History – 150 pages – my copy (paperback; 1999) bought for £1.99 from the Oxfam Bookshop in St Austell, Cornwall around Xmas 2009
- 3 nods
The Access to History series – of which this book on Germany is one part of – is an interesting and widely varied catalogue of books, printed to enlighten students and the general public alike. It differs from many other texts in concentrating on a single period (for German history, for instance, the reader could lap up Germany: 1815-90 or the Third Reich), summarising in a nice, simple bite-sized manner.
Taking up the baton of Germany in this changing time, Geoff Layton does an admirable job, bringing such topics as the Kaiser, the First World War, as well as the rise and the fall of the Weimer Republic to us, the audience. He concentrates on Wilhelmine Germany (1890-1914) in domestic and foreign affairs, commenting upon its political and social structures. The First World War acts a middle, dividing point in this period; a point that brought about massive change, clearing out the old of the Kaiser to bring in the new of republicanism and democracy. Layton brings up interesting arguments in the ending chapters based upon the Weimer Republic, raising some teasers as to the Republic’s actual demise: was it Hitler or were the democratic structures eroded before the man with the little moustache arrived on the scene, aided in the persons of Bruning and Hindenburg?
The failure of Weimar resounded as a devastating failure for the world as a whole. But in its struggle to maintain unity and its downfall, Layton raises all the issues of conflict as a good historian should. A whole body of heated historiography is brought to the reader’s attention, from German historians (such as the noted Fritz Fisher) to the assertions of the structuralists. Even the ‘hero’ of Weimar, Stresemann, is not let off lightly; Layton debating his democratic values.
Layton’s study upon Germany in this period never threatens to be anything more than an introduction; yet in 150 short pages he manages to alight the reader and student on the situation and the possibilities of dipping further into the pool of this period.
