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Podcast: New Books in German Studies
Episode: James Retallack, “Red Saxony: Election Battles and the Spectre of Democracy in Germany, 1860 to 1918” (Oxford UP, 2017)
Description: How can political modernization reinforce authoritarianism? What brought middle-class liberals and conservative monarchists to make common cause in late 19th- and early 20th-century Germany? How did a political culture defined by anti-socialism and anti-semitism emerge? In his new book Red Saxony: Election Battles and the Spectre of Democracy in Germany, 1860 to 1918 (Oxford University Press, 2017), James Retallack uses a regional lens to rethink assumptions about Germany’s changing political culture over the span of six decades. By tracing election battles and suffrage debates, Jim illuminates a reciprocal relationship between political modernization and authoritarianism with important implications for the present day....