Peter Pulzer. Germany 1870-1945: Politics, State Formation, and
War. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. xiii +
175 pp. $58.00 (paper), ISBN 978-0-19-878135-6; $65.00 (cloth),
ISBN 978-0-19-878134-9. Reviewed by Gene Mueller (Henderson
State University) Published on H-German (November, 1997) This is
perhaps one of the most concise texts written on modern
Germany's tumultuous political history from 1870-1945. One finds
here precise comments on the major issues of this period, such
as Bismarck's critical role in creating the German state, the
failure of the Revolution to produce a lasting democracy, why
Weimar failed, and why the Nazis were successful in the 1930s.
Peter Pulzer states his purpose in the introduction. First, the
text is meant to be a companion to his earlier work German
Politics, 1945-1995. His "aim" in these two volumes "is to
emphasize both the continuities and the breaks in the German
political experience of the last century and a half." In the
volume under review, he intends