Germany and 'The West' The History of a Modern Concept [Hardcover]

The West is a central idea in German public discourse, yet historians know surprisingly little about the evolution of the concept. Contrary to common assumptions, this volume argues that the German concept of the West was not born in the twentieth century, but can be traced from a much earlier time. In the nineteenth century, the West became associated with notions of progress, liberty, civilization, and modernity. It signified the future through the opposition to antonyms such as Russia and the East, and was deployed as a tool for forging German identities. Examining the shifting meanings, political uses, and transnational circulations of the idea of the West sheds new light on German intellectual history from the post-Napoleonic era to the Cold War.

Martina Steberis a Research Fellow at the Institut f?r Zeitgeschichte M?nchen-Berlin. Her publications includeEthnische Gewissheiten: Die Ordnung des Regionalen im bayerischen Schwaben vom Kaiserreich bis zum NS-Regime(2010) andVisions of Community in Nazi Germany: Social Engineering and Private Lives, edited with Bernhard Gotto (2014).

Preface

Introduction:Germany and the West: The Vagaries of a Modern Relationship
Riccardo Bavaj & Martina Steber

PART I: RISES AND SILENCES OF 'THE WEST'

Chapter 1.In Search of the West: The Language of Political, Social and Cultural Spaces in theSattelzeit, from about 1770 to the 1830s
Bernhard Struck

Chapter 2.TheKaiserreichand theKulturl?nder: Conceptions of the West in Wilhelmine Germany, 1890-1914
Mark Hewitson

Chapter 3.World War I and the Invention of Western Democracy