(Re)Centring the Weimar Republic (German and European Studies)

Clausius, Katharina (EDT)/ Clausius, Claudia (EDT)

University of Toronto Press（2026/03発売）

University of Toronto Press（2026/03発売）

• 製本 Hardcover:ハードカバー版／ページ数 304 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9781487560089

Full Description

(Re)Centring the Weimar Republic explores how centrist German politicians and intellectuals sought to foster stability and cooperation during the interwar period.
In contrast to the persistent image of a democracy "hollowed out" by divisiveness and political extremism, this book offers a new perspective on the Republic's efforts to define and hold an ambitious and productive middle ground. Leading scholars and cultural practitioners from the fields of history, German studies, philosophy, literary studies, and music document the progressive activities of the Weimar Republic's "centre" to answer the question: how can political centrism employ social, cultural, and democratic institutions to resist polarization and extremism? This book's three sections reveal how key thinkers worked to balance pluralism and national identity, how politicians struggled to hold centrist positions across right-leaning, centrist, and left-leaning parties, and how contemporary culture today interprets those efforts for audiences in the press, the museum, and the concert hall.
In today's age of stumbling democratic institutions and increasing political polarization, (Re)Centring the Weimar Republic offers a historical touchstone for evaluating liberal democracy pushed to its limits and the multipartisan efforts to reinforce its principles.

Contents

Illustrations
Acknowledgments

Introduction: Weimar's Political Centrisms
Katharina Clausius

Part I - Individual and Collective Positioning

1. Helmuth Plessner and the Ex-Centric Culture of the Weimar Republic
Howard Pollack-Milgate

2. Weimar: The Reading Republic
Kerstin Barndt

3. Minefield in the Centre: Berlin Politics and the Sklarek Affair (1929)
Tom Saunders

Part II - Party Centrists and Extremists

4. Hollowing Out the Political Centre: Purging Parliamentarians and the Waning of the Weimar Republic
James McSpadden

5. When the Centre Gives: The Balance of a Core Weltanschauung and Outside Pressure to Sustain the German Centre Party, 1925-1930
Martin Menke

6. (Re)Centring the Proletariat in Weimar Communist Politics: Karl Korsch's Struggle in the Ultra-Left
Marie-Josée Lavallée

Part III - (Re)Centring Weimar Today

7. Analyzing German Mainstream Media Coverage: Weimar in the News (2007-2019)
Jill Suzanne Smith, Fernando Nascimento, Barbara Levergood

8. Exhibiting Democracy: On Putting the Weimar Republic into a Museum
Peter C. Caldwell

9. Resounding Weimar's Cultural Legacy
Commentary and Interview with Ian Wekwerth and Johannes Ernst

List of Contributors
Index