Description
Book SynopsisThis is a study of the debate over sexuality and sexual morality that roiled politics in Germany between 1880 and 1914. All parties involved understood it to be a debate over the most fundamental question of modern political life: how to secure both national power and individual freedom in the context of rapid social and cultural change.
Trade Review'This volume provides a seamless account of primary voices grappling with sexuality and sexual reform in the Kaiserreich … Dickinson has provided a comprehensive, convincing, and beautifully written account of a most compelling and untidy debate.' Catherine L. Dollard, The American Historical Review
'As a whole, this book makes a very valuable contribution not only to the history of sexuality and sex reform but also to the larger exploration of how public debates about individual morality and private reproductive and sexual decisions both drew from and informed discussions about the relationship between the individual and the state in Imperial Germany.' Annette F. Timm, Journal of Modern History
Table of ContentsIntroduction: sex, politics, and modernity I; Part I. Moral Reform, 1880–1900: 1. Christian men and morality; 2. 'A spirit of insubordination': popular culture, modernism, and morality; 3. The politics of morality, class, and gender; 4. Religion, women, and morality; 5. Isolation and impact; Part II. Sexual Radicalism, 1900–14: 6. Social democratic sexual ethics; 7. Homosexual rights; 8. Syphilis and salvation; 9. Sex reform; 10. Religion of love; Part III. Conflict, 1908–14: 11. Men, sex, and science; 12. Confrontations, 1908–14; 13. Conclusion: sex, politics, and modernity II.
