First published in 1987, this collection of essays, from one of the leading historians in the field, is concerned with the central debates about German history from Bismarck to Hitler. David Blackbourn questions many previously held assumptions, whether about the natural conservatism of the German peasantry of the feudalization of the middle classes, and offers a new angle of approach to such subjects as liberalism, anti-semitism and the continuing importance of religion in German history. Bringing together social, economic, cultural and political history, each essay is concerned with the...