What was distinctive—and distinctively "modern"—about German society and politics in the age of Kaiser Wilhelm II? In addressing this question, these essays assemble cutting-edge research by fourteen international scholars. Based on evidence of an explicit and self-confidently "bourgeois" formation in German public culture, the contributors suggest new ways of interpreting its reformist potential and advance alternative readings of German political history before 1914. While proposing a more measured understanding of Wilhelmine Germany's extraordinarily dynamic society, they also grapple with the ambivalent, cross-cutting nature of German "modernities" and reassess their impact on long-term developments running through the Wilhelmine age.

Geoff Eley is the Sylvia L. Thrupp Collegiate Professor of Comparative History and has taught at the University of Michigan since 1979. His primary appointment is in History, with a cross appointment in German Studies and an additional affiliation with Film and Video Studies.

James Retallack is Professor of History at th Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto. As a recipient of the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Prize from the Humboldt Foundation, in 2002-03 he was a Visiting Professor at the University of Göttingen.

"It is one of the main merits of this volume to historicize the 'modern' concept of parliamentarianism and democracy ... offers a stimulating contribution to the scholarship on Imperial Germany."  · H-Soz-u-Kult

"[this] brief review cannot do justice to the breadth of contributions offered in this slender volume. While the collection does not cover all aspects of Wilhelmine history…it does provide a good introduction to the current state o f the field…these essays offer avenues for further exploration rather than definitive statements."  · German Studies Review

"…a valuable volume which makes some substantial contribution to a number of subfields in modern German history…the editors are to be thanked for assembling a volume of original and insightful works, one which ought to be in the collection of every library that supports programs in contemporary German history, cultural studies, or political science."  · Canadian Journal of History/Annales canadiennes d’histoire