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10. Brief Bibliography of Synthetic Works and General German Histories, in German and English
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1. The Contours of Everyday Life   |   2. The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation   |   3. Power and Authority in the German Territorial Principality: The “Estates Polity”   |   4. The Social Order   |   5. Economic Life   |   6. Cultural Life in the Aftermath of the Thirty Years War   |   7. The German Enlightenment’s Originality   |   8. Late-Enlightenment Tensions   |   9. Conclusion: Three Spirits of the Age   |   10. Brief Bibliography of Synthetic Works and General German Histories, in German and English


A stimulating, recent single-volume German-language work is Christof Dipper, Deutsche Geschichte 1648-1789 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1991). Valuable still is Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte. Erster Band. Vom Feudalismus des Alten Reiches bis zur Defensiven Modernisierung der Reformära: 1700-1815 (Munich: Beck, 1987). Standard works also include Rudolf Vierhaus, Deutschland im Zeitalter des Absolutismus (1648-1763) (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978) and Karl Otmar Freiherr von Aretin, Vom Deutschen Reich zum Deutschen Bund (1763-1815) (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1980), as well as Aretin’s Das Alte Reich, 1648-1806 (Stuttgart: Klett Cotta, 2000). On Austria, see the following volumes in the recent series, Österreichische Geschichte: (on the period 1522-1699), Thomas Winkelbauer, Ständefreiheit und Fürstenmacht: Länder und Untertanen des Hauses Habsburg im konfessionellen Zeitalter (Vienna: Ueberreuter, 2003), and (on the period 1699-1815) Karl Vocelka, Glanz und Untergang der höfischen Welt: Repräsentation, Reform und Reaktion im habsburgischen Vielvölkerstaat (Vienna: Ueberreuter, 2001).

In English, a masterful introduction is James J. Sheehan, German History, 1770-1866 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989). Valuable too are Peter H. Wilson, From Reich to Revolution: German History, 1558-1806 (Houndsmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004) and, though older works, Hajo Holborn, A History of Modern Germany: 1648-1840 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1964-82) and Walter Horace Bruford, Germany in the Eighteenth Century: The Social Background of the Literary Revival (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1952-65). On Austria, see R.J.W. Evans, The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1550-1700: An Interpretation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979); Charles W. Ingrao, The Habsburg Monarchy, 1618-1815 (New York; Cambridge University Press, 2000); Robin Oakey, The Habsburg Monarchy (New York: St Martin’s Press, 2001). Still of interest is Ernst Wangermann, The Austrian Achievement, 1700-1800 (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973). On Prussia: Christopher Clark, Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947 (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 2006). On the urban Germany of small principalities and imperial cities: Mack Walker, German Home Towns: Community, State, and General Estate, 1648-1871 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1971).

On the Enlightenment, see Richard van Dülmen, The Society of the Enlightenment: The Rise of the Middle Class and Enlightenment Culture in Germany (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992). See also van Dülmen’s many publications on religion, gender, and popular culture. A classic history of ideas is Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of the Enlightenment (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979 [German original 1932]). See also volume 2, covering the period 1630-1800, of Sheilagh Ogilvie et al., eds., Germany: A New Social and Economic History, 3 vols. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996-2003).

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