Imperial Germany 1871-1918: Economy, Society, Culture and Politics

Berghahn's books offers a different way of looking at the German Empire; he offers clear and thorough topical readings on German economy, society and culture and closes his book with a description of how politics worked (or didn't) in Imperial Germany. Other historians tend to write chronologically, but Berghahn chooses differently and, in my humble opinion, this was a good decision, given the breadth of the material offered. Whereas Wolfgang Mommsen puts more stress on the role of the radicalizing middle class in the escalation of German foreign policy with a devastating war as a result, Berghahn paints a more general picture of a German government not being able to contain a pending conflict, while at the same time the interal situation is polarizing.The many statitics in the book were insightful and I am going to enjoy this book in the future as an important reference book.

For those interested in the total picture of industrial age German society in all its aspects, cultural, political and economic, this book (with all its carefully researched references to other authoritative work by others) gives you the early influences on what lead to modern day Germany.It is detailed writing, not an easy read but a worthwhile one.

Well written. Very interesting body of research put together. This author really knows the period well. For all who love German history.

Its great to see this valuable book back in print. This is a concise, combined historical overview and structural analysis of the Wilhelmine state. This book is structured in an unusual way. While it provides the basic narrative history, most of it is devoted to describing the basic features of Imperial Germany and how it changed over the period from its foundation to demise at the end of WWI. Berghahn covers basic demography, economic history, and the structures of politics. Unusually for a historian, Berghahn presents a great deal of the information in tabular form. This allows a more concise presentation. Berghahn is superb on the internal strains of the Wilhelmine state, an odd hybrid of traditional authoritarianism with some democratic elements. How these internal strains contributed to the often reckless foreign policies of Imperial Germany is discussed particularly well. The book concludes with the best concise description and analysis of the outbreak of WWI I've read. Recommended strongly for those interested in modern European history.