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Podcast: New Books in German Studies
Episode: James Retallack, "German Social Democracy through British Eyes: A Documentary History, 1870–1914" (U Toronto Press, 2021)
Description: On the eve of the First World War, the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) was the largest and most powerful socialist party in the world. German Social Democracy through British Eyes: A Documentary History, 1870–1914 (U Toronto Press, 2021) examines the SPD’s rise using British diplomatic reports from Saxony, the third-largest federal state in Imperial Germany and the cradle of the socialist movement in that country.Rather than focusing on the Anglo-German antagonism leading to the First World War, the book peers into the everyday struggles of German workers to build a political movement and emancipate themselves from the wo...