Recasting Bourgeois Europe

by Maier, Charles S.

• ISBN13: 9780691100258
• ISBN10: 069110025X
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1975-08-01
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

The author of fourteen books, Charles Maier is one of the most prominent contemporary scholars of European history. Recasting Bourgeois Europe, his first book, presented an unparalleled analysis of the crucial decade in Europe after 1918. Based on extensive archival research in each of the three countries, the book examined how European societies progressed from a moment of social vulnerability to one of political and economic stabilization. Recasting Bourgeois Europeaccomplished two major historiographical goals simultaneously. First, Maier provided a comparative history of three different European societies for a period when common developments demanded an approach other than that of the usual national histories. Second, he rethought the political structure of the European interwar period. Although most accounts presented the 1920s as a time characterized by illusory attempts to return to a prewar political equilibrium, and doomed to succumb to the Depression and the dictatorships, Maier suggested instead that the stabilization of the 1920s, vulnerable as it was, foreshadowed the more enduring political stability achieved after World War II. The immense and ambitious scope of this book, its ability to follow diverse but uni.ed histories in detail, and its effort to make stabilization, and not just breakdown, a historical problem have made it a classic of European historiography.

Table of Contents

Preface to the 1988 Reprinting	p. ix
Preface	p. xvii
Abbreviations	p. xxi
Introduction: From Bourgeois to Corporatist Europe	p. 3
The Containment of the Left
The Dimensions of Social Conflict at the End of World War I	p. 19
The Language of Class Anxiety (1900-1925)	p. 22
Elites--Resilient and Vulnerable	p. 39
Business Accommodation in Germany and France	p. 53
Politics among the Victors: Issues and Elections in November 1919	p. 88
Bourgeois Cohesion in France	p. 91
Bourgeois Disarray in Italy	p. 109
The Limits of Economic Restructuring	p. 135
The Evolution of Leftist Objectives	p. 136
Strategies of Bourgeois Defense	p. 153
The Coal Crisis	p. 194
The Failure of the Parliamentary Center
The Politics of Reparation	p. 233
The Wager on "Fulfillment"	p. 233
Reparation, Taxes, and the Demands of German Heavy Industry	p. 249
The Bankruptcy of Moderation (1922)	p. 272
The Attrition of the Liberal Regime in Italy	p. 305
The Political Ecology of Fascism	p. 305
From Giolitti to Mussolini: The Liberals' Search for Order	p. 322
Paths Toward Corporatist Stability
Between Nationalism and Corporatism: The Ruhr Conflict	p. 355
Inflation, Social Democracy and the Challenge to Sovereignty in Germany	p. 356
Corporatist Forces versus Poincare and Stresemann	p. 387
Majorities without Mandates: Issues and Elections in the Spring of 1924	p. 421
The Limits of Mussolini's Majority	p. 422
The Limits of Social Democratic Eclipse	p. 440
The Limits of the Cartel des Gauches	p. 458
Achieving Stability	p. 481
Inflation, Revaluation, and the Decomposition of Parliamentary Politics	p. 483
Iron, Steel, and the International Organization of Capitalism	p. 516
Corporative State in Corporatis Europe	p. 545
Conclusion: The Structure and Limits of Stability	p. 579
Bibliography	p. 595
Index	p. 609
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