Fighting for the soul of Germany [electronic resource] : the Catholic struggle for inclusion after unification / Rebecca Ayako Bennette.

Cover image for Fighting for the soul of Germany [electronic resource] : the Catholic struggle for inclusion after unification / Rebecca Ayako Bennette.

ISBN:

9780674064805

Title:

Fighting for the soul of Germany [electronic resource] : the Catholic struggle for inclusion after unification / Rebecca Ayako Bennette.

Author:

Bennette, Rebecca Ayako, 1973-

Personal Author:

Bennette, Rebecca Ayako, 1973-

Publication Information:

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2012.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 368 pages) : map.

Series:

Harvard historical studies ; 178

Contents:

The German question and religion -- The beginning of the German epoch -- The limits of loyalty tested -- The real threat emerges -- The search for continued relevance -- Mapping Germany from the borders to Berlin -- Femininity and the debate over the guiding principle of the nation -- The battle over schools and scholarship -- The moral geography of Europe and beyond.

Local Note:

eBooks on EBSCOhost

Corporate Subject:

Catholic Church -- Germany -- History -- 19th century.

Subject Term:

Kulturkampf.

Catholics -- Germany -- History -- 19th century.

Nationalism -- Religious aspects -- Catholic Church -- History -- 20th century.

Nationalism -- Germany -- History -- 19th century.

Christianity and politics -- Germany -- History -- 19th century.

Geographic Term:

Germany -- History -- William I, 1871-1888.

Germany -- Church history -- 19th century.

Format:

Electronic Resources

Electronic Access:

Click here to view

Publication Date:

2012

Publication Information:

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2012.

Available:*

Shelf Number	Material Type	Copy	Shelf Location	Status
282.4309034 23	1:E-BOOK	1	1:ONLINE	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

Historians have long believed that Catholics were late and ambivalent supporters of the German nation. Rebecca Ayako Bennette's bold new interpretation demonstrates definitively that from the beginning in 1871, when Wilhelm I was proclaimed Kaiser of a unified Germany, Catholics were actively promoting a German national identity for the new Reich.

In the years following unification, Germany was embroiled in a struggle to define the new nation. Otto von Bismarck and his allies looked to establish Germany as a modern nation through emphasis on Protestantism and military prowess. Many Catholics feared for their future when he launched the Kulturkampf , a program to break the political and social power of German Catholicism. But these anti-Catholic policies did not destroy Catholic hopes for the new Germany. Rather, they encouraged Catholics to develop an alternative to the Protestant and liberal visions that dominated the political culture. Bennette's reconstruction of Catholic thought and politics sheds light on several aspects of German life. From her discovery of Catholics who favored a more "feminine" alternative to Bismarckian militarism to her claim that anti-socialism, not anti-Semitism, energized Catholic politics, Bennette's work forces us to rethink much of what we know about religion and national identity in late nineteenth-century Germany.

Author Notes

Bennette Rebecca Ayako :

Rebecca Ayako Bennette is Assistant Professor of History at Middlebury College.

Reviews (1)

Choice Review

Bennette (Middlebury College) has written a lucid, scholarly analysis that furthers past research that has studied Catholics no longer in the ghetto, and who can now be treated as modern historical subjects. She explores how Catholics' religious identity aided them in constructing their own vision after the unification of 1871. This Catholic alternative identity, formed during the Kulturkampf, played a significant part in fostering their integration into the Second Reich. Bennette explores identities as multiple and overlapping rather than as exclusive and linear phenomena. Catholics opposed Bismarck, but not Germany as a nation. They created an identity by briefly flirting with anti-Semitism, but more fundamentally focused on antisocialism and antiliberalism. Bennette has used the usual research data, but has deeply utilized newspapers in her explication of the dynamics involved in building a viable identity. Unique in this type of study is her focus on the feminization of Catholicism and its consequential role in gendering nationalism, as well as her interest in the Catholic view of education and scholarship with an eye to moral precepts. Catholics managed confessional differences centered on the benefits of particularism to support their national integration. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, researchers/faculty. D. J. Dietrich Boston College