David Blackbourn Books

The conquest of water, landscape, and the making of modern Germany

This monumental work offers a fresh perspective on five centuries of German history, showcasing its complexities and transformations. The author masterfully intertwines significant events and cultural shifts, providing deep insights into Germany's evolution. With a focus on key figures and pivotal moments, the narrative captures the essence of the nation's journey, making it an essential read for those interested in European history. Richly detailed and engaging, it invites readers to explore the intricacies of Germany's past.

"In the late eighteenth century, German-speaking Europe was a patchwork of lodrships and principalities, hundreds in all. Most people lived in the countryside, just half survived until their late twenties, and women were still occasionally burnt as witches. By the beginning of our own century, a unified Germany was the most powerful state in Europe. No longer a quaintly provincial "land of poets and thinkers", but an industrial and military giant with an advanced welfare system, Germany prompted mingled admiration and alarm among its contemporaries."--Back cover

Aimed at students and lecturers in European social and economic history, this collection of essays outlines the place of the German bourgeoisie in the history, politics and economics of the country from the late 18th to the early 20th century.

"A well-written, stimulating. . . piece of scholarship." -German Studies Review. In a major re-evaluation of the cultural, political, and sociological assumptions about the "peculiar" course of modern German history, the authors challenge the widely-held belief that Germany did not have a Western-style bourgeois revolution. Contending that it did indeed experience one, but that this had little to do with the mythical rising of the middle class, the authors provide a new context for viewing the tensions and instability of 19th-and early 20th-century Germany.

Focusing on the interplay between nature and human ambition, the narrative chronicles Germany's transformation from the mid-1700s under Frederick the Great, who sought to modernize his kingdom by reclaiming marshlands. It details significant engineering feats along the Rhine, the rise of a formidable navy, and the harnessing of hydroelectric power that fueled industrial growth before World War I. The book also examines how Nazi ideologies were rooted in concepts of environmental mastery, offering a rich exploration of culture, politics, and ecological challenges.

This history offers a powerful and original account of Germany from the eve of the French Revolution to the end of World War One. Written by a leading German historian who has transformed the historiography of modern Germany over the past two decades. Covers the whole of the long nineteenth century and emphasizes continuities through this period. Brings together political, social and cultural history. Combines a comprehensive account with a feel for the human dimension and the history of everyday life. Accessible to non-specialists, thought-provoking and entertaining. The updated second edition includes a revised bibliography.

Brilliantly conceived and majestically written, this monumental work of European history recasts the five-hundred-year history of Germany. With Germany in the World, award-winning historian David Blackbourn radically revises conventional narratives of German history, demonstrating the existence of a distinctly German presence in the world centuries before its unification―and revealing a national identity far more complicated than previously imagined. Blackbourn traces Germany’s evolution from the loosely bound Holy Roman Empire of 1500 to a sprawling colonial power to a twenty-first-century beacon of democracy. Viewed through a global lens, familiar landmarks of German history―the Reformation, the Revolution of 1848, the Nazi regime―are transformed, while others are unearthed and explored, as Blackbourn reveals Germany’s leading role in creating modern universities and its sinister involvement in slave-trade economies. A global history for a global age, Germany in the World is a bold and original account that upends the idea that a nation’s history should be written as though it took place entirely within that nation’s borders. 35 illustrations; 5 maps