Bread and Democracy in Germany

Bread and Democracy in Germany PDF Author: Alexander Gerschenkron
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801495861
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 284

Get Book

Book Description
A classic in its field, Bread and Democracy in Germany has been widely praised since its publication in 1943 for its account of German political and economic development. In his preface, Alexander Gerschenkron states: "The primary purpose of this study is to show, first, how, before 1914, the machinery of Junker protectionism is agriculture, coupled with the Junker philosophy... delayed the development of democratic institutions in Germany; and second, how the Junkers contrived to escape almost unscathed from the German revolution of 1918 and how this fact contributed to the constitutional weakness and subsequent disintegration of the Weimar Republic." Emphasizing the importance of the problem of German agriculture in its relation to democratic reconstruction, Gerschenkron asserts that "the political attitude of farmers in several European countries had a decisive influence on the fate of European democracy. Nowhere is this more true than in Germany. The German farmers bear their full share of responsibility for the advent of fascism in that country."

Politics in Hard Times

Politics in Hard Times PDF Author: Peter Alexis Gourevitch
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801494369
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 276

Get Book

Book Description
In Politics in Hard Times, Peter Gourevitch explores the common political factors that shape economic policy choices. He focuses on three periods of economic crisis--1873-1896, 1929-1949, and 1971 to the present--and compares policy choices made in Britain, France, Germany, Sweden, and the United States.

Red Banners, Books and Beer Mugs: The Mental World of German Social Democrats, 1863–1914

Red Banners, Books and Beer Mugs: The Mental World of German Social Democrats, 1863–1914 PDF Author: Andrew G. Bonnell
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004300635
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 233

Get Book

Book Description
The German Social Democratic Party was the world’s first million-strong political party. This book examines key themes around which the party organized its mainly working-class membership, with a focus on the experiences and outlook of rank-and-file party members.

The Struggle for Democracy in Germany

The Struggle for Democracy in Germany PDF Author: Eugene Newton Anderson
Publisher: Russell & Russell Publishers
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 376

Get Book

Book Description


The Postwar Transformation of Germany

The Postwar Transformation of Germany PDF Author: John Shannon Brady
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472085913
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 539

Get Book

Book Description
DIVOffers a review of how Germany changed in the fifty years since the formation of the Federal Republic of Germany by some of our most distinguished scholars /div

Democracy in Germany

Democracy in Germany PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Democracy
Languages : en
Pages : 190

Get Book

Book Description


German Social Democracy, 1905-1917

German Social Democracy, 1905-1917 PDF Author: Carl E. Schorske
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674351257
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 378

Get Book

Book Description
No political parties of present-day Germany are separated by a wider gulf than the two parties of labor, one democratic and reformist, the other totalitarian and socialist-revolutionary. Social Democrats and Communists today face each other as bitter political enemies across the front lines of the Cold War; yet they share a common origin in the Social Democratic Party of Imperial Germany. How did they come to go separate ways? By what process did the old party break apart? How did the prewar party prepare the ground for the dissolution of the labor movement in World War I, and for the subsequent extension of Leninism into Germany? To answer these questions is the purpose of Carl Schorske's study.

The German Predicament

The German Predicament PDF Author: Andrei S. Markovits
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501732897
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265

Get Book

Book Description
What does the unification of Germany really mean? In their stimulating exploration of that question, Andrei S. Markovits and Simon Reich sketch diametrically different interpretations than are frequently offered by commentators. One is that Germany, well aware of the Holocaust, has been 'Europeanized' and is now prepared to serve as the capitalist and democratic locomotive that powers Europe. The other is that the proclivities behind Auschwitz have been suppressed rather than obliterated from the German psyche. Germany's liberal democracy was imposed by the allied victors, according to this view, and will one day dissolve, revealing the old expansionist tendencies to try to 'Germanize' all of Europe. Markovits and Reich argue that benign contemporary assessments of Germany's postwar democracy, combined with admiration for the country's economic achievements, contribute to German influence far greater than military might was able to achieve. Yet, at the same time, some Germans have internalized liberal and pacifist principles and now see their nation as powerless, simply a larger Switzerland. As a result, while the Germans have enormous influence and latitude, they have not taken responsibility for leadership. The prime reason for this gap beween ideology and structure, Markovits and Reich suggest, lies in the politics of collective memory.

Democracy in Germany

Democracy in Germany PDF Author: Fritz Erler
Publisher: Cambridge : Harvard University Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 160

Get Book

Book Description


Practicing Democracy

Practicing Democracy PDF Author: Margaret Lavinia Anderson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691229538
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 504

Get Book

Book Description
What happens when manhood suffrage, a radically egalitarian institution, gets introduced into a deeply hierarchical society? In her sweeping history of Imperial Germany's electoral culture, Anderson shows how the sudden opportunity to "practice" democracy in 1867 opened up a free space in the land of Kaisers, generals, and Junkers. Originally designed to make voters susceptible to manipulation by the authorities, the suffrage's unintended consequence was to enmesh its participants in ever more democratic procedures and practices. The result was the growth of an increasingly democratic culture in the decades before 1914. Explicit comparisons with Britain, France, and America give us a vivid picture of the coercive pressures--from employers, clergy, and communities--that German voters faced, but also of the legalistic culture that shielded them from the fraud, bribery, and violence so characteristic of other early "franchise regimes." We emerge with a new sense that Germans were in no way less modern in the practice of democratic politics. Anderson, in fact, argues convincingly against the widely accepted notion that it was pre-war Germany's lack of democratic values and experience that ultimately led to Weimar's failure and the Third Reich. Practicing Democracy is a surprising reinterpretation of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Germany and will engage historians concerned with the question of Germany's "special path" to modernity; sociologists interested in obedience, popular mobilization, and civil society; political scientists debating the relative role of institutions versus culture in the transition to democracy. By showing how political activity shaped and was shaped by the experiences of ordinary men and women, it conveys the excitement of democratic politics.