The reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II was a transitional period in German history when the traditions of the nineteenth century were coming into conflict with the emerging cultural, social, and political patterns of the twentieth century. The resulting tensions were clearly reflected in the period's leading satirical journals, Kladderadatsch and Simplicissimus. Both journals appealed to a diverse middle-class readership and attracted widespread attention through their flamboyant and sometimes scurrilous attacks on authority. Their satire, expressed through cartoons, anecdotes, verse, and fiction, ranged across nearly every aspect of German life and employed the talents of some of the period's most important writers and artists. That their purpose was essentially serious was shown by the frequent seizures of offending issues and the jail sentences meted out to satirists whose jabs struck too near home. Kladderadatsch, founded in Berlin in 1848, was liberal politically but generally mild in its social satire. It remained for Simplicissimus, founded in Munich in 1896, to launch a more radical critique of bourgeois culture. The primary target of both journals was the absurdities of an essentially weak monarchy personified in a Kaiser who seemed always to be "on stage." Simplicissimus, in addition, delighted in ridiculing a military establishment dominated by class, a repressive educational system, and a hypocritical religious hierarchy. Even the family came in for satirical treatment. Through the history of these two periodicals, Ann Taylor Allen demonstrates the uses of humor in a society that offered few effective outlets for dissent. She also provides important new insights into the role of popular journalism in this critical period.

The reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II was a transitional period in German history when the traditions of the nineteenth century were coming into conflict with the emerging cultural, social, and political patterns of the twentieth century. The resulting tensions were clearly reflected in the period's leading satirical journals, Kladderadatsch and Simplicissimus. Both journals appealed to a diverse middle-class readership and attracted widespread attention through their flamboyant and sometimes scurrilous attacks on authority. Their satire, expressed through cartoons, anecdotes, verse, and fiction, ranged across nearly every aspect of German life and employed the talents of some of the period's most important writers and artists. That their purpose was essentially serious was shown by the frequent seizures of offending issues and the jail sentences meted out to satirists whose jabs struck too near home. Kladderadatsch, founded in Berlin in 1848, was liberal politically but generally mild in its social satire. It remained for Simplicissimus, founded in Munich in 1896, to launch a more radical critique of bourgeois culture. The primary target of both journals was the absurdities of an essentially weak monarchy personified in a Kaiser who seemed always to be "on stage." Simplicissimus, in addition, delighted in ridiculing a military establishment dominated by class, a repressive educational system, and a hypocritical religious hierarchy. Even the family came in for satirical treatment. Through the history of these two periodicals, Ann Taylor Allen demonstrates the uses of humor in a society that offered few effective outlets for dissent. She also provides important new insights into the role of popular journalism in this critical period.

Although often viewed as ineffectual intellectuals, or a spent political force, Left Liberals had become the third largest party in German politics by 1914 and in the German Revolution of 1918/19 it was Left Liberals who effectively wrote the new Weimar constitution. This study, based on extensive original research, investigates Left Liberals in the locality, as well as at the national level, with case studies ranging from Kiel to Kattowitz. Overturning old notions of German liberalism as the helpless victim of mass mobilization and political polarization, it is central to understanding both increasing left liberal influence and support on the eve of the First World War, and why liberal values could not be consolidated after 1918. This study has powerful general implications for the history of imperial Germany, reassessing the role of political parties, public perceptions of politics, and the impact and character of the state.

It has often ben suggested that artists and writers in Germany's imperial era shunned social engagement, preferring instead apolitical introspection. However, as Matthew Jefferies reveals, whether one looks at the painters, poets and architects who helped to create an official imperial identity after 1871; the cultural critics and reformers of the later 19th century; or the new generation of cultural producers that emerged in the years around 1900, the social, political and cultural were never far apart. In this attractively illustrated book, Jefferies provides a lively introduction to the principal movements in German high culture between 1871 and 1918, in the context of imperial society and politics. He not only demonstrates that Germany's 'Imperial culture' was every bit as fascinating as the much better known 'Weimar culture' of the 1920s, but argues that much of what came later has origins in the imperial period. Filling a significant gap in the current historiography, this study will appeal to all those with an interest in the rich and diverse culture of Imperial Germany.

A comprehensive history of German society in this period, providing a broad survey of its development. The volume is thematically organized and designed to give easy access to the major topics and issues of the Bismarkian and Wilhelmine eras. The statistical appendix contains a wide range of social, economic and political data. Written with the English-speaking student in mind, this book is likely to become a widely used text for this period, incorporating as it does twenty years of further research on the German Empire since the appearance of Hans-Ulrich Wehler's classic work.

Germany's imperial era (1871-1918) continues to attract both scholars and the general public alike. The American historian Roger Chickering has referred to the historiography on the Kaiserreich as an 'extraordinary body of historical scholarship', whose quality and diversity stands comparison with that of any other episode in European history. This Companion is a significant addition to this body of scholarship with the emphasis very much on the present and future. Questions of continuity remain a vital and necessary line of historical enquiry and while it may have been short-lived, the Kaiserreich remains central to modern German and European history. The volume allows 25 experts, from across the globe, to write at length about the state of research in their own specialist fields, offering original insights as well as historiographical reflections, and rounded off with extensive suggestions for further reading. The chapters are grouped into five thematic sections, chosen to reflect the full range of research being undertaken on imperial German history today and together offer a comprehensive and authoritative reference resource. Overall this collection will provide scholars and students with a lively take on this fascinating period of German history, from the nation’s unification in 1871 right up until the end of World War I.

Investigating visual communication and mass culture, print culture and suggestive racial politics, racial aesthetics, racial politics and early German film, racial continuity and German film, and photography, this title offers an evidence of a German society between 1884 and 1919 that produced vibrant and heterogeneous cultures of colonialism.

John Breuilly brings together a distinguished group of international scholars to examine Germany's history from 1780 to 1918, featuring chapters on economic, demographic and social as well as cultural and intellectual history. There are also chapters on political and military history covering the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, the post-Napoleonic period, the revolutions of 1848-1849, the unification of Germany, Bismarckian Germany and Wilhelmine Germany, and Germany during the First World War. This new edition, which retains the helpful further reading suggestions for each chapter and a chronology, has been completely updated to take account of recent historiography. The statistical data has been expanded, more maps and images have been introduced, and there are two new chapters on transnational approaches and gender history. Finally, the editor has added a conclusion which reflects on the key developments in the history of Germany over the “long nineteenth century”. Providing clear surveys of the central events and developments and addressing major debates amongst historians, Nineteenth-Century Germany is vital reading for all those wishing to understand this crucial period in modern German history.

From 1815 to 1914, European governments and their political oppositions were engaged in a constant war for the minds of the general population, especially the working classes. The German socialist newspaper, Hamburger Echo, declared on September 27, 1910, In waging our war, we do not throw bombs. Instead we throw our newspapers amongst the masses of the working people. Printing ink is our explosive. The most comprehensive study ever published about European censorship practices during the 1815-1914 period, this book discusses the censorship of books, newspapers, caricatures, theater, and film through an analytical introductory survey and six chapters by leading specialists who summarize 19th-century censorship practices in the six major countries of continental Europe: Germany, Italy, France, Austria, Russia, and Spain. As a result of the massive transformation of European life in the post-Napoleonic period and the simultaneously rapid growth in industrialization, urbanization, literacy, transportation, and communication, the average European emerged quite suddenly as a potential player who could no longer be ignored by the ruling elite.

Ephraim Moses Lilien (1874-1925) was one of the most important Jewish artists of modern times. As a successful illustrator, photographer, painter and printer, he became the first major Zionist artist. Surprisingly there has been little in-depth scholarly research and analysis of Lilien's work available in English, making this book an important contribution to historical and art-historical scholarship. Concentrating mainly on his illustrations for journals and books, Lynne Swarts acknowledges the importance of Lilien's groundbreaking male iconography in Zionist art, but is the first to examine Lilien's complex and nuanced depiction of women, which comprised a major dimension of his work. Lilien's female images offer a compelling glimpse of an alternate, independent and often sexually liberated modern Jewish woman, a portrayal that often eluded the Zionist imagination. Using an interdisciplinary approach to integrate intellectual and cultural history with issues of gender, Jewish history and visual culture, Swarts also explores the important fin de siècle tensions between European and Oriental expressions of Jewish femininity. The work demonstrates that Lilien was not a minor figure in the European art scene, but a major figure whose work needs re-reading in light of his cosmopolitan and national artistic genius.