Orals Bibliography

Here’s the bibliography I have to draw from for the oral exam. My final preparation task is to make sure I know something about each book, it’s importance (historigraphically, methodologically and historically) and thesis. No biggie, right?

  1. William Sheridan Allen, The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town, 1922-1945, Rev. ed. (New York: F. Watts, 1984).
  2. Götz Aly, Cleansing the Fatherland: Nazi Medicine and Racial Hygiene (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994).
  3. Benedict R. O’G Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Rev. ed. (London: Verso, 2006).
  4. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, New ed. (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973).
  5. Omer Bartov, Mirrors of Destruction: War, Genocide, and Modern Identity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
  6. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Fascist Modernities: Italy, 1922-1945, Studies on the history of society and culture 42 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001).
  7. Volker Rolf Berghahn, Germany and the Approach of War in 1914, 2nd ed. (New York, N.Y: St. Martin’s Press, 1993).
  8. Lenard R Berlanstein, ed., The Industrial Revolution and Work in Nineteenth-Century Europe (London, [England]: Routledge, 1992).
  9. Richard Bessel, Germany After the First World War (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993).
  10. David Blackbourn, Class, Religion, and Local Politics in Wilhelmine Germany: The Centre Party in Wurttemberg Before 1914 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980).
  11. David Blackbourn and Geoff Eley, The Peculiarities of German History: Bourgeois Society and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Oxford [Oxfordshire]: Oxford University Press, 1984).
  12. Rita S Botwinick, A History of the Holocaust: From Ideology to Annihilation, 3rd ed. (Upper Saddle River, N.J: Pearson Education, 2004).
  13. Christopher R Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, 1st ed. (New York: HarperPerennial, 1998).
  14. Roger Chickering, Imperial Germany and the Great War, 1914-1918, 2nd ed., New approaches to European history (Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
  15. Alon Confino, Germany as a Culture of Remembrance: Promises and Limits of Writing History (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006).
  16. Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780-1850 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987).
  17. Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi, Fascist Spectacle: The Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini’s Italy, Studies on the history of society and culture 28 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997).
  18. Caroline C Ford, Creating the Nation in Provincial France: Religion and Political Identity in Brittany (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1993).
  19. Christopher E Forth, The Dreyfus Affair and the Crisis of French Manhood, The Johns Hopkins University studies in historical and political science 121st ser., 2 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004).
  20. Henry Friedlander, The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995).
  21. Saul Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1st ed. (New York, NY: HarperPerennial, 1998).
  22. Peter Fritzsche, Germans into Nazis (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1998).
  23. Peter Fritzsche, Life and Death in the Third Reich (Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008).
  24. Mary Fulbrook, Twentieth-Century Germany: Politics, Culture and Society 1918-1990 (London: Arnold, 2001).
  25. Mary Fulbrook, The People’s State: East German Society from Hitler to Honecker (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005).
  26. Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975).
  27. John Lewis Gaddis, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997).
  28. Timothy Garton Ash, The Magic Lantern: The Revolution of ’89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin, and Prague, 1st ed. (New York: Random House, 1990).
  29. Peter Gay, Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider (New York: W.W. Norton, 2001).
  30. Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, 1st ed. (New York: Knopf, 1996).
  31. Sudhir Hazareesingh, From Subject to Citizen: The Second Empire and the Emergence of Modern French Democracy (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1998).
  32. Gabrielle Hecht, The Radiance of France: Nuclear Power and National Identity After World War II, Inside technology (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1998).
  33. Jeffrey Herf, Reactionary Modernism: Technology, Culture, and Politics in Weimar and the Third Reich (Cambridge [Cambridgeshire]: Cambridge University Press, 1984).
  34. E. J Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution [Europe] 1789-1848 (New York: New American Library, 1962).
  35. E. J Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire, 1875-1914, 1st ed. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1987).
  36. E. J Hobsbawm, The Age of Capital, 1848-1875, 1st ed. (New York: Vintage Books, 1996).
  37. Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace: Algeria, 1954-1962 (New York: Viking Press, 1978).
  38. Lynn Avery Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984).
  39. Konrad Hugo Jarausch, The Rush to German Unity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).
  40. Konrad Hugo Jarausch and Michael Geyer, Shattered Past: Reconstructing German Histories (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2003).
  41. Eric Thomas Jennings, Vichy in the Tropics: Pétain’s National Revolution in Madagascar, Guadeloupe, and Indochina, 1940-1944 (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 2001).
  42. Marion A Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany, Studies in Jewish history (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).
  43. Michael H. Kater, Doctors Under Hitler (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989).
  44. Padraic Kenney, A Carnival of Revolution–Central Europe 1989 (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2002).
  45. George O Kent, Bismarck and His Times (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1978).
  46. Ian Kershaw, The “Hitler Myth”: Image and Reality in the Third Reich (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987).
  47. Claudia Koonz, Mothers in the Fatherland: Women, the Family , and Nazi Politics, 1st ed. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987).
  48. Claudia Koonz, The Nazi Conscience (Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press, 2003).
  49. Rudy Koshar, Germany’s Transient Pasts: Preservation and National Memory in the Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998).
  50. Seth Koven, Slumming: Sexual and Social Politics in Victorian London (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004).
  51. Maurice Larkin, France Since the Popular Front: Government and People, 1936- 1986 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988).
  52. Kristie Macrakis, Surviving the Swastika: Scientific Research in Nazi Germany (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).
  53. Kristie Macrakis, Seduced by Secrets: Inside the Stasi’s Spy-Tech World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
  54. Peter Mandler, ed., Liberty and Authority in Victorian Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).
  55. A. James McAdams, Judging the Past in Unified Germany (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
  56. John McManners, Church and State in France, 1870-1914 (New York: Harper & Row, 1972).
  57. Jan-Werner Müller, ed., Memory and Power in Post-War Europe: Studies in the Presence of the Past (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
  58. Philip G Nord, The Republican Moment: Struggles for Democracy in Nineteenth-Century France (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995).
  59. Robert A Nye, Crime, Madness, & Politics in Modern France: The Medical concept of National Decline (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1984).
  60. Robert O Paxton, Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940-1944, Columbia University Press Morningside ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982).
  61. Pamela M Pilbeam, The Constitutional Monarchy in France, 1814-48, Seminar studies in history (Harlow, England: Longman, 2000).
  62. Koppel Shub Pinson, Modern Germany; Its History and Civilization, 2nd ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1966).
  63. Bernard Porter, The Lion’s Share: A Short History of British Imperialism, 1850-2004, 4th ed. (Harlow, Essex, England: Pearson/Longman, 2004).
  64. David Prochaska, Making Algeria French: Colonialism in Bône, 1870-1920 (Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
  65. Robert Proctor, Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1988).
  66. Jean H Quataert, Reluctant Feminists in German Social Democracy, 1885-1917 (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1979).
  67. Monika Renneberg and Mark Walker, Science, Technology, and National Socialism (New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
  68. Ron Rosenbaum, Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil, 1st ed. (New York: Random House, 1998).
  69. Henry Rousso, The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France Since 1944 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1991).
  70. Edward W Said, Orientalism, 1st ed. (New York: Vintage Books, 1979).
  71. Carl E Schorske, Fin-De-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture, 1st ed. (New York: Vintage Books, 1981).
  72. Robert R Shandley, ed., Unwilling Germans?: The Goldhagen Debate (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998).
  73. James J Sheehan, German History, 1770-1866, Oxford history of modern Europe (Oxford [England]: Clarendon Press, 1989).
  74. Helmut Walser Smith, The Continuities of German History: Nation, Religion, and Race Across the Long Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
  75. Rebecca L Spang, The Invention of the Restaurant: Paris and Modern Gastronomic Culture (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2000).
  76. Jonathan Sperber, Popular Catholicism in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1984).
  77. Jonathan Sperber, Rhineland Radicals: The Democratic Movement and the Revolution of 1848-1849 (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1991).
  78. W. B Stephens, Education in Britain, 1750-1914, Social history in perspective (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998).
  79. Matthew Stibbe, Women in the Third Reich (London: Arnold, 2003).
  80. Gale Stokes, The Walls Came Tumbling down: The Collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).
  81. Raymond G Stokes, Constructing Socialism: Technology and Change in East Germany 1945-1990 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000).
  82. E. P Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (New York: Pantheon Books, 1964).
  83. Dorothy Thompson, The Chartists: Popular Politics in the Industrial Revolution, 1st ed. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984).
  84. F. M. L Thompson, The Rise of Respectable Society: A Social History of Victorian Britain, 1830-1900 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1988).
  85. Judith R Walkowitz, City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London, Women in culture and society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).
  86. R. K Webb, Modern England; from the Eighteenth Century to the Present (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1968).
  87. Eugen Joseph Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914 (London: Chatto & Windus, 1977).
  88. Eugen Weber, The Hollow Years: France in the 1930s, 1st ed. (New York: Norton, 1994).
  89. Hans Ulrich Wehler, The German Empire, 1871-1918 (Providence, RI: Berg Publishers, 1993).
  90. Eric D Weitz, Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2007).
  91. Martin J Wiener, English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit, 1850-1980, 1st ed. (Cambridge [Cambridgeshire]: Cambridge University Press, 1982).
  92. Robert Wohl, The Generation of 1914 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1979). 

[image from flickr Commons]

Prep for Orals – Teaching Plans

I will invariably get a few questions about how I would teach modern European history as a professor. To prepare for these types of questions I wrote down (actually, I typed them all in, no pencil or paper used 🙂 ) the three nations I’m looking at and some themes, events, and books I would like to use in a course. I struggled with which people, if any to focus on.

A theoretical question I could be asked is: Say you have to teach a course on (Modern England, Modern France, Modern Germany, Modern Europe, World Wars in Europe, etc). What themes, events, people would you focus on and what books would you include? What would be the layout of the course?

I focus on individual countries below, and for a general European course, I would just draw from each of the countries. The books I pull from are only the ones on my Orals reading list. I would most likely supplement with other books after doing some research if I were really teaching a course.

Another thing to keep in mind, is that I probably would never just go chronologically through a time period to hit big events and “important” people. History is very subjective. We look back on events and information with a certain set of “filters” on. For example we view Germany with political filters, focusing on governments and politicians. Or we may focus on France with cultural filters, looking at food, society, entertainment and arts. It’s impossible to get a full picture or sense of the past. Just as it’s impossible to gain a full sense of the present. There’s just too many people, too many viewpoints, too many sides to the same story, and too many filters to encompass everything. What’s the point, then? The point is to do what we can. Find what interests you and study the past through that filter. There’s nothing wrong with learning about one slice of the pie, as long as we don’t think our slice represents the whole thing. With that said, then, I would probably pick a few themes and have the books, discussions and (unless totally unavoidable) lectures focus on those themes. See the very bottom of this post for a couple of teaching ideas.

Trafalgar Square, London, England. 1915

England

Themes:

Industrial Revolution (political and economic changes), gender issues, education and society (state vs individual), nationalism, modernization, imperialism

Events:

Industrial Revolution

Chartists

Imperialism (changes)

Boer Wars

WWI – inter war – WWII

post-WWII

People:

Books:

Thompson, E. P.: Read sections to show the idea that class was created through Industrialization. Shows argument about quality versus quantity, and averages dilute the results.

Berlanstein: shows importance of Industrial Revolution and the different ways historians view the past based on present circumstances. Shows how historical works are influenced by current situations.

Thompson, Dorothy: Shows the beginnings of political uprisings supported by the common people.

Davidoff & Hall: Shows the beginning of the Victorian ideals, the separation of men and women spheres, and the “traditional” gender roles. Gender and economy seen to influence each other (gender roles determined by occupation, work and public sphere influence gender roles).

Porter: A good look at imperialism/British colonialism, the change from economical to ideological. Shows colonialism as a European power struggle. Addresses the masculinity of imperialism and fears in rise in feminism (Boer Wars)

Mandler: Brings up issue of state control versus individual liberty and accountability.

Eiffel Tower, Paris, France. 1900

France

Themes:

Political revolutions, class changes, colonialism, gender, religion, memory, nationalism, antisemitism

Events:

French Revolution

Political changes through 1870 (republics, monarchies, and empires)

Third Republic

Colonialism

Dreyfus Affair

WWI – interwar – WWII

Fourth Republic

Algeria

Fifth Republic

People:

Napoleon, Dreyfus, de Gaulle, Petain,

Books:

Ford and Weber: compare different ways of looking at nationalism in France. Bottom-up and Top-down show many ways and nationalism was sculptured.

Hazareesingh: Argues that concepts of citizenship and a weaker state government were first established during Second Empire, rather than in Third Republic. Sources based on elite writings, so it shows what they wanted, not necessarily what happened, since there was much restriction of local governments and individual rights.

Nord: Unique way of looking at how Third Republic lasted so long, not how it could end in Vichy. Shows how Third Republic implemented political ideas that Hazareesingh shows the Second Empire wanted to use (decentralized govt., create sense of citizenship, etc). Shows building of “traditional” Victorian ideals about gender, public/private spheres, middle-class bourgeois life shaped by and influenced politics in France.

McManners: to show the decline in religion, the issues of church and state (infalibility of pope)

Forth (or other book on Dreyfus Affair): Discuss why Dreyfus Affair was so influential in France and elsewhere. The issues of antisemitism in places other than Germany, and the masculinity complex in France and Europe.

Prochaska: To show importance of colonies, especially Algeria, to France. Stresses that Algeria was France, so issues there were similar to issues in France. Perhaps also read with Horne about the Algerian wars and end of France occupation to show the story from occupied and occupiers.

Weber: Show the interwar years as decisive in France allowing Nazis so much influence in France.

Paxton and Rousso: Show the involvement of Vichy with Nazis, and the national conundrum that places on French narrative.

Hecht: To address the issue of France dealing with their national image and turning to technology and technocrats as the source of narrative building.

Marktplatz in old town Goslar Germany. 1882

Germany

Themes:

nationalism, colonialism, fascism, religion, memory, antisemitism,

Events:

Napoleon’s unification of Germany

1848 Revolutions

Unification

Imperial Germany

Wilhelmina Germany

WWI – interwar (Weimar, Nazi) – WWII

post-war (Ground zero)

East and West Germany

re-Unification

People:

Bismarck, Wilhelm II, Hitler,

Books:

Kent: Show the unification of Germany and the role Bismarck played in shaping German politics and culture in nineteenth century.

Chickering: Discuss the reasons for WWI and Germany.

Bessel and Gay: Bessel for a traditional account of Weimar, Gay for a look at the social impact.

Allen: Look at the rise of Nazis.

Kershaw: Look at the mythos and sensationalism surrounding Hitler

Koonz: Look at women and their roles in Nazi Germany.

Kaplan: Look at the plight of the Jews in Nazi Germany. Unique look from the bottom up, from the woman and mother’s viewpoint.

Fullbrook: formation and existence of East Germany.

Jarausch & Geyer: How to deal with Germany’s past, and how best to interpret and write history. Also a good book to address methodology, how should historians write, there are too many ways to explain and recount history than just political. OR Koshar for the same reasons, but he focuses on buildings as monuments which provides a tangible reference to the discussion rather than the theoretical discussion by Jarausch & Geyer.

Europe

Themes and events to focus on for European history:

Nationalism is the biggest one. Look at political change, republics, democracies, socialism, and communism.

Decline in religion and the increased reliance in science. Modernization.

Economies of scale. Global markets and capitalism vs socialism vs communism. Role of Industrial Revolution and colonialism, class and gender.

Colonialism/imperialism as economic, political and cultural motivators.

Gender issues. Defining gender in Victorian period, creation of “traditional roles”, affect of industrial revolution and capitalism on changing role of occupations. Changes in legal rights for women and men.

Rise in class consciousness, workers unions, political movements. Failure or success of communist ideals.

Teaching in a classroom.

Teaching Ideas

History Filters

Study of history is always dependent upon the “filter” through which you want to look at it. It would be fun to divide the class into sections, and each group take a specific “filter” (gender, culture, politics, economy, class, race, etc). Each group either gets their own reading list or they have to pull the specific themes from a general list. Then each class period, each group takes a turn discussing history viewed through their filter. Have the other groups not presenting write one question before class and one question after for the presenting group to answer about their “filter.” (Questions could be done on a blog.)

Timelines

Have students make a timeline of the time period the class will be studying. Then in the first lecture share what my points are and argue them. Have the students keep their timeline throughout the semester. They will argue their points, especially if they change them, taking ideas from the texts. Final paper is a well argued timeline.

(PS. All images are from Flickr Commons.)

Europe and World War I

Wilhelm II, Kaiser of Germany during WWI

England, France and Germany saw war as a glorious engagement. The prevailing thought by those who joined the military was that they would be home by Christmas. Young men were bored with the good quality of life so were eager to prove themselves and their new sense of national identity. Because of advancements in technology (machine guns, tanks, large guns, airplane) and changes in fighting (trench warfare, volunteer army rather than conscripts) the war lasted much, much longer and was much more devastating than planned. As secularism replaced religion, war was the natural or scientific way to show nationalism and patriotism.

There is much contention, at least among German historians, about numerous points leading up to the First World War. For German historians, the issues stem around the internal or external focus of the Wilhelmine government, the relative versus the actual influence and power of the lower classes over the ruling elite, and when Germany first made a decision to go to war, and the contentions surrounding German preparations for war. Volker Berghahn provides an excellent discussion on the historiography of Germany leading up to World War I. Refuting any attempts at placing a Sonderweg to Nazi Germany, Berghahn argues that Germany did not face different paths than other European countries, they just made different choices. In other words, Germans faced the same choices, they just reacted differently than other countries. Berghahn shows how internal pressures from an “unstable” government (a rise in the Social Democratic party demanding more power in the Reichstag for the lower classes and an obdurate ruling elite unwilling to give up power)  and external pressures from countries who sought to keep Germany restrained, eventually left German leaders feeling they had no other alternative than to create what they hoped would be a small internal war that would unify and subdue German speaking areas politically, and provide breathing room for lack of ability to colonize off continent. German leaders felt they were not able to decide if a war would happen, so they chose to decide when it would happen.

The war that followed came as a shock to all participants. Everything came in greater and staggering numbers. Loss of life in a single battle was immense compared to previous wars. The war left a lasting and different impression on each nation. War afflicted nearly half of all men in France, and turned them into ultra pacifists. Their desire to refrain from all future conflict led directly to complicit attitudes towards the future Nazi party. Germans felt stabbed in the back and let resentment and unfair reparations requirements foster in their culture. Forced to employ a democratic government and divert a great percentage of their economy to their enemies, Germany plunged much deeper into economic depression and hyper inflation than other countries of the world that experience the Great Depression. Germans became more politically militant instead of democratic, and were left pining for the “Golden Days” before the war.

And the British… I haven’t read about them past 1914.

Take a look at the picture below, drawn by Harris Morgan and submitted to wikimedia.org. I think it sums up nicely the different factors that led to the First World War. Perhaps one of the logs should be labeled “German political discord”. All of these external factors, plus the internal pressure of political change, fanned by the euphoric ideals of nationalism and trying to beat someone else (the arms race), led to a very uncivil expression of emotion.

Causes of World War I, Harris Morgan - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WWI-Causes.jpg

Work Cited:

  1. Volker Rolf Berghahn, Germany and the Approach of War in 1914, 2nd ed. (New York, N.Y: St. Martin’s Press, 1993).

European Modernization

Modernization is the term used to describe the process of how a society was before, compared to how it is now. It most often encompasses development and use of mechanical technology, a change in gender roles, a real or perceived rise in standard of living, adjustments in social classes, and, often, political change. Modernization at times was seen in different ways including: a detriment to human society, a marvelous improvement to society, an effect of economic and political challenges, and, most recently, as an inevitable evolution of progress.

Steam Carriages as the vehicles of the future.

Modernism in England can be seen in all these ways in the nineteenth century. The Industrial Revolution, as pointed out by E. P. Thompson had a great impact on the social and economic status of the poor as whole industries turned to machines in factories and entire occupations (think weavers) were discontinued. Formation of factory unions lead to a politically emboldened populace. The Victorian period is known for the ideals of separate spheres for men (political, public, and occupational) and women (private, nurturing) that are still observed and discussed and contested to this day. As Robert Wohl writes, these Victorian ideals are what caused many young individuals (in England, France and Germany) during the turn of the century to question the role of authority and the place of such ideals. English technological modernism during the 19th century was hampered by the desire of the business classes to emulate the aristocracy. Martin Wiener writes that this English pastoralism affected the economy by not allowing it to grow as in other countries. Another form of modernist government was seen in England as Parliament enacted many laws that directly interfered with individuals. Laws governing the poor, woman’s rights, education, and voting abilities all showed, for better or worse, a government with more interest in their citizens.

Reconstructed Horton 2-29

If modernization is characterized primarily by use of technology, especially of an industrial revolution, then Germany got off to a late start comparatively. But following the unification and industrialization in late 19th Century, Germany showed great progress. Advances in aviation with Zeppelin, in art with the Bauhaus movement are just two of the many examples. Politically Germany changed from a group of loosely connected principalities to become a federated nation with, albeit very weak, parliamentary government. At the turn of the century, German youth were struggling with the sense of modernism and formed many youth groups to express concern with political and social issues. Germany showed a peculiar sense of modernization during the Third Reich. Whereas Nazi ideology extolled the life of the peasant, the simple life of the Volk, seemingly anti-modern, they still exhibited very modern practices. The building of the Autobahns, the development of the first ballistic missile, the successful flights of the first jet powered aircraft were all seemingly contradictory to basic Nazi ideology.

East German Trabant, 1963

During the bifurcation years, West Germany enjoyed the status of a technologically advanced and modern country. East Germany suffered the stigma of a backwards and inept Soviet satellite country, incapable of keeping up with modern technologies. Stokes shows, though, that East Germany maintained technical competence through the length of its existence (longer than the Third Reich, Weimar Republic and Imperialism, a testament to a successful country with successful technologies such as the Trabant, optics, and computers. What didn’t work in East Germany was the political desire to keep up with western technology, but the ineptness at maintaining a supportive economy, due in part to Soviet inability or unwillingness to support East German technologies. East Germany, in effect, sought to specialize in the fringe technologies of the west, but did not have the underlying infrastructure to support them.

French Nuclear Power Plant at Cattenom

Modernization in the political sense has been attributed to the French Revolution. Changes between monarchies (and empires) to republics throughout the early 19th century sparked the social and political movements in Europe towards self-governed people (something which the nobility and educated classes thought undesirable and potentially devastating). As the Second Empire moved into the Third Republic, self-government began in earnest, as national governments allowed local governments more control. National governments also became more interested in the individual citizens, much the same as in England, as they enacted laws restricting religion and regulating education. As always a factor, the Dreyfus Affair showed a nation struggling with the society and the ideals that came out of political change. Continual losses (Franco-Prussian, WWI and WWII) to Germany and colonial troubles led France to desperately look towards modern technology, such as nuclear power, to regain international standing, and create a positive national narrative.

Works Cited:

  1. Raymond G Stokes, Constructing Socialism: Technology and Change in East Germany 1945-1990 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000).
  2. E. P Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (New York: Pantheon Books, 1964).
  3. Robert Wohl, The Generation of 1914 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1979).

European Nationalism

What is nationalism? I think it is the mindset and ideals that came after monarchy lost it’s status as the representation of a people in many European countries. With a king or queen, royalty was the embodiment of the subjects. They represented their country, they were their country. Before, they had a sense of Queen Elizabeth I from sixteenth century, that she is the heart of England. When the political tide turned to constitutional monarchies or republics the people felt the monarchies did not truly represent the new organization created. Nationalism is the idea that stepped in to fill the void. As Benedict Anderson writes, the concept of a nation is imagined because it is a community of members that will not know or meet all other members, it is limited because it has a definite if elastic boundary where other nations begin, it is sovereign because the people involved are what give it power and authority, and it is a community in that it assumes a “horizontal comradeship” despite actual inequalities. This new concept of organization of individuals into a community based on political determinism leads to followers willing to kill, but more importantly, willing to die for the ideal. It’s as if a country, because of the new political organization, became one big family, and instead of having subjects, they are all siblings and relatives. Nationalism also seemed to take on a role of the new religion. As people turned from their Christian roots and became more secular, nationalism provided a sense of unity and an ideal to strive for.

In France you see the issue of nationalism in play from the French Revolution. All throughout the nineteenth century the various Republics that arise are trying to create this unified “Frenchness” throughout the country. Weber, Ford and Nord write about it. The issues of the periphery versus the center that come to play in Weber and Ford are all about creating a unified language, culture, system of measurement, etc, in an effort to create what it means to be “French”. This is, in essence, what nationalism is. Defining what makes a group of people similar to each other, and what makes them different from the others. The Dreyfus Affair shows worries about how the “Frenchness” is turning out. Are they becoming to feminized and weak as Forth shows? Hecht shows the concern about the place of French nationalism after World War II in terms of nuclear technology. France feels they can regain their status as one of the major nations of the world by proving themselves capable of nuclear technology. France was/is very aware of the other nations, continuously in the late nineteenth century comparing population growth and manliness.

Through the nineteenth century, Britain showed signs of nationalism through interaction and comparison with their colonial contacts. Colonizing in the nineteenth century turned from a desire for free trade to a new form of imperialism, the British expanded because it was morally right to educate and enlighten other nations. In the Victorian period, the British were also focused internally. The forays of the upper-classes into the lower classes for philanthropic reasons, the desire of Parliament to enact laws to regulate education and to an extent family life, all show how the nation, or state, was considered to be the fatherly figure that knew best how to care for his children, the citizens.

German nationalism came considerably later than France and England. Unity in Germany did not come until 1870s with Prussia. Here we see a definite creation of a German nation. Whereas before there were many separate and distinct principalities, the unification under Bismark and Prussia literally created, reluctantly at times, a unified German nation. Throughout Imperial Germany and through World War I, the German sense of nationalism was built on a unifying government and language. Various events during the early twentieth century led to a greater sense of unity, such as Zeppelin’s air ships. Of most consolidating force was the German experience in World War I. The feelings of unity and comradeship overcame political and religious boundaries leading up to the war. As the War efforts became unfruitful, feelings of nationalism declined into feelings of betrayal and into political fracturing that endured the Weimar period. The rise of the Nazis was in part due to their appeal to the sense of recapturing the essence of the Volk, the people. Feelings of national unity rose during the Nazi period. After World War II, Germany went through a period unique to any modern European nation. Division into East and West German nations led to vary different national narratives and senses of nationality. Re-unification in 1990 collapsed one national narrative and modified the remaining one.

Works Mentioned:
  1. Benedict R. O’G Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Rev. ed. (London: Verso, 2006).
  2. Caroline C Ford, Creating the Nation in Provincial France: Religion and Political Identity in Brittany (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1993).
  3. Philip G Nord, The Republican Moment: Struggles for Democracy in Nineteenth-Century France (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995).
  4. Eugen Joseph Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914 (London: Chatto & Windus, 1977).