The German Social Democratic Party was the world's first million-strong political party and was the main force pushing for the democratisation of Imperial Germany before the First World War. This book examines the themes around which the party organized its mainly working-class membership, and analyses the experiences and outlook of rank-and-file party members as well as the party's press and publications. Key topics of inquiry include: the Lassalle cult and leadership, nationalism and internationalism, attitudes to work, the politics of subsistence, the effects of military service, reading and the diffusion of Marx's ideas, cultural organisations, and socialism and republicanism under the Imperial German state. Through these various avenues, Bonnell explores the remarkable degree to which the party successfully addressed workers' everyday concerns while also offering the prospect of a better future.

How did the catastrophic development of antisemitism in Germany interact with the portrayal of Shylock on the German stage? Here Andrew Bonnell gives us the first cultural history of this tragic character from Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" as performed on the German stage from the late eighteenth century to the end of World War II. In addition to analysing the performances of the most famous German actors in the role from 1777 to 1944, "Shylock in Germany" looks at the rising and falling popularity of "The Merchant of Venice" across Germany in this period, and the extent to which the role's history reflects changes in the situation of Jews in Germany and Austria.It follows the evolution of Shylock in nineteenth century and Imperial Germany, from the formative years of the modern German theatre as a cultural (and civic) institution; through the Weimar Republic, an epoch remembered for innovation and experiment, but also a period marked by an estrangement between an aggressively modernist metropolitan culture and a provincial cultural life which clung more to continuity; and, finally, considers the impact of the Nazi period with its murderous state-ordained antisemitism. Shylock's career in Germany after 1933 was neither as conspicuous nor as unambiguous as one might expect. Using archival research and drawing on much primary source material, Bonnell does not confine the book to theatre history only - but instead uses the changing portrayal of Shylock to analyse German cultural attitudes towards Jews over time.

Robert Michels (1876-1936) is best known for his 1911 book Political Parties, which is still a standard reference in political science debates. Michels' work sought to prove an "iron law of oligarchy" that governs the organisational evolution of democratic political parties. The work was closely informed by Michels' engagement with the German Social Democratic Party in the early 1900s, his involvement in radical politics in France and Italy in this period, and by his interest in a range of intellectual and social movements - including feminism, nationalism, racial theory, and the emerging disciplines of sociology and political science. Using archival and printed sources hitherto overlooked in work on Michels, this new study contests previous arguments which have sought to explain Michels as a disillusioned adherent of ideas of direct democracy or as an extremist moving from revolutionary syndicalism to fascism. The biographical and intellectual influences on Michels are shown to be more complex, and more transnational, than such schematic explanations have allowed. Andrew Bonnell sheds new light on Michels' relationship with the German Social Democratic Party and on his understanding of his own role as an intellectual in a workers' party. Bonnell also analyses Michels' problematical relationship with revolutionary syndicalism in France and Italy. Michels was connected to a possibly uniquely diverse network of intellectual and political contacts in pre-1914 Europe. This transnational intellectual history illuminates the intellectual worlds in which Michels moved and presents a new interpretation of his shift from the radical left of the spectrum to Italian fascism, an intellectual itinerary which has intrigued many historians.

How did the catastrophic development of antisemitism in Germany interact with the portrayal of Shylock on the German stage? Andrew Bonnell provides the first cultural history of this tragic character from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, as performed on the German stage from the late eighteenth century to the end of the Second World War. In addition to analysing the performances of the most famous German actors in the role from 1777 to 1944, Shylock in Germany looks at the rising and falling popularity of The Merchant of Venice across Germany in this period, and the extent to which the role's history reflects changes in the situation of Jews in Germany and Austria. It follows the evolution of Shylock in nineteenth century and Imperial Germany, from the formative years of the modern German theatre as a cultural (and civic) institution; through the Weimar Republic, an epoch remembered for innovation and experiment, but also a period marked by an estrangement between an aggressively modernist metropolitan culture and a provincial cultural life which clung more to continuity; and, finally, considers the impact of the Nazi period with its murderous state-ordained antisemitism. Shylock's career in Germany after 1933 was neither as conspicuous nor as unambiguous as one might expect. Using archival research and drawing on much primary source material, Bonnell does not confine the book to theatre history only, but instead uses the changing portrayal of Shylock to analyse German cultural attitudes towards Jews over time.