This volume provides a new interpretation of the social and cultural context that shaped German political reforms from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. Focusing on Electoral Saxony, the analysis demonstrates how the commercial city of Leipzig shaped the Saxon Enlightenment and then had a powerful influence on reforming the territorial state. The study presents extensive archival research to develop a careful account of Leipzig's social and political history and then argues persuasively that the city played a catalytic role in the introduction of a Saxon constitutional...

Looking at women, business and finance in the long nineteenth century, this book challenges our traditional understanding of 'separate spheres' -- whereby men operated in the public world of work and women in the private realm of the domestic. Drawing on case studies throughout Europe, this book reveals that there was much greater diversity in women's economic experience across all social strata than has previously been understood. International contributors take a new look at women's roles in finance and investment, family-owned businesses, retailing, service activities, and the artisanal...

Winner of Randy Shilts Award
In the half century before the Nazis rose to power, Berlin became the undisputed gay capital of the world. Activists and medical professionals made it a city of firsts the first gay journal, the first homosexual rights organization, the first Institute for Sexual Science, the first sex reassignment surgeries exploring and educating themselves and the rest of the world about new ways of understanding the human condition. In this fascinating examination of how the uninhibited urban culture of Berlin helped create our categories of sexual orientation and...