Product Description
A social history of Germany in the years following the First World War, this book explores Germany's defeat and the subsequent demobilization of its armies, events which had devastating social and psychological consequences for the nation. Bessel examines the changes brought by the War to Germany, including those resulting from the return of soldiers to civilian life and the effects of demobilization on the economy. He demonstrates that the postwar transition was viewed as a moral crusade by Germans desperately concerned about challenges to traditional authority; and he assesses the ways in which the experience of the War, and memories of it, affected the politics of the Weimar Republic. This is an original and scholarly book, which offers important insights into the sense of dislocation, both personal and national, experienced by Germany and Germans in the 1920s, and its damaging legacy for German democracy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Book Review: Germany After The First World War
Bessel has a Malthusian-Sonderweg approach towards all of Germany's social problems.Germany's population boom, from 49.2 million in 1890 to 67 million in 1913, its military roots with the crucial Prussian Law of Siege July 4th 1851 - the military take over of state activities in preparation of war, respectively, to Bessel, were the reasons for all irrational decisions that included the subsequent declaration of war and with a rising death toll. Irrational decision-making, also led to neglect of agriculture causing widespread malnutrition - as farmers were employed in the military, thus handicapping food supply, and inefficient high tech manufacturing - as under-skilled women and war-cripples were employed as replacements.Due to this, asserts Bessel, skilled war weary soldiers, in large numbers began joined ranks of the industrial workforce: awaiting the end of war.Maintaining that war weariness, which led to voluntary demobilization, helped the unprepared Demobilization Commission in stabilizing the situation: as most soldiers had already joined civilian ranks, Bessel argues, Germany was able to avoid a political revolution. The planning commission, had foretold this political upheaval; fortunately it never happened, as voluntary demobilization, argues Bessel, had commenced sometimes during the war; thus saving the commissions from its ineffectiveness. Rise in consumerisms, to Bessel, had also been overlooked by the commission, and this soon led to hyperinflation that combined with the Versailles Treaty, gave rise to public resentment. Resentment, claims Bessel, was also present in the cultural-economic sphere where it was felt that introducing women and children into the workforce had sowed the seeds of moral decline.The fear that mass culture was destroying the aesthetics of the society, in spite of the fact that price control and rapid economic mobilization had led to stability, was mounting to an almost revolutionary level.This revolutionary atmosphere, moreover, would be intensified with the continuing fall in real wages and the inflated fiscal deficit. The fall in real wages along with the government's inability to further subsidize companies to provide mass employment, to Bessel, had resulted in an alarming fall in living standard, and a serious housing problem by 1928.Combined with falling living standards, the opposition towards the role of women and children in manufacturing during the war and after (moral decline), to Bessel, led to the fall of the Weimar republic. In spite of the failure to address socio-political causes to hyperinflation, Bessel, does a good job in outline demographic causality that led to the failure of Weimar democracy.His work through Germany's provides detail structural picture rather than immediate political and cultural events that could lead to the fall of a democracy.Germany After The First World War is a masterpiece that gives insight into a nations sociopolitical scene and highlights how the working class would get disillusioned with democracy. ... Read more

Product Description
This collection of essays breaks new ground in looking at Berlin after the fall of the Wall as the city struggles to re-establish itself as the cultural and political capital of Germany. The essays offer insightful readings of the metropolis, its people and institutions, as a paradigm for modern Germany. They focus on important cultural developments and changes as they occurred especially, but not exclusively, in Berlin. Issues explored include women's role in the restructuring of higher education in Berlin, the impact of State Security at Humboldt University, problems of a growing immigrant population, and the innovative counter-culture ventures in the Prenzlauer Berg district. Other chapters address major cinematic responses to the city by reknowned filmmakers Wim Wenders, Walter Ruttman, and Helke Sander; and the representation of Berlin and the Berlin Wall in modern fiction. This volume makes an important contribution to the discourse on German identity. ... Read more

Product Description
Worldly Provincialism introduces readers to German anthropology during the age of empire and illustrates how the initial motives and interests that gave birth to German anthropology were channeled and shaped by contexts as various as romantic voyages in the South Pacific, the Herero wars in Southwest Africa, open-air presentations of "exotic" peoples in Berlin, and prison camps during World War I. It also shows that Germans' unique intellectual traditions, their emphasis on concepts of culture, and the late arrival of both the German nation-state and the German colonial empire affected their interest in and relationships with non-Europeans.
Worldly Provincialism confirms that there is no justification for presupposing that Europeans shared a common cultural code while abroad or for assuming that they would have behaved similarly during their interactions with non-Europeans. Thus, we must rethink the relationships among anthropology, colonialism, and race. It also forces a rethinking of our understanding of race in the nineteenth century, when race science emerged and eclipsed many alternative racial theories.
H. Glenn Penny is Assistant Professor of History, University of Missouri-Kansas City.
Matti Bunzl is Aaron and Robin Fischer Assistant Professor of Jewish Culture and Society, Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
... Read more

Product Description
Chapters: Antikensammlung Berlin, Pergamon Altar, Neues Museum, Pergamon Museum, Glyptothek, Staatliche Sammlung Für Ägyptische Kunst, Museum Für Vor- Und Frühgeschichte, Staatliche Antikensammlungen, Ishtar Gate, Altes Museum, Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin, Severan Tondo, Mshatta Facade, Helms-Museum, Egyptian Museum of Berlin, Bavarian State Archaeological Collection, Bonn Egyptian Museum, Roemer-Und-Pelizaeus-Museum. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 97. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt:Old Museum, Berlin, June 2003.The Altes Museum (German for Old Museum ), is one of several internationally renowned museums on Berlin 's Museum Island in Berlin , Germany . Since restoration work in 1966, it houses the antique collection (Antikensammlung ) of the Berlin State Museums . The museum was built between 1823 and 1830 by the architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel in the neoclassical style to house the Prussian Royal family's art collection. Until 1845, it was called the Royal Museum .The Building The Old Museum in 1830.The building uses the Greek Stoa in Athens as a model. The museum uses the Ionic Order to articulate the front, which is the only part of the exterior with any visual sign of the Orders; the other three remaining facades are of brick and stone banding. The body of the building is raised on a plinth, giving the building a greater stature as well as preventing the risk of damage to the artwork from damp or flooding, for which the island was renowned. The Spree river from which the island protrudes was actually reconfigured by the architect, in order to allow enough ground space for the museum to be built. Necessary roadway changes, bridge expansions, and canals were introduced around the same time as the Altes Museum construction. The original dome was an exact hemisphere, modelled on the Roman Pantheon . It was... ... Read more

Product Description
Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Neues Museum, Pergamon Museum, Glyptothek, Staatliche Sammlung Für Ägyptische Kunst, Museum Für Vor- Und Frühgeschichte, Staatliche Antikensammlungen, Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin, Helms-Museum, Egyptian Museum of Berlin, Bavarian State Archaeological Collection, Bonn Egyptian Museum, Roemer-Und-Pelizaeus-Museum. Excerpt:The Bavarian State Archaeological Collection (Archäologische Staatssammlung) in Munich is one of the most important archaeological collections and cultural history museums in Germany .Monolith at the entrance of the Bavarian State Archaeological Collection.The museum's foundation in 1885 was initiated by the anthropologist Johannes Ranke, a nephew of Leopold von Ranke . The museum houses the Bavarian state collection of Prehistory , represented by mostly local exhibits of the Paleolithic , the Neolithic , the Bronze Age , the Urnfield culture , the Hallstatt culture , the era of the Celts , the Roman Empire , the Migration Period and the Early Middle Ages . The collection has been structured in a chronological exhibition which is continued by the collection of the Bavarian National Museum . Since 1976 the Bavarian State Archaeological Collection is situated in an adjoining modern building.The Bavarian State Archaeological Collection keeps several local branches in Bavaria such as the Celtic-Roman Museum Manching .Websites (URLs online) A hyperlinked version of this chapter is at Bonn Egyptian Museum (German:Ägyptisches Museum Bonn) is an Ancient Egypt museum in Bonn , Germany . It presents a selection of the most important collection of original objects from Ancient Egypt in North Rhine-Westphalia .The museum is part of the University of Bonn . Regular special events and children's excursions are held at the museum.It was founded in 2001. The collection is ... ... Read more

Product Description
After an extended period of major political upheaval and remarkably low regime stability before the Second World War, Germany has become one of the most stable democracies in western Europe. A great deal of this success has traditionally been put down to the Federal Republic's specific brand of political institutions. More recently, however, the same institutions have been criticized for their marked propensity to produce gridlock and political immobility.How much change and adaptation has there been behind the widespread perception of the 'eternal stability' of the Federal Republic's institutional system? What effect have German unification and European integration had on the performance of the core political institutions, and how well prepared is the German polity to face the challenges of the twenty-first century? The views of nine distinguished German scholars are assembled in this volume, and they offer their assessments of the German political core institutions from a broad historical perspective. ... Read more

Product Description
Medieval archaeology is a relatively young discipline. It relies heavily on and contributes to the neighbouring disciplines of history and geography as well as certain of the natural sciences. The kinds of sources investigated in the context of medieval archaeology also cast light on many aspects of life in later centuries. The main sources used are: graveyards, churches and churchyards; castles and fortifications; rural and urban settlements; technical production sites and routes of communication. Closely allied to these are the numerous finds of small objects of everyday life, from cutlery and tools to animal remains and grain. This book is a comprehensive discussion of what can be established from the use of such materials about the culture and daily life of medieval Germany. Each subject is augmented with the use of many illustrations. Besides methodological questions, the author considers what can be learnt about the history of settlement and architecture, of technology, of economic and social matters, of churches and missions, and of population, diet and vegetation. This book should be of interest to students and lecturers of archaeology and medieval history. ... Read more

Product Description
The unification of Germany extended the economic and political system of the West to the East. This led to a "problematic normalization" as East Germans adjusted to uncertainties in employment, education, family life and immigration. This work considers the problems of the socialist legacy. ... Read more

Product Description
In this text, Dorothy Rowe demonstrates how the sexualized image of Berlin in Weimar Germany arose at the same time as radical social changes in the history and position of women were taking place. She argues that this specific image related to particular anxieties regarding the role of women in the public realm at this time. She also argues that the pre-war aesthetic responses to the city during the Imperial era, combined with a certain sexual disquiet aroused by some of the effects of urbanization, were accelerated as a result of World War I and led to the overt fetishization of the city so apparent in the culture of the Weimar Republic. The book contributes to the continuing debates regarding the nature of German modernity and the conflicts and tensions between traditionalism and the avant-garde during the modern era. In particular, it offers a peculiarly German paradigmatic model for thinking about issues of cultural modernity that remains historically specific. ... Read more

Product Description
In this study of gender and religious culture, Benjamin Maria Baader explores the transformation of Judaism during a period of profound change. In 19th-century Germany, Jews became integrated into the surrounding society, achieved an outstanding degree of upward mobility, embraced bourgeois culture, and adapted Judaism to the modern world. During the same period, women moved from the margins of Jewish society into a more prominent position. Baader examines changes in practices of prayer and synagogue worship, rabbinic writings, the transformation of philanthropic and voluntary organizations, and the new roles assumed by women as educators, activists, and religious writers. By documenting the expansion of women’s spaces and women’s roles in bourgeois Judaism and tracing the feminization of Jewish men’s religious practices, Baader gives fresh insights into the gender organization of traditional Jewish culture and modern German middle-class society.

Published with the generous support of the Koret Foundation. ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description

Product Description
New petrological data lie behind the discussions in this thesis which aims for a broad, and perhaps theoretical, 'World- System Perspective'. ... Read more

Product Description
The papers in this collection explore the medieval art, architecture, and archaeology of the city of Mainz and of the middle Rhine valley. They were delivered in 2003, at the first annual conference the Association held in Germany. The contributors embrace a wide range of subjects. Some consider the architecture and archaeology of the early medieval and Romanesque period, including the Carolingian monastery of Lorsch and the cathedrals of Mainz, Speyer, and Worms. Other authors look at high and late Gothic architecture in the region, such as the collegiate church at Oppenheim and the Wernerkapelle at Bacherach. There are, moreover, papers on castle architecture, sculpture, panel painting, liturgical furnishings, and medieval inscriptions. At the centre of discussion stand questions of cult, patronage, iconography, and style. New light is shed particularly on the relationship between the art and architecture in the Rhine valley and France. This collection brings together British, German, and French scholars to discuss the art and architecture of this major centre of artistic creation in medieval Europe and will hopefully be of lasting value to scholarship. ... Read more

Product Description

Anthropologist Daphne Berdahl was one of the leading scholars of the transition from state socialism to capitalism in central and eastern Europe. From her pathbreaking ethnography of a former East German border village in the aftermath of German reunification, to her insightful analyses of consumption, nostalgia, and citizenship in the early 21st century, Berdahl's writings probe the contradictions, paradoxes, and ambiguities of postsocialism as few observers have done. This volume brings together her essays, from an early study of memory at the Vietnam War memorial in Washington, D.C., to research on consumption and citizenship undertaken in Leipzig in the years before her untimely death. It serves as a superb introduction to the development of the field of postsocialist cultural studies.