stone—renowned journalist, Ford Foundation officer in charge of its European and international programs, and the first director of the Berlin Aspen Institute—as a window to the trans-Atlantic world of American and European intellectuals and scholars, many of whom were associated with the Congress for Cultural Freedom during the Cold War.

REVISED AND EXPANDED EDITION

CHOICE OUTSTANDING ACADEMIC BOOK OF THE YEAR 1995

"... not a conventional political history but a comprehensive account of German society, alive to the conflicts and contradictions in that society and attentive to broader social, economic and cultural developments."  · New York Times Book Review

"... a milestone in the historiography of the Kaiserreich ... an important and useful book both for teachers and scholars ... Students will be stimulated by the prospect of historiographic debate without being bored or turned off by its arcane twists and turns ... For now and ... for some time to come, [this book] will set the scholarly standard as we as fill a pedagogical void."   · The Historian

"... the best comprehensive textbook on Imperial Germany available to date. [The author's] self-consciously didactic stance, his clarity of writing, his excellent cross-referencing throughout and ... the marvelous statistical appendix…will recommend the book to undergraduates."  · History Today

"... a comprehensive, very readable introduction to German society ... Accessible to general readers and undergraduates; recommended for all libraries."  · Choice