The German Right, 1918-1930


Book Description

The failure of the Weimar Republic and the rise of National Socialism remains one of the most challenging problems of twentieth-century European history. The German Right, 1918-1930 sheds new light on this problem by examining the role that the non-Nazi Right played in the destabilization of Weimar democracy in the period before the emergence of the Nazi Party as a mass party of middle-class protest. Larry Eugene Jones identifies a critical divide within the German Right between those prepared to work within the framework of Germany's new republican government and those irrevocably committed to its overthrow. This split was only exacerbated by the course of German economic development in the 1920s, leaving the various organizations that comprised the German Right defenceless against the challenge of National Socialism. At no point was the disunity of the non-Nazi Right in the face of Nazism more apparent than in the September 1930 Reichstag elections.




Stresemann and the DNVP


Book Description




Status and the Challenge of Rising Powers


Book Description

Argues that rising powers challenge international order when their status ambitions seem to be unjustly and permanently blocked.




Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy


Book Description

How do democracies form and what makes them die? Daniel Ziblatt revisits this timely and classic question in a wide-ranging historical narrative that traces the evolution of modern political democracy in Europe from its modest beginnings in 1830s Britain to Adolf Hitler's 1933 seizure of power in Weimar Germany. Based on rich historical and quantitative evidence, the book offers a major reinterpretation of European history and the question of how stable political democracy is achieved. The barriers to inclusive political rule, Ziblatt finds, were not inevitably overcome by unstoppable tides of socioeconomic change, a simple triumph of a growing middle class, or even by working class collective action. Instead, political democracy's fate surprisingly hinged on how conservative political parties - the historical defenders of power, wealth, and privilege - recast themselves and coped with the rise of their own radical right. With striking modern parallels, the book has vital implications for today's new and old democracies under siege.




Gustav Stresemann


Book Description

Gustav Stresemann was the exceptional political figure of his time. His early death in 1929 has long been viewed as the beginning of the end for the Weimar Republic and the opening through which Hitler was able to come to power. His career was marked by many contradictions but also a pervading loyalty to the values of liberalism and nationalism. This enabled him in time both to adjust to defeat and revolution and to recognize in the Republic the only basis on which Germans could unite, and in European cooperation the only way to avoid a new war. His attempt to build a stable Germany as an equal power in a stable Europe throws an important light on German history in a critical time. Hitler was the beneficiary of his failure but, so long as he was alive, Stresemann offered Germans a clear alternative to the Nazis. Jonathan Wright's fascinating new study is the first modern biography of Stresemann to appear in English or German.




Germany 1919-45


Book Description

A study of Germany between 1919 and 1945 for AS and A Level History students. It is designed to fulfil the AS and A Level specifications in place from September 2000. The two AS sections deal with narrative and explanation of the topic. There are extra notes, biography boxes and definitions in the margin, and summary boxes to help students assimilate the information. The A2 section reflects the different demands of the higher level examination by concentrating on analysis and historians' interpretations of the material covered in the AS sections. There are practice questions and hints and tips on what makes a good answer.




The Pan-German League and Radical Nationalist Politics in Interwar Germany, 1918-39


Book Description

Through an examination of the Pan-German League - one of Germany's most prominent radical nationalist groups - and its connections to a range of right-wing organizations between 1918 and 1939, this study provides important new insights into the political fragmentation of the German Right and the Nazi seizure of power. It is the first book to examine in detail the Pan-German League's political activities in the Weimar and Nazi periods. Unlike existing studies that focus primarily on the League's ideology and public pronouncements, this book analyzes the organization's political connections with other prominent right-wing groups. Specifically, it explores Pan-German efforts to reshape the landscape of right-wing politics in the wake of German defeat in World War One and details how the League's actions undermined moderate conservatives and helped to radicalize Germany's largest conservative party, the German National People's Party (DNVP), at the local and national level. The book also sheds new light on the surprisingly contentious relationship between the Pan-Germans and the Nazi Party between 1920 and 1939. This study of the Pan-German League fits with more recent scholarship that emphasizes the political fragmentation of the German Right as an important precondition for the ultimate triumph of Hitler and Nazism in 1933. It will attract readers with an interest not only in the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany, but also wider issues of German/Central European history, radical nationalism, conservative and right-wing party politics, and the general political history of interwar Europe.




Mothers of the Nation


Book Description

Annotation Explores the role of right-wing women in the Nazi rise to power.




Diplomacy's Value


Book Description

What is the value of diplomacy? How does it affect the course of foreign affairs independent of the distribution of power and foreign policy interests? Theories of international relations too often implicitly reduce the dynamics and outcomes of diplomacy to structural factors rather than the subtle qualities of negotiation. If diplomacy is an independent effect on the conduct of world politics, it has to add value, and we have to be able to show what that value is. In Diplomacy's Value, Brian C. Rathbun sets forth a comprehensive theory of diplomacy, based on his understanding that political leaders have distinct diplomatic styles—coercive bargaining, reasoned dialogue, and pragmatic statecraft.Drawing on work in the psychology of negotiation, Rathbun explains how diplomatic styles are a function of the psychological attributes of leaders and the party coalitions they represent. The combination of these styles creates a certain spirit of negotiation that facilitates or obstructs agreement. Rathbun applies the argument to relations among France, Germany, and Great Britain during the 1920s as well as Palestinian-Israeli negotiations since the 1990s. His analysis, based on an intensive analysis of primary documents, shows how different diplomatic styles can successfully resolve apparently intractable dilemmas and equally, how they can thwart agreements that were seemingly within reach.




Germany, 1858-1990


Book Description

Specially written for the AS/A2 examinations, this book combines extended period cover with detailed focus on exam board-selected topics. The lively, accessible text is supplemented by Spotlights, providing detailed study of sources on key issues and topics, and Document Exercises, which offer opportunities for assessment and exam practice. Covering almost 150 years between unification and reunification, with a particular emphasis on the interwar years, the text encourages students to think for themselves around the issues that have affected German history during this period and to consider important historical debates and controversies.