Description
Book SynopsisMichael L. Hughes is Professor of History at Wake Forest University, USA. He is the author of
Shouldering the Burdens of Defeat: West Germany and the Reconstruction of Social Justice (1999) and
Paying for the German Inflation (1988).
Trade ReviewEmbracing Democracy will reach far beyond those interested in Germany, especially at a moment when the paradoxes of actually-existing democracy are laid so bare across the world. Synthesizing the most compelling literatures across vastly different regimes, Hughes then offers a significant original account of the innumerable faces and protean character of democracy. An important read for specialists and broad audiences alike. * Belinda Davis, Professor of History, Rutgers University, USA. *
This is a very timely book in the face of current challenges to liberal democracies in Germany as elsewhere. Michael L. Hughes gives us a fascinating depiction of competing concepts of democratic thought and government in the course of Germany’s varied political history since the creation of the German Empire up to our time. By setting political ideas and practices in the cultural and social context of their time, this very readable book in fact provides one of the best concise surveys of Germany’s history. Both experts and the public at large will find this book highly interesting and thought provoking. * Martin H. Geyer, Professor of Modern and Contemporary History, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction 1. Democratic Elements in an Authoritarian Regime: Enabling and Containing Political Participation in Imperial Germany, 1871–1918 2. Searching for Authority: Challenges to Parliamentary Democracy in the Weimar Republic, 1918–1933 3. Agency in a Total State: Compliance and Non-compliance in the Third Reich, 1933–1945 4. Re-Imagining Democracy: Creating a Federal Republic in Postwar West Germany 5. Daring More Democracy: The Rise of Extra-Parliamentary Political Action in West Germany, 1968–1980s 6. Democratic Citizenship in a Dictatorship: Negotiating Agency in East Germany, 1945–1989 7. Coming to Fruition? Unification and Democracy in the Berlin Republic Bibliography Index
