Introduction

After Napoleon’s defeat and expulsion from the German lands in 1814, Central Europe experienced a half-century of peace. The German Confederation (1815–1866) was a loose federation of thirty-nine sovereign and independent states. It was far from the unitary German nation-state envisioned by German nationalists: included within its borders were parts of the Habsburg Empire (Austria), enclaves of non-German-speaking populations, and some (but not all) of Prussia’s territory. During these fifty years, German nationalists outlined their goals with increasing clarity and fervor: they spoke and wrote incessantly about the shape of a future Germany and whether it might have a constitution, a representative parliament, and perhaps even a republican form of government.Due to the rapid growth of newspapers and journals, especially after 1830, the nationalists’ message reached a larger segment of people in Central Europe than ever before, though mainly other members of the educated urban elite. The vast majority of Germans lived in the countryside, where they experienced chronic insecurity and hardship. In the 1840s, critics of the status quo raised increasingly vocal opposition to autocratic rulers, and disastrous harvests contributed to the German (and pan-European) revolutions of 1848–49. Between March and May 1848, a National Assembly in Frankfurt am Main was elected on the basis of broad suffrage and met for the first time. Over the next year, its members debated fundamental social, economic, and national issues but lacked the power to impose their decisions on individual states. By March 1849, the Frankfurt National Assembly had been forced to retreat in the face of a state-led conservative backlash. The following month, Prussia’s King Friedrich Wilhelm IV refused to accept the German crown, which he said would be a dog-collar around his neck.During the 1850s—which were neither as barren or reactionary as historians once thought—Germany’s industrial revolution gathered steam and a free-market economy emerged. This industrial take-off brought new wealth and international respect to Prussia, in whose territories many of the rapidly industrializing regions were found. But Prussian statesmen were neither strong nor bold enough to challenge the Habsburg Empire for hegemony in Central Europe. The idea of a “third Germany” did not gain traction either. In the early 1860s, the expansion and reform of the Prussian army was seen as a precondition for asserting Prussia’s power, but when the Prussian king, Wilhelm I, demanded new recruits, he encountered liberal opposition in the Prussian parliament. The ensuing “constitutional conflict” seemed to pit absolutism against liberalism, constitutionalism, and parliamentarism. In September 1862, the Prussian king appointed Otto von Bismarck to break the deadlock. Bismarck was unsuccessful at first: repression did not dislodge the liberal opposition. Gradually, Bismarck concluded that a military showdown with Austria would solve Prussia’s internal and external challenges. Thus, the scene was set for the dramatic events of 1866–71.

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Abrams, Lynn. Bismarck and the German Empire, 1871–1918. 2nd ed. London; New York: Routledge, 2006.
Berghahn, Volker R. Imperial Germany, 1871-1918. Economy, Society, Culture, and Politics. 2nd ed. New York: Berghahn Books, 2005.
Blackbourn, David. History of Germany, 1780-1918. The Long Nineteenth Century. 2nd ed. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing, 2003.
Breuilly, John, ed. Nineteenth-Century Germany. Politics, Culture and Society 1780-1918. 2nd ed. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020.
Chickering, Roger, ed. Imperial Germany. A Historiographical Companion. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1996.
Frie, Ewald. Das Deutsche Kaiserreich. 2nd ed. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2013.
Gall, Lothar. Bismarck. The White Revolutionary. 2 vol. London: Allen & Unwin, 1986.
Hamerow, Theodore S., ed. The Age of Bismarck. Documents and Interpretations. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1973.
Hamerow, Theodore S., ed. Otto von Bismarck and Imperial Germany. A Historical Assessment. 3rd ed. Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath, 1994.
Jefferies, Matthew. Contesting the German Empire, 1871-1918. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing, 2008.
Jefferies, Matthew, ed. The Ashgate Research Companion to Imperial Germany. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2015.
Lerman, Katharine Anne. Bismarck. Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2004.
Müller, Sven Oliver, and Cornelius Torp, eds. Imperial Germany Revisited. Continuing Debates and New Perspectives. New York: Berghahn Books, 2011.
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Retallack, James, ed. Imperial Germany, 1871-1918. Short Oxford History of Germany. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Smith, Helmut Walser, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Modern German History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Wehler, Hans-Ulrich. The German Empire, 1871-1918. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 1997.

Demographic and Economic Development

Brophy, James M. Capitalism, Politics, and Railroads in Prussia, 1830-1870. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1998.
Henderson, William. O. The Rise of German Industrial Power, 1834-1914. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975.
Herrigel, Gary. Industrial Constructions. The Sources of German Industrial Power. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Kitchen, Martin. The Political Economy of Germany, 1815-1914. London: Croom Helm, 1978.
Pierenkemper, Toni, and Richard H. Tilly. The German Economy During the Nineteenth Century. New York: Berghahn Books, 2004.
Tipton, Frank B. Regional Variations in the Economic Development of Germany During the Nineteenth Century. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1976.
Torp, Cornelius. The Challenges of Globalization. Economy and Politics in Germany, 1860-1914. New York: Berghahn Books, 2014.

Society

Applegate, Celia. A Nation of Provincials. The German Idea of Heimat. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.
Blackbourn, David, and James Retallack, eds. Localism, Landscape, and the Ambiguities of Place. German-Speaking Central Europe, 1860-1930. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007.
Blackbourn, David, and Richard J. Evans, eds. The German Bourgeoisie. Essays on the Social History of the German Middle Class from the Late Eighteenth to the Early Twentieth Century. London: Routledge, 1991.
Canning, Kathleen. Languages of Labor and Gender. Female Factory Work in Germany, 1850-1914. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 2002.
Franzoi, Barbara. At the Very Least She Pays the Rent. Women and German Industrialization, 1871-1914. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1985.
Frevert, Ute. Women in German History. From Bourgeois Emancipation to Sexual Liberation. Oxford: Berg, 1988.
Kaplan, Marion A. The Making of the Jewish Middle Class. Women, Family, and Identity in Imperial Germany. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
Kelly, Alfred, ed. The German Worker. Working-Class Autobiographies from the Age of Industrialization. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.
Kocka, Jürgen, and Allan Mitchell, eds. Bourgeois Society in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Oxford: Berg, 1993.
Lidtke, Vernon L. The Alternative Culture. Socialist Labor in Imperial Germany. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.
Roper, Katherine. German Encounters with Modernity. Novels of Imperial Berlin. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press International, 1991.

Culture

Amann, Klaus, and Karl Wagner, eds. Literatur und Nation. Die Gründung des Deutschen Reiches 1871 in der deutschsprachigen Literatur. Vienna: Böhlau, 1996.
Applegate, Celia. The Necessity of Music. Variations on a German Theme. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017.
Cate, Curtis. Friedrich Nietzsche. London: Hutchinson, 2002.
Craig, Gordon A. Theodor Fontane. Literature and History in the Bismarck Reich. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Fried, Michael. Menzel’s Realism. Art and Embodiment in Nineteenth-Century Berlin. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2002.
Jefferies, Matthew. Imperial Culture in Germany, 1871-1918. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
Koelb, Clayton, and Eric Downing, eds. German Literature of the Nineteenth Century, 1832-1899. Rochester, N.Y.: Camden House, 2005.
Lenman, Robin. Artists and Society in Germany, 1850-1914. Manchester; New York: Manchester University Press; St. Martin’s Press, 1997.
Lewis, Beth Irwin. Art for All? The Collision of Modern Art and the Public in Late-Nineteenth-Century Germany. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003.
Lidtke, Vernon L. The Alternative Culture. Socialist Labor in Imperial Germany. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.
Paret, Peter. The Berlin Secession. Modernism and Its Enemies in Imperial Germany. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1980.
Paret, Peter. Art as History. Episodes in the Culture and Politics of Nineteenth-Century Germany. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988.
Roper, Katherine. German Encounters with Modernity. Novels of Imperial Berlin. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press International, 1991.

Religion, Education, Social Welfare

Albisetti, James C. Schooling German Girls and Women. Secondary and Higher Education in the Nineteenth Century. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988.
Blackbourn, David. Marpingen. Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Bismarckian Germany. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Blaschke, Olaf, and Frank-Michael Kuhlemann, eds. Religion im Kaiserreich. Milieus, Mentalitäten, Krisen. Religiöse Kulturen der Moderne. Gütersloh: Chr. Kaiser/Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1996.
Gross, Michael B. The War Against Catholicism. Liberalism and the Anti-Catholic Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Germany. Social History, Popular Culture, and Politics in Germany. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004.
Jarausch, Konrad H. Students, Society, and Politics in Imperial Germany. The Rise of Academic Illiberalism. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982.
Lowenstein, Steven M., and Paul Mendes-Flor et al., eds. Integration in Dispute, 1871-1918. German-Jewish History in Modern Times.. Vol. 3. Edited by Michael A. Meyer and Michael Brenner. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.
McClelland, Charles E. State, Society, and University in Germany, 1700-1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980.
Pulzer, Peter G. J. The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany & Austria. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988.
Ross, Ronald J. The Failure of Bismarck’s Kulturkampf. Catholicism and State Power in Imperial Germany, 1871-1887. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1998.
Smith, Helmut Walser. German Nationalism and Religious Conflict Culture, Ideology, Politics, 1870-1914. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1995.
Volkov, Shulamit. Germans, Jews, and Antisemites. Trials in Emancipation. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Wilson, Jeffrey K. The German Forest. Nature, Identity, and the Contestation of a National Symbol, 1871-1914. German and European Studies. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012.

Politics I: Forging an Empire

Bartel, Horst, and Ernst Engelberg, eds. Die Grosspreussisch-Milïtaristische Reichsgründung 1871. Voraussetzungen und Folgen. 2 vol. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1971.
Carr, William. The Origins of the Wars of German Unification. London: Longman, 1991.
Craig, Gordon A. The Battle of Königgrätz. Prussia’s Victory Over Austria, 1866. Philadelphia, Penn.: Lippincott, 1964.
Hamerow, Theodore S. The Social Foundations of German Unification. 2 vol. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1969.
Schieder, Theodor, and Ernst Deuerlein, eds. Reichsgründung, 1870/71. Tatsachen, Kontroversen, Interpretationen. Stuttgart: Seewald Verlag, 1970.
Showalter, Dennis E. Railroads and Rifles. Soldiers, Technology, and the Unification of Germany. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1975.
Weichlein, Siegfried. Nation und Region. Integrationsprozesse im Bismarckreich. Düsseldorf: Droste, 2004.
Windell, George G. The Catholics and German Unity, 1866-1871. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1954.

Military, International Relations, and Colonialism

Bowersox, Jeff. Raising Germans in the Age of Empire. Youth and Colonial Culture, 1871-1914. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Canis, Konrad. Bismarcks Aussenpolitik 1870 bis 1890. Aufstieg und Gefährdung. Paderborn: Schöningh, 2004.
Ciarlo, David. Advertising Empire. Race and Visual Culture in Imperial Germany. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2011.
Conrad, Sebastian. Globalisation and the Nation in Imperial Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Conrad, Sebastian. German Colonialism. A Short History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Conrad, Sebastian, and Jürgen Osterhammel, eds. Das Kaiserreich Transnational. Deutschland in der Welt 1871-1914. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004.
Craig, Gordon A. The Politics of the Prussian Army. 1640-1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964.
Friedrichsmeyer, Sara, Sara Lennox, and Susanne Zantop, eds. The Imperialist Imagination. German Colonialism and Its Legacy. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1998.
Geiss, Imanuel. German Foreign Policy, 1871-1914. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1976.
Henderson, William O. The German Colonial Empire, 1884-1919. London: F. Cass, 1993.
Kennedy, Paul M. The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 1860-1914. London: Allen and Unwin, 1980.
Rose, Andreas. Deutsche Außenpolitik in der Ära Bismarck (1862-1890). Geschichte kompakt. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2013.
Short, John Phillip. Magic Lantern Empire. Colonialism and Society in Germany. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2012.
Wiens, Gavin. The Imperial German Army Between Kaiser and King. Monarchy, Nation-Building, and War, 1866-1918. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan/Springer, 2023.

Politics II: Parties and Political Mobilization

Anderson, Margaret Lavinia. Practicing Democracy. Elections and Political Culture in Imperial Germany. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000.
Berger, Stefan. Social Democracy and the Working Class in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Germany. Harlow: Longman, 2000.
Biefang, Andreas. Die andere Seite der Macht. Reichstag und Öffentlichkeit im "System Bismarck" 1871-1890. Düsseldorf: Droste, 2009.
Blackbourn, David. Populists and Patricians Essays in Modern German History. London: Allen & Unwin, 1987.
Fitzpatrick, Matthew P. Purging the Empire. Mass Expulsions in Germany, 1871-1914. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Fricke, Dieter, ed. Lexikon zur Parteiengeschichte. Die bürgerlichen und kleinbürgerlichen Parteien und Verbände in Deutschland (1789-1945). 4 vol. Cologne: Pahl-Rugenstein, 1983.
Hagen, William W. Germans, Poles, and Jews. The Nationality Conflict in the Prussian East, 1772-1914. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.
Halder, Winfrid. Innenpolitik im Kaiserreich, 1871-1914. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2003.
Langewiesche, Dieter. Liberalism in Germany. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000.
Lidtke, Vernon L. The Outlawed Party. Social Democracy in Germany 1878-90. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966.
Retallack, James. Red Saxony. Election Battles and the Spectre of Democracy in Germany, 1860-1918. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.
Ross, Ronald J. The Failure of Bismarck’s Kulturkampf. Catholicism and State Power in Imperial Germany, 1871-1887. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1998.
Sheehan, James J. German Liberalism in the Nineteenth Century. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1978.
Sperber, Jonathan. The Kaiser’s Voters. Electors and Elections in Imperial Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.