Imperial Germany, 1871–1918: Short Oxford History of Germany.Edited by James Retallack. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2008.Pp. 333. Paper $34.00. ISBN 978-0199204878.

摘要

Modern, confident to the point of arrogance, divided by class, and graceless innits tragic demise—this is how contemporaries described the Titanic as it sank tonthe ocean floor on the night of April 14, 1912. It is also James Retallack’s meta-nphor for Imperial Germany, which he sees as a dynamic society and a powerfulnstate riven by dissension, plagued by contradiction, as creative as it was crass andnheedless, utterly intent on proving itself to the world, and monumentallynunlucky. As any well-buttoned professor will point out, a metaphor is not yetna theory, but it is nevertheless true that an image both allows and shuts offnanalytical possibilities. This is an imperial Germany both authoritarian andnmodern, but not one in perpetual crisis, or self-mobilized from below, ornhell-bent on a forward leap into the abyss. These last three theories have, ofncourse, been immensely fruitful for the profession, generating new scholarlynliterature, encouraging polemics, if also polarizing historians into one or thenother camp. But it is arguable that Retallack’s image conjures for us a picturenthat gets closer to the heart of what was great and terrible about Germany innthe half century after its foundation in 1871.