Individuality and Modernity in Berlin

Moritz Föllmer is Associate Professor of Modern History at the University of Amsterdam. His previous publications include Die Verteidigung der bürgerlichen Nation: Industrielle und hohe Beamte in Deutschland und Frankreich, 1900–1930 (2002).

• Introduction; Part I. Weimar Berlin: 1. Risk, isolation and unstable selfhood; 2. Flexibility, authenticity and consumption; 3. Reform, scandal and extremism; Part II. Nazi Berlin: 4. Redefining legitimate individuality; 5. Jewish Berliners' ambiguous quest for agency; 6. Heroism, withdrawal and privatist loyalty; Part III. Post-War and Cold-War Berlin: 7. Defeat, self-help and the dissociation from Nazism; 8. Socialist ambitions and individualist expectations; 9. Anti-totalitarianism, domesticity and ambivalent modernity; Conclusion.

'Moritz Föllmer's focus in this book is about much more than the notion of individuality as a modern phenomenon … providing fresh angles into established historiographical debates … drawing on a vast array of sources, from press clippings to insurance claims and modern design plans, he demonstrates expressions of and claims to individuality as strategies in the negotiation of consent and coercion, power and privacy and everyday life … Föllmer's analysis shines particularly bright …' Jennifer V. Evans, European History Quarterly