Recasting Bourgeois Europe; Stabilization in France, Germany, and Italy in the Decade After World War I.

Maier, Charles S.

ISBN 10: 0691052204 / ISBN 13: 9780691052205

Published by Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1975

About this Item

25 cm, 650 pages. Footnote. Bibliography, Index. No dust jacket present. Ex-library with the usual library markings, including institutional bookplate. Inscribed by the author (dated 2006). Inscription on the half-title page reads For Alan Lewis--Charles Maier Washington 10/16/06. Examines a critical topic in the disciplining of forces for change: how political and economic elites retained their power following war, economic dislocation, and domestic turmoil--stresses that make social leveling inevitable. Charles S. Maier (born February 23, 1939, in New York City) is the Leverett Saltonstall Research Professor of History at Harvard University. He teaches European and international history at Harvard. Maier served as the director of the Center for European Studies at Harvard, 1994-2001, and currently co-directs the Weatherhead Initiative in Global History. He taught at Duke University 1976-81 and has also held various visiting professorships in Europe. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is a recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, an Alexander von Humboldt research prize fellowship, the Cross of Honor of the German Federal Republic, and the Cross of Honor for Science and Art, first class, of the Republic of Austria. The University of Padua awarded him a laurea honoris causa in European Studies in January 2018. Charles Maier, one of the most prominent contemporary scholars of European history, published Recasting Bourgeois Europe as his first book in 1975. Based on extensive archival research, the book examines how European societies progressed from a moment of social vulnerability to one of political and economic stabilization. Arguing that a common trajectory calls for a multi country analysis, Maier provides a comparative history of three European nations and argues that they did not simply return to a prewar status quo, but achieved a new balance of state authority and interest group representation. While most previous accounts presented the decade as a prelude to the Depression and dictatorships, Maier suggests that the stabilization of the 1920s, vulnerable as it was, foreshadowed the more enduring political stability achieved after World War II. The immense and ambitious scope of this book, its ability to follow diverse histories in detail, and its effort to explain stabilizationâ "and not just revolution or breakdownâ "have made it a classic of European history.

Seller Inventory # 24296

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Recasting Bourgeois Europe; Stabilization in France, Germany, and Italy in the Decade After World War I.
• Publisher: Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ
• Publication Date: 1975
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0691052204
• ISBN 13: 9780691052205
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: Presumed First Edition, First printing.
• Condition: Good
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • Communism
  • Nationalism
  • Fascism
  • Capitalism

About this title

Synopsis

The author of fourteen books, Charles Maier is one of the most prominent contemporary scholars of European history.

Recasting Bourgeois Europe, his first book, presented an unparalleled analysis of the crucial decade in Europe after 1918. Based on extensive archival research in each of the three countries, the book examined how European societies progressed from a moment of social vulnerability to one of political and economic stabilization.

Recasting Bourgeois Europe accomplished two major historiographical goals simultaneously. First, Maier provided a comparative history of three different European societies for a period when common developments demanded an approach other than that of the usual national histories. Second, he rethought the political structure of the European interwar period. Although most accounts presented the 1920s as a time characterized by illusory attempts to return to a prewar political equilibrium, and doomed to succumb to the Depression and the dictatorships, Maier suggested instead that the stabilization of the 1920s, vulnerable as it was, foreshadowed the more enduring political stability achieved after World War II.

The immense and ambitious scope of this book, its ability to follow diverse histories in detail, and its effort to make stabilization―and not just revolution or breakdown―have made it a classic of European historiography.

About the Author

Charles S. Maier is the Leverett Saltonstall Professor of History at Harvard University. His many books include Among Empires: American Ascendancy and its Predecessors, and Dissolution: The Crisis of Communism and the End of East Germany (Princeton). He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations