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Winner of the Lionel Trilling Award Nominated for the National Book Award "A major contribution to our understanding of some of the great themes of modern European history--the relations between Jews and Germans, between economics and politics, between banking and diplomacy." --James Joll, The New York Times Book Review "I cannot praise this book too highly. It is a work of original scholarship, both exact and profound. It restores a buried chapter of history and penetrates, with insight and understanding, one of the most disturbing historical problems of modern times." --Hugh J. Trevor-Roper, London Sunday Times "[An] extraordinary book, an invaluable contribution to our understanding of Germany in the second half of the nineteenth century." --Stanley Hoffman, Washington Post Book World "One of the most important historical works of the past few decades." --Golo Mann "In many ways this book resembles the great nineteenth-century novels." --The Economist… (more)
User reviews
The main themes of the book are how finance and politics became intertwined in those years, and very much through the persons of Bleichroeder and Bismarck; and the fall and re-arising of anti-Semitism during those years, and again how these two characters played such important roles in that process too. And of course these themes are coupled. The new anti-Semitism saw Jews as powerful; Bleichroeder was proof.
Stern transposes the literary matrix: the letters each belong to a moment in time, and many, I expect, pulled in strands from many facets of the situation of that moment. Stern largely dedicates a chapter to each facet, revisiting the same stretch of time in each chapter while isolating one strand or another. Probably the key chapter for the anti-Semitism chapter is the one on Rumania. In 1978 anti-Semitism was in sufficient retreat that a treaty could be forced on Rumania that required them to emancipate their Jews. But within a few years, Rumania had shirked this duty and was never held accountable.
Sad to say, this book seems more relevant today than when it was published. Various economic difficulties plagued the working class in the 1870s and 1880s; the old aristocracy could unite with the craftsmen and shopkeepers against the liberals and capitalists, under the banner of anti-Semitism. Of course Stern had no need to dwell on the parallels with the 1930s. I imagine he would have been surprised to see those passions reignited in the 2016 time frame.
I am not so familiar with Bismarck's chancellorship and all the events during those years. This book doesn't really tell the big story. Occasionally Stern will take a few paragraphs to sketch some piece of it, but mostly we just see the grand march from the point of view of a few players. Indeed, Stern reminds us several times that in the middle of events, the players don't have that hindsight that we have many decades later. Personally I like to learn about the big things from the perspective of the small things. Other readers may get frustrated. It's not a book for everyone! But the rich detail here is really a treasure if you don't mind getting lost in the details!