Description
Book SynopsisHow did beer become one of the central commodities associated with the German nation? How did a little-known provincial production standard the Reinheitsgebot, or Beer Purity Law become a pillar of national consumer sentiments? How did the jovial, beer-drinking German become a fixture in the global imagination?While the connection between beer and Germany seems self-evident, A Nation Fermented reveals how it was produced through a strange brew of regional commercial and political pressures. Spanning from the late nineteenth century to the last decades of the twentieth, A Nation Fermented argues that the economic, regulatory, and cultural weight of Bavaria shaped the German nation in profound ways. Drawing on sources from over a dozen archives and repositories, Terrell weaves together subjects ranging from tax law to advertising, public health to European integration, and agriculture to global stereotypes. Offering a history of the Germany that Bavaria made over the twentieth century,
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Timeline Map Introduction 1: Integration and Its Discontents: Lager, Tax, and Temperance, c. 1900 to the 1930s 2: The People's Drink in the Racial State: Debating the Interests of the Volk 3: Liquid Bread: The New Politics of Bavaria from the Postwar Occupation to the Federal Republic 4: Brewing up a New Old Germany: Production, Consumption, and Social Order in the Miracle Years 5: Making a National Icon: A Political Economy of the Reinheitsgebot, 1953-1975 6: The Munich Effect: Löwenbräu, Bavarian Beer, and the Global Imaginary 7: Gone Flat?: Reconfigurations from the Recession to the Wende Conclusion Bibliography
