The Peculiarities of Gewrman History: Bourgeois Society and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Germany - Hardcover

Blackbourn, David; Eley, Geoff

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198730586 ISBN 13: 9780198730583

Publisher: OUP Oxford, 1984

Synopsis

This book investigates the role of bourgeoisie society and the political developments of the nineteenth century in the peculiarities of German history. Most historians attribute German exceptionalism to the failure or absence of bourgeois revolution in German history and the failure of the bourgeoisie to conquer the pre-industrial traditions of authoritarianism. However, this study finds that there was a bourgeois revolution in Germany, though not the traditional type. This so-called silent bourgeois revolution brought about the emergence and consolidation of the capitalist system based on the sanctity and disposability of private property and on production to meet individual needs through a system of exchange dominated by the market. In this connection, this book proposes a redefinition of the concept of bourgeois revolution to denote a broader pattern of material, institutional, legal, and intellectual changes whose cumulative effect was all the more powerful for coming to be seen as natural.

About this title

Review:

`It is a lucid tour de force illuminating innumerable aspects of European as well as of German history in a conflictive period. There can be no doubt that it will soon acquire classic status.' British Book News.

About the Author:

David Blackbourn is at University of London. Geoff Eley is at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

About this edition

• Publisher: OUP Oxford
• Publication date: 1984
• ISBN 10: 0198730586
• ISBN 13: 9780198730583
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 312