Imperial Germany 1871-1918

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.

• IntroductionPART I: ECONOMYChapter 1. Economic Sectors and Structural ChangeChapter 2. National and Regional Economic DevelopmentsChapter 3. The Organization of IndustryPART II: SOCIETYChapter 4. Demographic Structure and DevelopmentChapter 5. Social Stratification and InequalitiesChapter 6. Women and MenChapter 7. Issues of Generation and SocializationChapter 8. Minorities and MajoritiesChapter 9. Basic Patterns of Social Inequality and their MilieusPART III: CULTUREChapter 10. High Culture and Popular CultureChapter 11. The Sciences and HumanitiesChapter 12. The Press, Its Readerships, and the Role of IntellectualsPART IV: THE REALM OF POLITICSChapter 13. The Constitutional FrameworkChapter 14. Parties and Elections in a Period of Dynamic ChangeChapter 15. Organizations and Movements in the Extraparliamentary SphereChapter 16. Structure and Functional Changes in the Executive BranchChapter 17. The Evolution of Domestic Politics, 1871–1914Chapter 18. Foreign PolicyPART V: WORLD WAR I:Chapter 19. The July Crisis of 1914Chapter 20. Strategy, Diplomacy, War Aims As Seen “From Above”Chapter 21. The World War As Experienced “From Below”Chapter 22. Military Defeat and the Collapse of the Hohenzollern MonarchyBibliographyIndex

"... 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