The Kaiser's Voters: Electors and Elections in Imperial Germany

by Jonathan Sperber

Overview

The Kaiser's Voters is a study of the thirteen general elections held in Germany between 1871 and the outbreak of the First World War. Using advanced mathematical methods, but presenting the results in simple, nontechnical language, the author develops a new interpretation of the electoral politics of the German Empire, demonstrates their implications for the post-1914 era (including the rise of the Nazis) and compares voting trends in Germany with those in other countries of Europe and North America.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521591386
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	09/11/1997
Pages:	404
Product dimensions:	6.34(w) x 9.29(h) x 1.22(d)

Table of Contents

List of tables; List of figures; Acknowledgements; Introduction; Part I. The Parties: 1. The Social Democrats; 2. The minority parties; 3. The 'national' parties; Part II. The Elections: 4. The Bismarckian elections; 5. The Wilhelmine elections; 6. A century of democratic elections; Appendix; Bibliography.

Editorial Reviews

"...a most impressive and welcome piece of scholarship..." Choice

"Sperber has written a provacative book that should cause everyone who teaches the history of Imperial Germany to revise one or more lectures." James C. Albisetti, German Studies Review

"This interesting book combines the methods of history and political science to offer a new interpretation of politics during the Second Empire. Sperber gives readers new insights into Wilhelmine Germany and lays the basis for important future work." Carole Elizabeth Adams, Journal of Interdisciplinary History

"This is an important work, replete with revisionist insight, which serious students of German politics simply must read. Written by one of the most distinguished and prolific scholars of nineteenth-century Germany, the book advances new ways of looking at the success and failure of German parties as well as suggesting hitherto overlooked features of the party system." Helmut Walser Smith, American Historical Review

"...absorbing reading. It offers a powerfully argued, revisionist account of the imperial electorate and its behavior that combines analytical rigor with unpretentious clarity." Margaret Lavinia Anderson, Centeral European history

From the Publisher