Cover Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- List of maps -- List of contributors -- Introduction -- Continuity and rupture -- 'Playing with scales' -- Contesting the past -- Key themes -- 1 Bismarckian Germany -- The new empire -- Germany in Europe -- Bismarck's foreign policy -- The task of national consolidation -- Bismarck's domestic policies -- The end of the Bismarckian era -- 2 Wilhelmine Germany -- Social traditions and conflicts in a nervous age -- Domestic politics -- World empires and European politics -- The First World War -- Imperial Germany's place in history -- 3 Economic and social developments -- Class society -- From agrarian to industrial state -- Big business, technology, and the state -- Complex identities -- Conclusion -- 4 Religion and confessional conflict -- Conflict -- Integration -- The Jews -- Religion, secularization, modernization -- 5 Culture and the arts -- Institutions of the cultural world -- Amateurs and art culture -- Serious art and the art establishment -- Art for entertainment -- German Modernism and the avant-garde -- 6 Gendered Germany -- The gendered distribution of life's opportunities -- Childhood and youth -- Education and training -- Employment -- Ways of life -- Old age and death -- The women's movement and anti-feminism -- Nationalism, 'high politics', and war -- Conclusion -- 7 The bourgeoisie and reform -- Identity, politics, values -- The range and diversity of reform -- The potentials and dynamics of bourgeois reform -- Unity in diversity: assumptions, orientations, strategies -- 8 Political culture and democratization -- The authoritarian state and its historians -- Nation building and social pillarization -- New departures at the fin de siècle -- Paths towards democracy -- 9 Militarism and radical nationalism -- Soldiers and policy -- The militarization of culture.

War and the discourse of politics -- Populist militarism -- The national opposition and the military -- 10 Transnational Germany -- Transnational historiography -- Actors, media, public spheres -- 'World politics', world markets, mobility -- Politics of the nation -- Subjectivities, representations, knowledge -- Germany in the world -- Taking stock -- 11 War and revolution -- The spirit of 1914: public opinion in July and August -- Military developments -- The home front -- Propaganda: giving meaning to the war -- Making peace, making revolution -- The legacy of the war -- Looking forward -- Further reading -- Chronology -- Maps -- Index -- Footnotes.