The Cambridge Companion to Modern German Culture

A definitive guide to German culture from its emergence as a nation state in 1871 until the first all-Germany post-Reunification elections in December 1990. Fundamental yet complex questions are addressed in a sensitive fashion, and historical, political, legal and social institutions are explained, as are sexual, racial and class structures and divisions.

One of the most intriguing questions of our time is how some of the masterpieces of modernity originated in a country in which personal liberty and democracy were slow to emerge. This Companion provides an authoritative account of modern German culture since the onset of industrialisation, the rise of mass society and the nation state. Newly written and researched by experts in their respective fields, individual chapters trace developments in German culture - including national identity, class, Jews in German society, minorities and women, the functions of folk and mass culture, poetry, drama, theatre, dance, music, art, architecture, cinema and mass media - from the nineteenth century to the present. Guidance is given for further reading and a chronology is provided. In its totality the Companion shows how the political and social processes that shaped modern Germany are intertwined with cultural genres and their agendas of creative expression.