Full Description
Originally published in 1986, From Berlin to Berkeley is an intellectual portrait of one of America's leading 20th century social scientists, Reinhard Bendix, and his father, Ludwig Bendix. It discusses cultural identity and assimilation and provides a profound account of Ludwig Bendix's life as a lawyer and critic of the German judicial system, his identification with German culture and his emigration to Palestine during Hitler's regime. Bendix then examines the relationship with his father and details his youth in Germany, his emigration to America, and his early career as a scholar.
Covering the period from 1877 to the 1980s, Bendix shows how the two lives were touched by the culture of Imperial Germany, the German legal profession, World War I, the revolution of November 1918 in Germany and subsequent inflation, the Great Depression of the 1930s and the crisis of the Weimar Republic, the Hitler regime, emigration to Palestine and the United States, World War II, the division of Germany, and the world-political role of the United States.
A moving exploration which melds sociological case study and family history, the book is a significant measure of a family and a civilization.
Contents
Part 1: A Father's Heritage: Ludwig Bendix (1877-1954) 1. Early Struggles (1877-1902) 2. The German Legal Profession 3. A Critic of Official Impartiality (1914-1918) 4. The Family Setting (1910-1916) 5. A Partisan of Non-partisanship (1918-1919) 5. Embattled Judges (1918-1923) 7. Critic and Mediator (1924-1932) 8. A Career Destroyed (1932-1935) Part 2: Crises of Affiliation: Reinhard and Ludwig Bendix 9. Early Memories 10. The Crisis Years (1933-1934) 11. Concentration Camp Again (1935-1937) 12. While Father Was Imprisoned 13. Emigration, Immigration (1937-1938) 14. Beginning A Career in America (1938-1946) 15. First Years at the University of California (1947-1951) 16. My Parents' Ten Years in Palestine (1937-1947) 17. My Parents' Immigration (1947-1952) 18. What to Study and Why: A Final Dialogue. Epilogue.
