Andrew G. Bonnell

“Cheap and Nasty”: German Goods, Socialism, and the 1876 Philadelphia World Fair

At the World Fair in Philadelphia in 1876, the German goods on display were described as cheap and nasty, setting off a vigorous debate about the state of German industry. Social democrats attacked policies of increasing competitiveness of German exports through keeping wages low, and claimed that the quality of the goods produced by socialist workers was higher than those produced by others. An analysis of the debate shows the extent to which social democrats not only resorted to arguments stressing the national interest, but also the extent to which nominally Marxist socialists in this period were still attached to traditional artisanal values of pride in the quality of their work.

Stephen Roberts as a commentator on fascism and the road to war in Europe

In the light of recent scholarship on Australian responses to Nazism, Fascism and the origins of the Second World War in Europe, it is worth revisiting a formative influence on Australian public opinion on international affairs in the 1930s, the Sydney University historian Stephen H. Roberts. While his bestselling 1937 book, The House that Hitler Built, is relatively well-known and well-documented, his regular media commentary in the same period has received less detailed analysis to date. Focussing particularly on Roberts’ weekly commentaries on international affairs in the Sydney Mail, this article looks critically at the strengths and limitations of Roberts’ prolific statements on Nazism, Fascism and the threat of war. This article has been peer-reviewed.

Sebastian Conrad, Globalisation and the Nation in Imperial Germany

and American slavery. Yet he is insistent throughout that, in so far as imperial Russia was distinctive, it was really no more distinctive than were other European countries from each other. Russian history is a variant of a common European pattern, not sui generis, and oversimplifications of ‘absolute contrast’ or ‘perfect similarity’ are to be avoided. A second theme that stands out – and in certain respects follows logically from the first – is the argument that, prior to 1914, Russian society was much more stable than commonly depicted. The necessity to account for 1917, suggests Confino, has compelled historians to look specifically for evidence of instability (revolutionaries, terrorism, etc.) and has led many to overlook data that suggests alternative perspectives. Thus, in a splendid discussion of the historiography of late imperial Russia’s agrarian crisis, Confino points to important studies that convincingly refute the notion of a crisis altogether, because, it is argued, peasant productivity and living standards were rising, not declining. He asks why, in the face of this evidence, textbooks persist in portraying late imperial Russia as riven by agrarian crisis. In the author’s assessment, ‘Russian imperial society was neither more nor less fragmented than other European societies, and its social groups neither more nor less isolated from each other’ (252). If Confino is right, however (and the recent work of other scholars lends some weight to his views), the events of 1917 become more of a conundrum. If the revolution occurred in a society that was rather different from the one that historians are accustomed to imagining, what are the implications for how we understand the causes of the revolution? This is an issue that Confino does not address directly, although his arguments against Russian exceptionalism, along with a conviction that ideas influence the course of history, perhaps lead back to an understanding of the revolution as the machinations of a few ideologues, itself an unsatisfactory interpretation. Throughout the essays, Confino carefully reflects on the nature and limits of historical method, notably comparative history and teleological thinking. This display of disciplinary self-awareness is one of the most stimulating aspects of the book, not least because it enhances the reader’s understanding of the author’s approaches and assumptions, and how they have shaped his scholarship. Consequently, while Russian historians will find considerable food for thought in these essays, they can also be recommended to historians interested in the complex interplay between theory and practice.

The lost man: Wilhelm Solf in German history

Wilhelm Solf (1862–1936) has had a long wait for a biography to do him justice. His widow Hanna spent many frustrating years trying to organise an authorised biography, efforts which are detailed by Peter Hempenstall and Paula Tanaka Mochida in the first chapter of their new work. Now, Hempenstall, a noted Pacific historian who has written on the history of Imperial Germany’s South Pacific colonies, and Mochida, librarian at the University of Hawai’i with a long-standing scholarly interest in Solf, have combined in this study of the several facets of Solf’s life and career. Solf’s ten years as Governor of Samoa, from 1900 to 1910, might be of most interest to readers of this journal. They were followed by his tenure as head of Germany’s colonial office from 1911 to 1918, a brief term as foreign minister in the dying weeks of the German Empire in late 1918, and a successful term as German Ambassador to Japan from 1920 to 1928. Solf has been viewed in the literature on the German Empire as a model colonial administrator. In 1962, W.O. Henderson, after considering the record of figures in German colonial history such as the brutal adventurer Carl Peters in East Africa or the genocidal General von Trotha in SouthWest Africa, counted Solf among a handful of ‘admirable administrators’ who belonged to the ‘brighter side of German colonial administration’. And even in less grisly company, one might be struck by the attractive sides of Solf — the strong interest in other cultures and the commitment to avoiding force as much possible, preferring to set store by peaceful economic and cultural exchange. In his 1978 study of Pacific Islanders under German rule, Hempenstall also spoke highly of Solf’s sensitivity to, and respect for, ‘the ethics and integrity of Samoan society’. In the present work, the authors relativise this picture somewhat. They acknowledge the work of Samoan historians Malama Meleisea and Kilifoti Eteuati, who have depicted Solf’s relationship to Samoan culture as more superficial and instrumental than earlier literature has shown. Solf was also still a man of his time and background in his consistent opposition to intermarriage and ‘racial mixing’ in the colonies. And as late as 1918, Solf still found the word ‘democracy’ distasteful. Nevertheless, the principles that Solf had developed by the time he became German colonial secretary were by no means the worst for a colonial administrator: ‘rejection of force as an instrument of policy; respect for the needs and cultures of the native peoples of the colonies; a deep suspicion of immigrant German small land holders; and the belief that one should govern for the whole community, including foreigners, though always with a watchful eye on the work of Christian missionaries’ (p. 90). Under Solf, Samoa even paid its own way, unlike most of Germany’s colonial empire. As the authors suggest, there is some irony in Solf ’s later career. By any standards, his work as German Ambassador to Japan was highly successful, but Solf suffered from a sense that more prestigious postings (such as Washington) were denied him. He has largely been written out of the history of the Weimar Republic’s foreign policy (Jonathan Wright’s major 2002 biography of Gustav Stresemann does not mention him, for example). If he was too liberal for the highest offices in Imperial Germany, but too much a man of the old regime for the democratic revolution of 1918–19, his views on international relations also seem to have been too irenical for Stresemann’s pragmatic and ultimately realist revisionist foreign policies of the 1920s. A note on the form of this biography: the authors interpose a number of ‘conversations’ between their chapters, in which they each reflect on the course of their research and thinking on Solf ’s life. Richard Holmes (Shelley: the pursuit (London 1974)) is an acknowledged influence here. Readers will either find this formal innovation engaging, and enjoy the sharing of the insight into the processes at work in the biographers’ workshop, or, perhaps, be irritated by the intrusion of postmodern reflexivity into the narrative. For this reviewer, the only annoyance was the fact that the endnotes are not in the most user-friendly form. That said, the research is as comprehensive as

Social Democrats and Germany’s war in South-West Africa, 1904–7

That the German Social Democratic Party, led by August Bebel, was strongly critical of the conduct of Germany’s war against the Herero and Nama peoples in South-West Africa is well documented. The party’s spokespeople condemned human rights abuses in the colonies, as well as the financial costs of the colonies to the German taxpayer. Less well explored are Social Democrats’ views of the colonized peoples themselves. This paper will examine the views of Germany’s South-West African subjects in the Social Democratic press, with particular focus on the illustrated satirical paper Der Wahre Jacob. Broadly similar to the celebrated magazine Simplicissimus, Der Wahre Jakob had a genuine mass circulation, and it is safe to assume that most party members saw its visual material, and perhaps also read the texts. This paper will consider the representations of Africans in such media in the context of visual representations of Africans more generally in Germany in this period.

Echoes of the marseillaise in German social democracy

Jean-Numa Ducange’s recent work, La Revolution francaise et la social-democratie. Transmissions et usages politiques de l’histoire en Allemagne et Autriche 1889–1934, provides an ambitious and theoretically-sophisticated analysis of the ways in which German and Austrian socialists interpreted the French Revolution from 1889 to the 1930s. Ducange shows how the different strands of Second International socialism interpreted the revolution in their own ways, and shows the impact of the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917 on this. His work does not only focus on leading theoreticians such as Karl Kautsky, but also documents very effectively the way in which the readings of the French Revolution were disseminated widely through Social Democracy’s rank-and-file membership. It is a valuable contribution to the literature on the culture of Marxism in Central Europe in this period, as well as a rich addition to the literature on the resonance and uses of the French Revolution: the ‘echoes of the Marseillaise’.

Explaining Suicide in the Imperial German Army

As social science evolved during the second half of the nineteenth century, the phenomenon of suicide received significant attention from sociologists. The issue of the frequency of suicides in the Imperial German armed forces proved highly sensitive. Official sources sought to minimize evidence of the mistreatment of soldiers in their presentation of suicide data, while critics of militarism, especially in the Social Democratic Party, used suicides in the military to expose what they regarded as systemic abuse. The issue became a case study in the potential politicization of social science findings and the polarization of public discourse in Imperial Germany.

The reluctant revolutionary. Dietrich Bonhoeffer's collision with Prussian-German History. By John A. Moses (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2009), pp.xxi + 298. US

vast majority of abortions are morally unjust (12). But he is convinced that meaningful and respectful dialogue between defenders and critics of abortion is possible if two key truths are honored. The first is the difference between the subjective culpability of the agent and the objective morality of the act as determined by relevant moral principles and norms. We must not, indeed cannot, judge those who choose to have or defend abortions. “Whatever one’s view of abortion itself, refraining from making judgments about the character of those touched by abortion (in whatever way) is helpful in treating the topic properly, and more importantly, I believe (but won’t defend here), that it is an essential part of being a decent human being” (5). The second is to avoid loaded language such as anti-life, anti-choice, etc. and use instead terms such as defenders of abortion, critics of abortion (6).