Nazi Empire: German Colonialism and Imperialism from Bismarck to Hitler

by Shelley Baranowski

Overview

Drawing on recent studies of the links between empire, colonialism, and genocide, Nazi Empire, 1871-1945 examines German history from 1871 to 1945 as an expression of the aspiration to imperialist expansion and the simultaneous fear of destruction by rivals. Acknowledging the important differences between the Second Empire, the Weimar Republic, and the Third Reich, Shelley Baranowski nonetheless reveals a common thread: the drama of German imperialist ambitions that embraced ethnic homogeneity over diversity, imperial enlargement over stasis, and “living space” as the route to the biological survival of the German Volk.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521857390
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	09/27/2010
Pages:	380
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Shelley Baranowski is Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Akron. She is the author of Strength through Joy: Consumerism and Mass Tourism in the Third Reich (2004), The Sanctity of Rural Life: Nobility, Protestantism, and Nazism in Weimar Prussia (1995) and The Confessing Church, Conservative Elites and the Nazi State (1986) and the co-editor, with Ellen Furlough, of Being Elsewhere: Tourism, Consumer Culture, and Identity in Modern Europe and North America (2001).

Table of Contents

Introduction; 1. From imperial consolidation of global ambitions: imperial Germany, 1871–1914; 2. From dominion to catastrophe: imperial Germany during World War I; 3. From colonizer to 'colonized': the Weimar Republic, 1918–33; 4. Empire begins at home: the Third Reich, 1933–9; 5. The Nazi place in the sun: German occupied Europe, 1939–41; 6. The final solution: total war and genocide, 1941–5.

Editorial Reviews

"Recommended." -Choice

"...an excellent work that should appeal to anyone interested in the history of Germany in this period and the legacy of imperialism on twentieth-century German history." -Matthew A. Yokell, Canadian Journal of History

"...could serve as a good introduction for the general reader, and is especially valuable for its chronological depth and the attention it pays to German overseas imperialism." -Andrew Zimmerman, German Studies Review

"...an important contribution to a debate that has lingered in the historiography on Germany at least since the period covered in the book." -Daniel Becker, H-German

From the Publisher