Introduction -- The competition between nobility and bourgeoisie for dominance over arts and culture -- The role of donors in shaping the intellectual elite -- Private funding for national research projects and institutes -- Philanthropy and the shaping of the working-class family -- Civil society in an authoritarian state: German philanthropy on the eve of the First World War -- The slow decline of philanthropy and civil society -- Conclusion

Largely unnoticed among English-speaking scholars of German history, a major shift in interpretation of German history has been underway during the past three decades among German historians of Germany. While American and British historians continue to subscribe to an interpretation of German society as state centered, their German counterparts have begun to embrace an interpretation in which nineteenth- and twentieth-century German society was characterized by private initiative and a vibrant civil society. Public institutions such as museums, high schools, universities, hospitals, and charities relied heavily on the support of wealthy donors. State funding for universities and high schools, for instance, accounted only for a fragment of the operating costs of those institutions, while private endowments running into the millions of marks funded scholarships as well as health care for teachers and students. Private support for public institutions was essential for their existence and survival: it was the backbone of Germany's civil society. This book is the first to provide the English-speaking reader with this revisionist interpretation of the role of the state and philanthropy in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Germany: a society in which private actors claimed responsibility for the common good and used philanthropic engagement to shape society according to their visions.

Traces the development of German civil society through collective actions of honor

"Approaches to the Study of Intercultural Transfer" presents a collection of compelling case studies in the areas of social reform, museums, philanthropy, football, nonviolent resistance and holiday rituals such as Christmas that demonstrate key mechanisms of intercultural transfers. Each chapter provides the application of the intercultural transfer studies paradigm to a specific and distinct historical phenomenon. The chapters not only illustrate the presence or even the depth and frequency of intercultural transfer, but also reveal specific aspects of the intercultural transfer of phenomena, the role of agents of intercultural transfer and the transformations of ideas transferred between cultures thereby contributing to our understanding of the mechanisms of intercultural transfers.

We tend to accept that German cities and states run their own cultural institutions (concert halls, theatres, museums). This book shows how this now “self-evident” fact became a reality in the course of the long nineteenth century.

Across the modern era, the traditional stereotype of Germans as authoritarian and subservient has faded, as they have become (mostly) model democrats. This book, for the first time, examines 130 years of history to comprehensively address the central questions of German democratization: How and why did this process occur? What has democracy meant to various Germans? And how stable is their, or indeed anyone's, democracy? Looking at six German regimes across thirteen decades, this study enables you to see how and why some Germans have always chosen to be politically active (even under dictatorships); the enormous range of conceptions of political culture and democracy they have held; and how interactions among various factors undercut or facilitated democracy at different times. Michael L. Hughes also makes clear that recent surges of support for 'populism' and 'authoritarianism' have not come out of nowhere but are inherent in long-standing contestations about democracy and political citizenship. Hughes argues that democracy – in Germany or elsewhere – cannot be a story of adversity overcome which culminates in a happy ending; it is an ongoing, open-ended process whose ultimate outcome remains uncertain.