The turbulent history of Germany up to World War II has its roots in a thousand years, from the coronation of Charlemagne in C. E. 800 to hegemony and the subsequent foundation of medieval Germany, to the rise of Prussian power under Bismarck. Geoffrey Barraclough's classic work of hisoriography deals with this complex millennium with unmatched authority and depth of knowledge.

"No one is likely to underrate the imporortance for the rest of Europe—and, indeed, for world history—of the German reaction, beginning in the days of Bismarck, to the crisis of modern industrial capitalism," writes Professor Barraclough, "but the peculiar character of that reaction is only comprehensible in the light of Germany's past. Factors deeply rooted in German history . . . constituted an iron framework, a mold within which were cast all German efforts, from 1870 to 1939, to cope with the problems of modern capitalist society."

During the age of Romanticism and revolt the trauma of the French Revolution worked itself out in the texture of the developments stimulated by the Industrial Revolution, though the solutions formulated by contemporaries were put to the test at a later period and were realized. if at all, in a manner very different from the one originally envisaged.

Contents Include:

Preface I. The Intellectual Climate II. The Political and Social Environment III. The French Revolution and the European Reaction IV. The Indian Summer of Enlightened Despotism V. The Victory of Reaction