Seminar Questions:

• How United was the German Empire?

• Who ruled Imperial Germany?

• How did Bismarck fit into (and see himself in relation to) German history?

Reading List:

Required Reading:

• Katherine Anne Lerman, "Bismarckian Germany" in James Retallack (ed.), Imperial Germany, 1871-1918 (OUP, 2008), pp. 18-39
• Matthew Jeffries, Contesting the German Empire, 1871-1918 (Blackwell, 2008), Chapter 2

Primary Sources:

• Extract from Otto von Bismarck's "Blood and Iron" speech (1862)
• The Anti-Jesuit Law (July 1872)
• The Anti-Socialist Law 
• Bismarck's 'Dictatorship'

Overviews of the Bismarckian period:

• Bismarck Podcast - Richard J Evans, Christopher Clark, and Katharine Lerman discuss Bismarck's life and legacy.
• David G. Williamson, Bismarck and Germany, 1862-1890 (3rd Edition) (Routledge, 2014)
• Martin Kitchen, A History of Modern Germany: 1800 to the Present (2012), Chapter 7 'Bismarck's Germany'
• James Retallack, Germany's Second Reich: Portraits and Pathways (2015), Chapter 1 'Forging and Empire: Economy, Society, Culture and Politics 1866-1890'
• David Blackbourn, A History of Germany, 1780-1918: The Long Nineteenth Century (OUP, 2003), pp. 235-347
• Otto Pflanze, Bismarck and the Development of Germany, Vol. 1 (1990)
• Otto Pflanze, Bismarck and the Development of Germany, Vol. 2: The Period of Consolidation, 1871-1880 (2014)
• Otto Pflanze, Bismarck and the Development of Germany, Vol. 3: The Period of Fortification, 1880-1898 (2014)
• James F. Brophy 'Bismarckian Germany: State Structure and Political Culture' in John Breuilly, Ninetenth-Century Germany: Politics, Culture and Society, 1780-1918 (Arnold, 2001)
  
• Katharine A. Lerman, 'Bismarckian Germany and the structure of the German empire' in Mary Fulbrook (ed.) German History since 1800 (1997)

Biographies of Bismarck:

• Katherine Lerman, Bismarck (Taylor and Francis, 2004), especially Chapter 5.
• Jonathan Steinberg, Bismarck: A Life (OUP, 2011)
• Edgar Feuchtwanger, Bismarck: A Political History (Taylor & Francis, 2014), especially Chapters 9 & 10
• Lothar Gall, Bismarck: The White Revolutionary (Allen & Unwin, 1986), 2 volumes.

Elections, Parties and Democratization:

• Margaret L. Anderson, Practicing Democracy: Elections and Political Culture in Imperial Germany (Princeton UP, 2000).
• A. Mitchell, ‘Bonapartism as a Model of Bismarckian Politics’, Journal of Modern History (1977), Vol. 49, No. 4 pp. 181-209
• E. L. Evans, The German Center Party 1870-1933 (1981)
• James Retallack, Red Saxony: Election Battles and the Spectre of Democracy in Germany, 1860-1918 (2017)
• James Retallack, The German Right 1860-1920 (University of Toronto Press, 2016)
• Thomas Kühne, “Political Culture and Democratization” in Retallack (ed.), Imperial Germany, 1871-1918 (OUP, 2008), 174-193.
• W. Guttsman, The German Social Democratic Party 1875-1933 (1981)
• James J. Sheehan, German liberalism in the Nineteenth Century (Uni. Chicago Press, 1978), pp. 123-220
• Dieter Langewiesche, Liberalism in Germany, trans Christiane Banerji (Princeton UP, 2000).
• Daniel Ziblatt, Conservative Parties and the birth of Modern Democracy in Europe (Cambridge, 2017)

The Kulturkampf and Confessional Life:

• M.B. Gross, 'Kulturkampf and Unification: German Liberalism and the War against the Jesuits', Central European History (1997), Vol. 30, No. 4, pp. 545-66
• Margaret Lavinia Anderson, ‘The Kulturkampf and the Course of German History’, Central European History, Vol. 19, No. 1 (March 1986), pp. 82-115.
• Todd Weir, Secularism and Religion in Nineteenth-Century Germany: The Rise of the Fourth Confession (Cambridge, 2014)
• Christopher Clark, 'Religion and Confessional Conflict' in Retallack (ed.), Imperial Germany, 1871-1918 (OUP, 2008)
• David Blackbourn, Marpingen: apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Bismarckian Germany (Clarendon, 1993)
• Robin Judd, Contested Rituals: Circumcision, Kosher Butchering, and Jewish Political Life in Germany, 1843-1933 (Cornell UP, 2007), pp. 58-95; 106-121.
• Marion A. Kaplan, The making of the Jewish middle class: women, family, and identity in Imperial Germany (OUP, 1991)

Social and Cultural Histories:

• Celia Applegate 'Culture and the Arts' in Retallack (ed.), Imperial Germany, 1871-1918 (OUP, 2008)
• David Blackbourn and Richard Evans (eds), The German Bourgeoisie (Routledge, 1991).
• Geoff Eley, Society, culture and the state in Germany, 1870-1930 (1996)
• R. Evans, ‘Liberalism and Society: The Feminist Movement and Social Change’, in Evans (ed.), Society and Politics in Wilhelmine Germany, (Barnes & Noble, 1978): 186-214.
• Brett Fairbairn, 'Economic and Social Developments' in James Retallack (ed.), Imperial Germany, 1871-1918 (OUP, 2008)
• Jean-Michel Johnston, 'The Telegraphic Revolution: Speed, Space and Time in the Nineteenth Century', German History, Volume 38, Issue 1, March 2020, Pages 47-76

Nationalism and Identity:

• Helmut Walser Smith, "Nation and Nationalism" in Jonathan Sperber (ed.), Germany 1800-1871 (OUP, 2004), pp. 230-255
• Helmut Walser Smith, Germany: A Nation in its Time Before, During and after Nationalism, 1500-2000 (2020)
• John Breuilly, Austria, Prussia and the Making of Germany, 1806-1871 (Palgrave, 2011)
• William Hagen, Germans, Poles and Jews: The Nationality Conflict in the Prussian East, 1772-1914 (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1980).
• Abigail Green, Fatherlands: State-building and nationhood in nineteenth-century Germany (Cambridge, 2001)
• Brendan Jeffrey Karch , Nation and loyalty in a German-Polish borderland: Upper Silesia, 1848-1960 (Cambridge, 2018)