Germany and the Modern World, 1880–1914

The German Empire before 1914 had the fastest growing economy in Europe and was the strongest military power in the world. Yet it appeared, from a reading of many contemporaries' accounts, to be lagging behind other nation-states and to be losing the race to divide up the rest of the globe. This book is an ambitious re-assessment of how Wilhelmine Germans conceived of themselves and the German Empire's place in the world in the lead-up to the First World War. Mark Hewitson re-examines the varying forms of national identification, allegiance and politics following the creation and consolidation of a German nation-state in light of contemporary debates about modernity, race, industrialization, colonialism and military power. Despite the new claims being made for the importance of empire to Germany's development, he reveals that the majority of transnational networks and contemporaries' interactions and horizons remained intra-European or transatlantic rather than truly global.

Introduction: nation, empire, globe; 1. Colonial fantasies and imperialism; 2. Germany looks to the West (and the East); 3. Nationalism and racism; 4. Europe and the crisis of the German state; 5. Weltwirtschaft: industrialization and national competition; 6. A world of enemies? Global empires and European powers; Conclusion: around the world in eighty days.

Mark Hewitson is Professor of German History and Politics and Director of European Social and Political Studies at University College London. His publications include Absolute War: Violence and Mass Warfare in the German Lands, 1792–1820 (2017) and The People's Wars: Histories of Violence in the German Lands, 1820–1888 (2017).