Germany's imperial era (1871-1918) continues to attract both scholars and the general public alike. The American historian Roger Chickering has referred to the historiography on the Kaiserreich as an 'extraordinary body of historical scholarship', whose quality and diversity stands comparison with that of any other episode in European history. This Companion is a significant addition to this body of scholarship with the emphasis very much on the present and future. Questions of continuity remain a vital and necessary line of historical enquiry and while it may have been short-lived, the Kaiserreich remains central to modern German and European history. The volume allows 25 experts, from across the globe, to write at length about the state of research in their own specialist fields, offering original insights as well as historiographical reflections, and rounded off with extensive suggestions for further reading. The chapters are grouped into five thematic sections, chosen to reflect the full range of research being undertaken on imperial German history today and together offer a comprehensive and authoritative reference resource. Overall this collection will provide scholars and students with a lively take on this fascinating period of German history, from the nation's unification in 1871 right up until the end of World War I.

It is a popular misconception that Hamburg is a coastal city. In fact, despite possessing Europe s second-busiest port, this 'amphibious city' lies some 65 miles from the North Sea. Its long-standing image as a 'city without culture' is also something of a myth. When the poet Heine remarked that in Hamburg 'the customs are English', he was referring to its no-nonsense mercantile ethos which dates back to the era of the Hanseatic League. Yet even in Heine s day the 'celebrated philistinism' of the city fathers was balanced by a tradition of private philanthropy: Hamburg has long been a city of culture as well as commerce. Although the traumas of twentieth-century German history are never far from the surface, Hamburg has become an attractive city full of colour and contrast. With a population of nearly two million it is one of the largest cities in the European Union not to enjoy the status of a national capital. Above all, as Germany s gateway to the world , it is a cosmopolitan city, whose culture has been shaped by those passing through as much as by those who stayed. Matthew Jefferies explores a city-state boasting the highest per capita GDP in Germany, but where ostentatious displays of wealth are shunned; a place synonymous with fast food and beer, in which fine dining and luxury shopping abound; a city without palaces, castles or cathedrals, yet bursting with monuments and memorials. With nearly eight million overnight visitors each year, Hamburg is fast becoming one of Europe's most popular city-break destinations: it is a city well worth getting to know. CITY OF WATER AND FIRE: the Elbe, the Alster, and more bridges (around 2,500) than Venice and Amsterdam combined; a city devastated by the 'Great Fire' of 1842 and the Allied 'firestorm' of July 1943, but twice rebuilt anew. CITY OF BRICK AND NEON: the Speicherstadt 'warehouse city'; Fritz Hoger's expressionist Chilehaus; and Fritz Schumacher's vision of a 'liveable metropolis'; St. Pauli, the Reeperbahn and the Beatles. THE WORLD CITY: Hamburg's colonial past; embarkation point for millions of European migrants to the New World; and home to the 'father of the modern zoo'.

Folk dancer, forester, poet and visionary, Rolf Gardiner (1902-71) is both a compelling and troubling figure in the history of twentieth-century Britain. While he is celebrated as a pioneer of organic farming and co-founder of the Soil Association, Gardiner's organicist outlook was not confined to agriculture alone. Convinced that a healthy culture and society could only flourish when it was rooted in the soil, Gardiner sought national regeneration too. One of the most colourful and controversial figures of the interwar period, Gardiner believed Britain's future lay not with its doomed empire, but in ever closer union with its 'kin folk, kin tongued' neighbours in Germany, the Netherlands and Scandinavia. Fascinated by the Weimar Republic's myriad youth leagues and life reform movements, Gardiner became an important conduit between North Sea and Baltic. Yet while an enthusiasm for hiking, nudism, folk dancing and voluntary labour camps must have appeared harmlessly eccentric to many in 1920s Britain, by the late-1930s Gardiner's continued engagement with Germany was to have altogether darker connotations. This volume, which brings together seven scholars currently working on different aspects of Gardiner's life and work, eschews a straightforwardly biographical approach and instead focuses on the decades when he was at his most dynamic and radical. Situating Gardiner within the wider political and cultural contexts of the interwar years and exploring youth culture, the origins of the organic movement, Anglo-German relations and British cultural history, it is an essential addition to modern history libraries.

Germany's imperial era (1871-1918) continues to attract both scholars and the general public alike. The American historian Roger Chickering has referred to the historiography on the Kaiserreich as an 'extraordinary body of historical scholarship', whose quality and diversity stands comparison with that of any other episode in European history. This Companion is a significant addition to this body of scholarship with the emphasis very much on the present and future. Questions of continuity remain a vital and necessary line of historical enquiry and while it may have been short-lived, the Kaiserreich remains central to modern German and European history. The volume allows 25 experts, from across the globe, to write at length about the state of research in their own specialist fields, offering original insights as well as historiographical reflections, and rounded off with extensive suggestions for further reading. The chapters are grouped into five thematic sections, chosen to reflect the full range of research being undertaken on imperial German history today and together offer a comprehensive and authoritative reference resource. Overall this collection will provide scholars and students with a lively take on this fascinating period of German history, from the nation's unification in 1871 right up until the end of World War I.

As Germany's "gateway to the world," Hamburg is a cosmopolitan city, whose culture has been shaped by those passing through as much as by those who stayed. Matthew Jefferies explores a city-state boasting the highest per capita GDP in Germany, but where ostentatious displays of wealth are shunned; a place synonymous with fast food and beer, in which fine dining and luxury shopping abound; a city without palaces, castles or cathedrals, yet bursting with monuments and memorials. With nearly eight million visitors each year, Hamburg is fast becoming one of Europe's most popular city-break destinations: it is a city well worth getting to know.

Written against the backdrop of a lively and ongiong debate on the relative modernity of the Kaiserreich, this book explores the relationship between politics and culture in turn-of-the-century Germany through the unusual medium of industrial architecture, which for a time brought together the disparate worlds of politics, art and commerce. It focuses in particular on the efforts of reformers to improve the quality and character of the industrial workplace during the period when Germany was overtaking the UK as Europe's leading manufacturing power. While the book should be of interest to all students of Wilhelmine history, its interdisciplinary approach and topicality in the light of modern society's increasing concern with health, safety and environmental issues should also attract a wider readership.

This book fills a huge and long-standing gap in the scholarly literature available for teaching the Second Reich. This highly-illustrated book provides a lively introduction to the principal movements in German high culture between 1871 and 1918, in the context of imperial society and politics. Matthew Jefferies reveals that Germany's "Imperial culture" was every bit as fascinating as the much better known"Weimar culture"of the 1920s and argues that much of what came later has origins in the imperial period. Filling a significant gap in the current literature, this study will appeal to students of both German History and German Studies.