George L. Mosse's extensive analysis of Nazi culture - ground-breaking upon its original publication in 1966 - is now offered to readers of a new generation. Selections from newspapers, novellas, plays, and diaries as well as the public pronouncements of Nazi leaders, churchmen, and professors describe National Socialism in practice and explore what it meant for the average German.
Originally published in 1970, Germans and Jews brings together George L. Mosse’s thoughts on a critical time in German history when thinkers on both the left and the right shared a common goal. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, intellectuals across the political spectrum aimed to solve the problems of contemporary society by creating a force that would eliminate both state Marxism and bourgeois society: a “third force” beyond communism and capitalism. This pervasive turn in ideology had profound effects on German history. In Mosse’s reading, left-wing political efforts became increasingly unrelated to reality, while the right finally discovered in fascism the force it had been seeking. This innovative perspective has implications for understanding not only the rise of fascism and Nazism in Germany but also the rise and fall of the New Left in the United States and Europe, which was occurring at the time of Mosse’s writing. A new critical introduction by Sarah Wobick-Segev, research associate at the University of Hamburg, places Mosse’s work in its historical and intellectual contexts and draws lessons for students and scholars today.
In fourteen essays that speak to the full breadth of George L. Mosse's intellectual horizons and scholarly legacy, Masses and Man explores radical nationalism, fascism, and Jewish modernity in twentieth-century Europe. Breaking from the conventions of historical analysis, Mosse shows that "secular religions" like fascism cannot be understood only as the products of socioeconomic or intellectual histories but rather must be approached first and foremost as cultural phenomena. Masses and Man comprises three parts. The first lays out a cultural history of nationalism, essentially the first of its kind, emphasizing the importance of sacred expressions like myths, symbols, and rituals as appropriated in a political context. The second zeroes in on fascism's most dramatic irruptions in European history in the rise of Italian Fascism and the Nazi Party in Germany, elucidating these as not just political movements but also cultural and even aesthetic ones. The third part considers nationalism and fascism from the particular standpoint of German Jews. Taken in full, the volume offers an eloquent summation of Mosse's groundbreaking insights into European nationalism, fascism, and Jewish history in the twentieth century. A new critical introduction by Enzo Traverso helpfully situates Mosse's work in context and exposes the many ways in which Masses and Man, first published in 1980, remains relevant today.
By collectively concentrating on the theme of political symbolism in modern Europe, the con-tributors to this volume have cho-sen to honor a revered teacher and colleague by developing a set of variations on one of his primary scholarly concerns. The essays deal with familiar domains in the history of European culture: reli-gion, science, philosophy, theater, popular culture, and social ideologies. They attempt to focus on their individual subjects as studies of the ways in which the terms of cultural discourse have been shaped and elaborated by social position and the inherently political nature of such discourse. The essays also trace attempts to capture assent or compliance to particular world views which have had profound cultural and political consequences. Many es-says deal with the vocabularies of strategically located elites con-sciously or unconsciously shap-ing discourse to enhance their role in the Eruopean social hierar-chy. Others turn to the problem of the dynamics of symbolic recep-tion and reception by popular au-diences. A third group of thematic essays deals with case studies of world views dominated by politi-cal metaphors of group identityand differentiation which became dominant in Western Europe to-ward the end of the nineteenth century--class, nation, sex, age, and race. The essays in the volume deal with: George Mosse and political symbolism; the medical model of cultural crisis in fin de siecle France; cultural uses of "fatigue" in the nineteenth century; Mar-burg neo-Kantian thought and German popular culture; the Ostjude as a cultural symbol in German anti-Semitism; the func-tion of myth and symbol in Georges Sorel; feminism and eugenics in Edwardian England; Darwinism and the working class in Germany; science and religion in early modern Europe; popular theater and socialism in fin de siecle France; political symbolism in the paintings of the German war of liberation; generational discourse in pre-World War I France; and cultural implications of national-socialist religion. on and reception by popular au-diences. A third group of thematic essays deals with case studies of world views dominated by politi-cal metaphors of group identityand differentiation which became dominant in Western Europe to-ward the end of the nineteenth century--class, nation, sex, age, and race. The essays in the volume deal with: George Mosse and political symbolism; the medical model of cultural crisis in fin de siecle France; cultural uses of "fatigue" in the nineteenth century; Mar-burg neo-Kantian thought and German popular culture; the Ostjude as a cultural symbol in German anti-Semitism; the func-tion of myth and symbol in Georges Sorel; feminism and eugenics in Edwardian England; Darwinism and the working class in Germany; science and religion in early modern Europe; popular theater and socialism in fin de siecle France; political symbolism in the paintings of the German war of liberation; generational discourse in pre-World War I France; and cultural implications of national-socialist religion. lications of national-socialist religion.
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