Imperial Germany 1850-1918 - Softcover

Imperial Germany focuses on the domestic political developments of the period, putting them into context through a balanced guide to the economic and social background, culture and foreign policy. This important study explores the tensions caused within an empire which was formed through war, against the prevailing liberal spirit of the age and poses many questions among them: * Was the desire to unify Germany the cause of the aggressive foreign policy leading to the First World War? * To what extent was Bismarck's Second Reich the forerunner of Hitler's Third? * Did Bismarck's authoritarian rule permanently hinder the political development of Germany? Recent debates raised by German scholarship are made accessible to English speaking readers, and the book summarises the important controversies and competing interpretations of imperial German history.

Edgar Feutchwanger was born in Munich, studied at Cambridge and taught at the University of Southampton. His manin areas of research, writing and teaching are modenr German history and the political history of Victorian Britain. His major publications include: Prussia: Myth and Reality (1972); From Weimar ot Hitler: Germany 1918-33 (2nd ed, 1995), Democracy and Empire: Britain 1865-1914