The Peculiarities of German History: Bourgeois Society and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Germany 1st Edition

The two reviews here are obviously by undergraduates of limited capacity, likely a result of their inability to comprehend any essay beyond 140 characters. I rarely write non-professional reviews, but I am making an exception in this case. I only came here looking for bibliographical information, and was appalled at a) the price (seriously OUPUSA? 57 USD?) and b) what passed for reviews. If you cannot understand the book, that is your fault. You have clearly wasted a perfectly good seat in a university classroom that should have gone to someone with a better mind and a more keen sense of curiosity.So what is the value of this book? What makes it a starting point for every serious scholar of Modern German (nay, even Modern European) history? It is simply this: these two essays make good use of the classical rhetorical strategy of turning a question on its head and evaluating the outcome. The standard question for many years in European history was, "Where did Germany go wrong?" The standard answer (in different forms) was "Germany somehow deviated in its development as a modern, liberal-democratic capitalist state." Blackbourn and Eley (in slightly different approaches) ask the bold question, "Was there _any_ state that followed a 'normal' path of liberal-democratic capitalist development?" The short answer is no, and if read carefully, this book turns inside out a standard narrative of Western Europe (i.e. after the Enlightenment, states developed into capitalist states which encouraged the growth of liberal-democratic governments and a fading of the traditional noble class by the end of the nineteenth century). Blackbourn and Eley, with careful use of evidence, point out that this 'normal development' never actually occurred anywhere. Any book you read by contemporary historians of Modern Europe owes an intellectual debt to this text. Sure, it has some flaws, but they are few, and these two essays have stood the test of time. That is why they are still assigned reading thirty years later, even if they are occasionally cast as pearls before swine.

This book is a very important counter argument to the Sonderweg thesis and should be read by anyone wishing to understand why Germany ended up with a leader like Hitler.However, while this book is incredibly important it's just unreadable. The authors use evidence and other information from the English and French revolutions to back up their point and sometimes its difficult for the reader to grasp if this book is about Germany or France and England. This book should be classified as one of the "really bad books" that despite being absolutely a wretched read is important for a historian to have on their shelf.

This book was terrible. The writing was simply dreadful and is not conducive to understanding the author's thesis. Good luck to anyone who has to read this for class, you are going to need it.