From the Berlin Museum to the Berlin Wall: Essays on the Cultural and Political History of Modern Germany

(Hardback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

These essays by nine distinguished historians deal with eleven personalities - eight German, one Dutch, one English and one American - in German history over the last two centuries; and they are dominated by two themes. First, they trace the growth and flowering of German culture in areas like print and architecture and painting and how this transformed relationships and procedures in everyday life. Second, they follow the rise of a political conscisousness on the part of the Germans, and the consequences this consciousness had for nationalism in the 19th and 20th centuries. In throwing light on the art of Schinkel and Liebermann, on the undertakings of Lichtwark, on the policies of Bismarck, and on the ordeals of Rathenau and Hitler and Beck and Faulhaber and Brandt and Kennedy, these nine essays offer a salutary guidepost to a past that is as rich as it is terrifying.

Reviews

"The book connects such unlikely characters as Schinkel, Bismarck, and Kennedy by integrating the twin themes of culture and politics. It's a good read and delivers on its promise."-Herbert F. Ziegler, Professor of History University of Hawaii at Manoa

Author Bio

DAVID WETZEL works in Administration at the University of California, Berkeley.