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Germany: The Long Road West: Volume 1: 1789-1933
Vivid, succinct, and highly accessible, Heinrich Winkler's magisterial history of modern Germany offers the history of a nation and its people through two turbulent centuries. It is the story of a country that, while always culturally identified with the West, long resisted the political trajectories of its neighbours.This first volume (of two) begins with the origins and consequences of the medieval myth of the 'Reich', which was to experience a fateful renaissance in the twentieth century, and ends with the collapse of the first German democracy. Winkler offers a brilliant synthesis of complex events and illuminates them with fresh insights. He analyses the decisions that shaped the country's triumphs and catastrophes, interweaving high politics with telling vignettes about the German people and their ownself-perception.With a second volume that takes the story up to reunification in 1990, The Long Road West will be welcomed by scholars, students, and anyone wishing to understand this most complex and contradictory of countries.
474 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 12, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 1, 2018
This is the first volume of an English translation of a two-volume political history of Germany from the French Revolution until the reunification of East and West Germany following the end of the Cold War. The focus of this work is the evolution of the idea of Germany as a western nation over the course of its growth from a fragmented seto of small states sharing at most a common language into an progressively more unified entity under Prussia and eventually Bismarck to the drama of two world wars and an extended Cold War.
I will not even begin to summarize the history (seriously?) but found Winkler to be exceptional in explaining the dynamics by which the different actors contributing to what would become Germany interacted with each other at critical times, for example how the various smaller German states, stuck between Prussia and Austria, tried and failed to combine after 1848. The discussion of Bismarck’s internal political strategy is wonderful, as is the discussion of Reichstag political dynamics during the Weimar Republic. This is an extraordinarily complicated history but Winkler at least holds open the possibility of following what is going on at any given time and making some sense of it.
The focus on political dynamics comes with trade offs, however. The richness of external diplomatic interactions does not get the attention it deserves sometimes, for example with Bismarck and the Congress system. Cultural and religious issues also seem downplayed as well, except in some stretches, such as for the Weimar Republic. More on interwar economics and inflation would have been helpful, but that would have made a complicated portion even more complex. Overall, I thought the author did what he could short of crafting a multi volume epic.
There were also some editorial shortcoming that got in the way sometimes. For example, the book is organized into a relatively small number of chapters, with subsections where needed. This leads to some long stretches of text where one is hoping for a break - such as with the Weimar Republic being covered in one very long chapter. The publisher could also have spent a little bit more on proofreading and typo correction. It reads better than Hegel, but I am just saying ...
The second volume picks up with the rise to power of Hitler. I may need to do push-ups in anticipation but I am looking forward to tackling it.
I will not even begin to summarize the history (seriously?) but found Winkler to be exceptional in explaining the dynamics by which the different actors contributing to what would become Germany interacted with each other at critical times, for example how the various smaller German states, stuck between Prussia and Austria, tried and failed to combine after 1848. The discussion of Bismarck’s internal political strategy is wonderful, as is the discussion of Reichstag political dynamics during the Weimar Republic. This is an extraordinarily complicated history but Winkler at least holds open the possibility of following what is going on at any given time and making some sense of it.
The focus on political dynamics comes with trade offs, however. The richness of external diplomatic interactions does not get the attention it deserves sometimes, for example with Bismarck and the Congress system. Cultural and religious issues also seem downplayed as well, except in some stretches, such as for the Weimar Republic. More on interwar economics and inflation would have been helpful, but that would have made a complicated portion even more complex. Overall, I thought the author did what he could short of crafting a multi volume epic.
There were also some editorial shortcoming that got in the way sometimes. For example, the book is organized into a relatively small number of chapters, with subsections where needed. This leads to some long stretches of text where one is hoping for a break - such as with the Weimar Republic being covered in one very long chapter. The publisher could also have spent a little bit more on proofreading and typo correction. It reads better than Hegel, but I am just saying ...
The second volume picks up with the rise to power of Hitler. I may need to do push-ups in anticipation but I am looking forward to tackling it.
October 10, 2018
An accessible read which proposes that German history is separate from that of thenother European states thanks to the medieval concept of 'Reich'. Proponents of Reich desired more than an average nation-state, or even a Greater Germany, but rather a whole European system dominated by German power and Kultur. Thus whilst 1933 was not inevitable, the conservative ruling elite was seduced by Hitler's promises of Reich in a way that Western Europeans could not have been. As with most Sonderweg works, however, Winkler's suffers from a lack of comparison. How does Reich compare, for example, with Napolenic and Gaullist desires for Grandeur?
Quotes:
1.
“By the eve of Hitler’s ascension to power, the German people were not only weary of the democracy of 1918-33, but also dissatisfied with the ‘Little German’ national state of 1871. Educated Germans were fascinated with the idea of am empire that included Austria and controlled central Europe.” (2)
2.
“To the question of how Germany could be liberalized and unified at the same time, the democrats and socialists had no answer. The leftist call to a pan-European war of national liberation was an expression of German intellectual wishful thinking, uninformed by any consideration of the try balance of power... consequently, it was blind to the human costs of the desperado politics it espoused.” (116)
3.
“German political culture paid a disastrously heavy price for the failure of the liberals and democrats to achieve their goals of unity and liberty by their own power. The authoritarian deformities of German political consciousness persisted and were reinforced.” (117)
4.
“Educated Germany celebrated the country’s belatedly achieved national unity. The containing absence of the political liberties for which liberals had fought before 1871 was not something the majority of Germans felt to be a lack. German liberalism had failed.” (238)
5.
“Among educated Germans, the concept of the Reich had already attained new- albeit only abstract- greatness in the years before 1933... in their view, the Reich was something higher than the republic. It was also something more than the Bismarck empire of 1871, which had been humiliated and decimated by the forces of the Entente in 1919. It was more than one state among other states.” (491)
6.
“ ‘The Reich' stood for a European order determined by Germany, and as such was the German answer to the revolutions and ideas of 1789 and 1917.” (493)
Quotes:
1.
“By the eve of Hitler’s ascension to power, the German people were not only weary of the democracy of 1918-33, but also dissatisfied with the ‘Little German’ national state of 1871. Educated Germans were fascinated with the idea of am empire that included Austria and controlled central Europe.” (2)
2.
“To the question of how Germany could be liberalized and unified at the same time, the democrats and socialists had no answer. The leftist call to a pan-European war of national liberation was an expression of German intellectual wishful thinking, uninformed by any consideration of the try balance of power... consequently, it was blind to the human costs of the desperado politics it espoused.” (116)
3.
“German political culture paid a disastrously heavy price for the failure of the liberals and democrats to achieve their goals of unity and liberty by their own power. The authoritarian deformities of German political consciousness persisted and were reinforced.” (117)
4.
“Educated Germany celebrated the country’s belatedly achieved national unity. The containing absence of the political liberties for which liberals had fought before 1871 was not something the majority of Germans felt to be a lack. German liberalism had failed.” (238)
5.
“Among educated Germans, the concept of the Reich had already attained new- albeit only abstract- greatness in the years before 1933... in their view, the Reich was something higher than the republic. It was also something more than the Bismarck empire of 1871, which had been humiliated and decimated by the forces of the Entente in 1919. It was more than one state among other states.” (491)
6.
“ ‘The Reich' stood for a European order determined by Germany, and as such was the German answer to the revolutions and ideas of 1789 and 1917.” (493)
July 31, 2022
A masterpiece. Essential for anyone interested in modern German history and especially the problem of Sonderweg. Winkler himself calls this a 'problem history', centered around this very issue.
The nineteenth-century portion heavily discusses the relation between nation and state and between unity and liberty. And although it starts at the end of 18th century, it also includes a discussion on the origins of the divisions - the confessional divide, the accumulation of sovereignty at territorial level and the Austro-Prussian antagonism - which so effectively obstructed German national and political centralization and unification.
Probably the best history book on Germany I have ever read. This is no light stuff and quite detailed, but easily merits multiple re-readings.
The nineteenth-century portion heavily discusses the relation between nation and state and between unity and liberty. And although it starts at the end of 18th century, it also includes a discussion on the origins of the divisions - the confessional divide, the accumulation of sovereignty at territorial level and the Austro-Prussian antagonism - which so effectively obstructed German national and political centralization and unification.
Probably the best history book on Germany I have ever read. This is no light stuff and quite detailed, but easily merits multiple re-readings.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews