The peculiarities of German history : bourgeois society and politics in nineteenth-century Germany

Bibliographic Information

The peculiarities of German history : bourgeois society and politics in nineteenth-century Germany

by David Blackbourn and Geoff Eley

Oxford University Press, c1984

  • : hard
  • : pbk

Other Title

Mythen deutscher Geschichtsschreibung

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Note

Rev. and expanded translation of the authors' Mythen deutscher Geschichtsschreibung

Bibliography: p. [293]-294

Includes index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

This book investigates the role of bourgeoisie society and the political developments of the nineteenth century in the peculiarities of German history. Most historians attribute German exceptionalism to the failure or absence of bourgeois revolution in German history and the failure of the bourgeoisie to conquer the pre-industrial traditions of authoritarianism. However, this study finds that there was a bourgeois revolution in Germany, though not the traditional type. This so-called silent bourgeois revolution brought about the emergence and consolidation of the capitalist system based on the sanctity and disposability of private property and on production to meet individual needs through a system of exchange dominated by the market. In this connection, this book proposes a redefinition of the concept of bourgeois revolution to denote a broader pattern of material, institutional, legal, and intellectual changes whose cumulative effect was all the more powerful for coming to be seen as natural.

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