Author : Liisi Keedus
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 245 pages
File Size : 21,11 MB
Release : 2015-02-26
Category : History
ISBN : 1107093031
A comparative intellectual history of the political thought of Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss, two influential and controversial German-Jewish-American political philosophers.
Author : Charles R. Bambach
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Page : 316 pages
File Size : 21,92 MB
Release : 1995
Category : History
ISBN : 9780801430794
Bambach's account of the demise of historicism within the context of German metaphysics provides a new perspective on the development of Heidegger's concept of "historicity" and on the origins of postmodern thought.
Author : Georg G. Iggers
Publisher : Wesleyan University Press
Page : 405 pages
File Size : 49,26 MB
Release : 2014-01-01
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 0819573612
The first comprehensive critical examination in any language of the German national tradition of historiography This is the first comprehensive critical examination in any language of the German national tradition of historiography. It analyzes the basic theoretical assumptions of the German historians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and relates these assumptions to political thought and action. The German national tradition of historiography had its beginnings in the reaction against the Enlightenment and the French Revolution of 1789. This historiography rejected the rationalistic theory of natural law as universally valid and held that all human values must be understood within the context of the historical flux. But it maintained at the same time the Lutheran doctrine that existing political institutions had a rational basis in the will of God, though only a few of these historians were unqualified conservatives. Most argued for liberal institutions within the authoritarian state, but considered that constitutional liberties had to be subordinated to foreign policy—a subordination that was to have tragic results. Mr. Iggers first defines Historismus or historicism and analyzes its origins. Then he traces the transformation of German historical thought from Herder's cosmopolitan culture-oriented nationalism to exclusive state-centered nationalism of the War of Liberation and of national unification. He considers the development of historicism in the writings of such thinkers as von Humboldt, Ranke, Dilthey, Max Weber, Troeltsch, and Meinecke; and he discusses the radicalization and ultimate disintegration of the historicist position, showing how its inadequacies contributed to the political débâcle of the Weimar Republic and the rise of National Socialism. No one who wants to fully understand the political development of national Germany can neglect this study.
Author : Nina Witoszek
Publisher : Berghahn Books
Page : 274 pages
File Size : 12,64 MB
Release : 2002
Category : History
ISBN : 9781571812698
It is often argued that Germany and Scandinavia stand at two opposite ends of a spectrum with regard to their response to social-economic disruptions and cultural challenges. Though, in many respects, they have a shared cultural inheritance, it is nevertheless the case that they mobilize different mythologies and different modes of coping when faced with breakdown and disorder. The authors argue that it is at these "critical junctures," points of crisis and innovation in the life of communities, that the tradition and identity of national and local communities are formed, polarized, and revalued; it is here that social change takes a particular direction.
Author : David N. Myers
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 269 pages
File Size : 38,67 MB
Release : 2010-01-10
Category : History
ISBN : 0691146608
Nineteenth-century European thought, especially in Germany, was increasingly dominated by a new historicist impulse to situate every event, person, or text in its particular context. At odds with the transcendent claims of philosophy and--more significantly--theology, historicism came to be attacked by its critics for reducing human experience to a series of disconnected moments, each of which was the product of decidedly mundane, rather than sacred, origins. By the late nineteenth century and into the Weimar period, historicism was seen by many as a grinding force that corroded social values and was emblematic of modern society's gravest ills. Resisting History examines the backlash against historicism, focusing on four major Jewish thinkers. David Myers situates these thinkers in proximity to leading Protestant thinkers of the time, but argues that German Jews and Christians shared a complex cultural and discursive world best understood in terms of exchange and adaptation rather than influence. After examining the growing dominance of the new historicist thinking in the nineteenth century, the book analyzes the critical responses of Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, Leo Strauss, and Isaac Breuer. For this fascinating and diverse quartet of thinkers, historicism posed a stark challenge to the ongoing vitality of Judaism in the modern world. And yet, as they set out to dilute or eliminate its destructive tendencies, these thinkers often made recourse to the very tools and methods of historicism. In doing so, they demonstrated the utter inescapability of historicism in modern culture, whether approached from a Christian or Jewish perspective.
Author : Dirk Schumann
Publisher : Berghahn Books
Page : 398 pages
File Size : 48,36 MB
Release : 2012-04
Category : History
ISBN : 0857453149
In noting that political violence was the product of choices made by political actors rather than the result of irresistible forces ...Schumann issues a pertinent warning while making a first-rate contribution to the scholarly literature on the Weimar Republic. Central European History A well-documented and skillfully argued book. German Studies Review In his exceptional regional study of the Prussian province of Saxony, Schumann offers a richly detailed analysis of political violence in the Weimar Republic...This is a wordy but methodical and ultimately convincing work of scholarship. Choice Schumann ... calls into question some assumptions, provides interesting nuances, and helps to refine our understanding of the nature of political violence in Weimar Germany. Journal of Modern History ... provides a well-documented, solid narrative and challenging analysis of Weimar's political violence... American Historical Review This] definitive work, rich in source material and analysis, dispels stereotypes of political violence in the Weimar Republic. Historische Zeitschrift The Prussian province of Saxony-where the Communist uprising of March 1921 took place and two Combat Leagues (Wehrverb nde) were founded (the right-wing Stahlhelm and the Social Democratic Reichsbanner) - is widely recognized as a politically important region in this period of German history. Using a case study of this socially diverse province, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of political violence in Weimar Germany with particular emphasis on the political culture from which it emerged. It refutes both the claim that the Bolshevik revolution was the prime cause of violence, and the argument that the First World War's all-encompassing "brutalization" doomed post-1918 German political life from the very beginning. The study thus contributes to a view of the Weimar Republic as a state in severe crisis but with alternatives to the Nazi takeover. Dirk Schumann is Professor of History at Georg-August University, G ttingen. He is the co-editor of Life After Death (2003), Violence and Society after the First World War (first issue of Journal of Modern European History 2003]), Between Mass Death and Individual Loss (2007). Most recently, he has edited Raising Citizens in the "Century of the Child" The United States and German Central Europe in Comparative Perspective (2010).
Author : George Lachmann Mosse
Publisher : Howard Fertig
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 43,12 MB
Release : 1998
Category : Germany
ISBN : 9780865274266
In his classic study of the idealogical sources of National Socialism, George L. Mosse explores a unique complex of anti-democratic ideas deeply embedded in German history. He traces these currents of thought though the 19th and 20th centuries to show how a peculiarly Germanic ideology became institutionalized in the schools, youth movements, veterans' groups and political parties, and how the "German revolution" called for by the ideology's exponents was transformed by Hitler into an "anti-Jewish revolution," and an effective political program as the Nazis rose to power.
Author : Reinbert Krol
Publisher : Transcript Verlag, Roswitha Gost, Sigrid Nokel u. Dr. Karin Werner
Page : 300 pages
File Size : 27,6 MB
Release : 2020-07
Category :
ISBN : 9783837651355
Questions of truth, ethics, state power, and propaganda, of how to render account of catastrophes and reconcile oneself with one's past are not only crucial to our time, they were also central to the German historian Friedrich Meinecke (1862-1954). Probably no generation of historians before Meinecke had lived through more unsettling transformations, during which these questions were most pressing. Reinbert Krol's analysis of Meinecke's intellectual development does not only give us insight into his philosophy of history - which turns out to be more conciliatory than previously assumed - it can also be a source of inspiration for scholars of history today.
Author : Peter Graf Kielmansegg
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 224 pages
File Size : 19,70 MB
Release : 1997-06-13
Category : History
ISBN : 9780521599368
This volume on Hannah Arendt's and Leo Strauss' impact on American political science after 1933 contains essays presented at an international conference held at the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1991. The book explores the influence that Arendt's and Strauss' experiences of inter-war Germany had on their perception of democracy and their judgment of American liberal democracy. Although they represented different political attitudes, both thinkers interpreted the modern American political system as a response to totalitarianism. The contributors analyse how their émigré experience both influenced their American work and also had an impact on the formation of the discipline of political science in postwar Germany. Arendt's and Strauss' experiences thus aptly illustrate the transfer and transformation of political ideas in the World War II era.
Author : Vittorio Hösle
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 301 pages
File Size : 47,55 MB
Release : 2018-12-04
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0691183120
The story of German philosophy from the Middle Ages to today In an accessible narrative that explains complex ideas in clear language, Vittorio Hösle traces the evolution of German philosophy and describes its central influence on other aspects of German culture, including literature, politics, and science, from the Middle Ages to today. A Short History of German Philosophy addresses the philosophical changes brought about by Luther’s Reformation, and then presents a detailed account of German philosophy from Leibniz to Kant; the rise of a new form of humanities; and the German Idealists. The following chapters investigate the collapse of the German synthesis in Schopenhauer, Marx, and Nietzsche. Turning to the twentieth century, the book explores the rise of analytical philosophy; the foundation of the historical sciences; Husserl’s phenomenology and its radical alteration by Heidegger; the Nazi philosophers Gehlen and Schmitt; and the main West German philosophers after 1945. Arguing that there was a distinctive German philosophical tradition from the mid-eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, the book closes by examining why that tradition largely ended in the recent past. A philosophical history remarkable for its scope, brevity, and lucidity, this is an invaluable book for students of philosophy and anyone interested in German intellectual and cultural history.
