A comprehensive view of 19th-century German history is described in this study of the professions, from law and medicine to engineering, social work and psychology, as well as the special cases of the civil service and the military.

A comprehensive view of 19th-century German history is described in this study of the professions, from law and medicine to engineering, social work and psychology, as well as the special cases of the civil service and the military.

The role of the middle class in national development has always been of interest to historians concerned with the "peculiarities" of German history. Recently, the professional sector of the German middle class has come under historical scrutiny as part of a re-examination of those features of German society common to Western industrializing nations. This work provides comprehensive coverage of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Germany from the point of view of this new field. The contributors discuss the formation and development of such diverse professions as law, medicine, teaching, engineering, social work, and psychology, as well as the special cases of the bureaucracy and the military. They examine such questions as the role of the state in the creation and regulation of professions, the social and political role of various professional groups during the turbulent Weimar and Nazi periods, and the remarkable and troubling institutional continuity of certain professions through the Third Reich and into the postwar republics.

While we often tend to think of the Third Reich as a zone of lawlessness, the Nazi dictatorship and its policies of persecution rested on a legal foundation set in place and maintained by judges, lawyers, and civil servants trained in the law. This volume offers a concise and compelling account of how these intelligent and welleducated legal professionals lent their skills and knowledge to a system of oppression and domination. The chapters address why German lawyers and jurists were attracted to Nazism; how their support of the regime resulted from a combination of ideological conviction, careerist opportunism, and legalistic selfdelusion; and whether they were held accountable for their Nazi-era actions after 1945. This book also examines the experiences of Jewish lawyers who fell victim to anti-Semitic measures. The volume will appeal to scholars, students, and other readers with an interest in Nazi Germany, the Holocaust, and the history of jurisprudence.

Professions are central to any political sociology of major associations, organizations and venues in civil society underpinning democracy; they are not a subset of livelihoods in a mundane sociology of work and occupations. Professions in Civil Society and the State is at once elegant and startling in its directness and the sheer scope of its implications for future comparative research and theory. Not since Talcott Parsons during the early 1970s has any sociologist (or political scientist) pursued this line of inquiry. Sciulli’s theoretical approach differs fundamentally from Parsons’ and rests on a breadth of historical and cross-national support that always eluded him. The sociology of professions has come full circle, leaving behind Parsons, his critics, and two generations of received wisdom.

Perhaps no idea is more emblematic of the field of law and society than crossing boundaries. From the founding of the Law and Society Association in the early 1960s, participating scholars aspired to create a field that crossed boundaries in at least two senses: by undertaking research that questioned and often bridged traditional methodological and disciplinary divisions, and by using nontraditional approaches to explore the interconnections between law and its social context. These essays reflect both aspirations.

As one of the leading historians of Modern Europe and an internationally acclaimed scholar for the past five decades, Konrad H. Jarausch presents a sustained academic reflection on the post-war German effort to cope with the guilt of the Holocaust amongst a generation of scholars too young to have been perpetrators. Ranging from his war-time childhood to Americanization as a foreign student, from his development as a professional historian to his directorship of the Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung and concluding with his mentorship of dozens of PhDs, The Burden of Germany History reflects on the emergence of a self-critical historiography of a twentieth-century Germany that was wrestling with the responsibility for war and genocide. This partly professional and partly personal autobiography explores a wide range of topics including the development of German historiography and its methodological debates, the interdisciplinary teaching efforts in German studies, and the role of scholarly organizations and institutions.