The Bismarckian Empire as a Federal State, 1866–1880: A Chronicle of Failure

Abstract

As the centennial of the Franco-Prussian War and the founding of the German Empire approaches, historians are likely to find renewed interest in the Bismarckian political edifice. It may be hoped that studies which result will examine the Empire from points of view different from those which have dominated most treatments during the last half century. However valuable some of these may have been, they have sought answers to questions other than those which properly should concern the profession in the future. Twentieth-century students of German history have lived and worked under the impact of two catastrophic world wars. They have understandably been mostly interested in exploring those aspects of German history which seemed to offer an explanation for Germany's role in bringing about those catastrophes. In recent years several scholars have begun to investigate the impact on German politics during the Bismarck era of various old and new socio-economic groupings as they responded to the sweeping changes which the nineteenth century brought to the German and the world economic structure. Their work has contributed new and valuable insights as well as opening the way to further research and controversy. What follows is still another effort to cast familiar ingredients into a new mold so that the product will be at once a closer approximation of the reality of the past and more meaningful to scholars of the present.