Rethinking the Weimar Republic


Book Description

“McElligott's impressive mastery of an enormous body of research guides him on a distinctive path through the dense thickets of Weimar historiography to a provocative new interpretation of the nature of authority in Germany's first democracy.” Sir Ian Kershaw, Emeritus Professor of Modern History at the University of Sheffield, UK This study challenges conventional approaches to the history of the Weimar Republic by stretching its chronological-political parameters from 1916 to 1936, arguing that neither 1918 nor 1933 constituted distinctive breaks in early 20th-century German history. This book: - Covers all of the key debates such as inheritance of the past, the nature of authority and culture - Rethinks topics of traditional concern such as the economy, Article 48, the Nazi vote and political violence - Discusses hitherto neglected areas, such as provincial life and politics, the role of law and Republican cultural politics




The People's Dictatorship


Book Description

In this up-to-date, succinct, and highly readable volume, Alan E. Steinweis presents a new synthesis of the origins, development, and downfall of Nazi Germany. After tracing the intellectual and cultural origins of Nazi ideology, the book recounts the rise and eventual victory of the Nazi movement against the background of the struggling Weimar Republic. The book details the rapid transformation of Germany into a dictatorship, focusing on the interplay of Nazi violence and the readiness of Germans to accommodate themselves to the new regime. Steinweis chronicles Nazi efforts to transform German society into a so-called People's Community, imbued with hyper-nationalism, an authoritarian spirit, Nazi racial doctrine, and antisemitism. The result was less a People's Community than what Steinweis calls a People's Dictatorship – a repressive regime that acted brutally toward the targets of its persecution, its internal opponents, and its foreign enemies even as it enjoyed support across much of German society.




Moderate Modernity


Book Description

A history of "Germany's most modern newspaper" through the rise of the Nazis and the collapse of Germany's first democracy




A Short History of the Weimar Republic


Book Description

It is impossible to understand the history of modern Europe without some knowledge of the Weimar Republic. The brief fourteen-year period of democracy was marked by unstable government, economic crisis and the rise of extremist political movements. Yet at the same time a vibrant cultural scene flourished, which continues to influence the international art world, whether indirectly via the enduring popularity of Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Novels and Bob Fosse's Cabaret, or in more concrete ways through the aesthetics of Expressionism and the Bauhaus movement. Historians have seen the Weimar Republic as a democratic experiment set between the authoritarian monarchism of the Wilhelmine Empire and the tyranny of the Third Reich, but contemporaries were not so pessimistic. While some disparaged the new democratic system and fulminated against Weimar cosmopolitanism and 'decadence', most praised attempts to bring social improvement and the emancipation of women, or celebrated the exciting forays into the avant-garde of Weimar's artistic elite. In the fields of visual art, literature, theatre, cinema, music and architecture - not to mention chemistry, physics and psychology - Germany became a world leader during the 1920s, while her perilous political and economic position ensured that no US or European statesman could afford to ignore her. Weimar Germany was thus much more than merely a cul-de-sac off Germany's difficult 'special path' to modernity, it was a key period in German and European history whose influence continues to be felt. Incorporating original research and a synthesis of the existing historiography, this book will provide students and a general readership with a clear and concise introduction to the history of the first German Republic. It highlights key concepts and themes in the study of German history in general and the Weimar Republic in particular.




The Handbook of European Communication History


Book Description

A groundbreaking handbook that takes a cross-national approach to the media history of Europe of the past 100 years The Handbook of European Communication History is a definitive and authoritative handbook that fills a gap in the literature to provide a coherent and chronological history of mass media, public communication and journalism in Europe from 1900 to the late 20th century. With contributions from teams of scholars and members of the European Communication Research and Education Association, the Handbook explores media innovations, major changes and developments in the media systems that affected public communication, as well as societies and culture. The contributors also examine the general trends of communication history and review debates related to media development. To ensure a transnational approach to the topic, the majority of chapters are written not by a single author but by international teams formed around one or more lead authors. The Handbook goes beyond national perspectives and provides a basis for more cross-national treatments of historical developments in the field of mediated communication. Indeed, this important Handbook: Offers fresh insights on the development of media alongside key differences between countries, regions, or media systems over the past century Takes a fresh, cross-national approach to European media history Contains contributions from leading international scholars in this rapidly evolving area of study Explores the major innovations, key developments, differing trends, and the important debates concerning the media in the European setting Written for students and academics of communication and media studies as well as media professionals, The Handbook of European Communication History covers European media from 1900 with the emergence of the popular press to the professionalization of journalists and the first wave of multimedia with the advent of film and radio broadcasting through the rapid growth of the Internet and digital media since the late 20th century.




Continuity and Crisis in German Cinema, 1928-1936


Book Description

New essays examining the differences and commonalities between late Weimar-era and early Nazi-era German cinema against a backdrop of the crises of that time.




Audiences of Nazism


Book Description

Traces of audience responses to propaganda in the Third Reich are particularly sparse given that the public sphere was so highly regulated. By taking an interdisciplinary and innovative approach to found historical sources of audiences’ responses, the contributions to Audiences of Nazism critically approach the effectiveness of the Nazi media. The volume presents a comprehensive array of case studies including, but not limited to, Jewish responses to anti-Semitic media, personal reports from Nazi party rallies, responses to “degenerate art” exhibitions, and the afterlife of visual documentations of Nazi crimes. It uncovers the target groups of certain Nazi media products; how effective these products were in disseminating propaganda; and their chances to win over readers, listeners, and spectators not yet convinced of Nazism.




News from Germany


Book Description

Heidi Tworek’s innovative history reveals how, across two devastating wars, Germany attempted to build a powerful communication empire—and how the Nazis manipulated the news to rise to dominance in Europe and further their global agenda. When the news became a form of international power, it changed the course of history.




The Oxford Handbook of the Global Stage Musical


Book Description

The stage musical constitutes a major industry not only in the US and the UK, but in many regions of the world. Over the last four decades many countries have developed their own musical theatre industries, not only by importing hit shows from Broadway and London but also by establishing or reviving local traditions of musical theatre. In response to the rapid growth of musical theatre as a global phenomenon, The Oxford Handbook of the Global Stage Musical presents new scholarly approaches to issues arising from these new international markets. The volume examines the stage musical from theoretical and empirical perspectives including concepts of globalization and consumer culture, performance and musicological analysis, historical and cultural studies, media studies, notions of interculturalism and hybridity, gender studies, and international politics. The thirty-three essays investigate major aspects of the global musical, such as the dominance of Western colonialism in its early production and dissemination, racism and sexism--both in representation and in the industry itself--as well as current conflicts between global and local interests in postmodern cultures. Featuring contributors from seventeen countries, the essays offer informed insider perspectives that reflect the diversity of the subject and offer in-depth examinations of specific cultural and economic systems. Together, they conduct penetrating comparative analysis of musical theatre in different contexts as well as a survey of the transcultural spread of musicals.




The Early History of Embodied Cognition 1740-1920


Book Description

This pioneering book evaluates the early history of embodied cognition. It explores for the first time the life-force (Lebenskraft) debate in Germany, which was manifest in philosophical reflection, medical treatise, scientific experimentation, theoretical physics, aesthetic theory, and literary practice esp. 1740-1920. The history of vitalism is considered in the context of contemporary discourses on radical reality (or deep naturalism). We ask how animate matter and cognition arise and are maintained through agent-environment dynamics (Whitehead) or performance (Pickering). This book adopts a nonrepresentational approach to studying perception, action, and cognition, which Anthony Chemero designated radical embodied cognitive science. From early physiology to psychoanalysis, from the microbiome to memetics, appreciation of body and mind as symbiotically interconnected with external reality has steadily increased. Leading critics explore here resonances of body, mind, and environment in medical history (Reil, Hahnemann, Hirschfeld), science (Haller, Goethe, Ritter, Darwin, L. Büchner), musical aesthetics (E.T.A. Hoffmann, Wagner), folklore (Grimm), intersex autobiography (Baer), and stories of crime and aberration (Nordau, Döblin). Science and literature both prove to be continually emergent cultures in the quest for understanding and identity. This book will appeal to intertextual readers curious to know how we come to be who we are and, ultimately, how the Anthropocene came to be.