New Project, New Blog
This blog is more or less a process journal for a book I'm writing, tentatively entitled 'The Kaiser and the Colonies'. It's meant to offer a behind-the-scenes look at what I'm doing as I write.
Straight up, I want to say that the project is funded by the Australian Research Council (DP DP180100118 for those who like details).
As I see it, the project is trying to explore what constitutional monarchy looked like outside of Britain. In the Anglosphere, indeed elsewhere too, Britain's political development is seen more or less as the default success story in Europe, with everywhere else marred by some historical Geburtsfehler. As anyone with a passing knowledge of German history knows, this is often used to 'explain' why Germany was so different. Yep, the Sonderweg argument.
My hunch in this project is that Britain and Germany weren't as radically different as many believe. There were of course important differences, but the role of the monarch may not be one of them. We shall see whether this holds up or not.
So, anyway, assuming that foreign policy is generally seen as the strong suite of the monarch, this book looks at the role of Kaiser Wilhelm II in the formulation of German foreign policy. In particular I want to see how the creation and management of a global empire was handled by various elements of the German state and civil society, to see how authoritarian Germany was (or was not).
Straight up, I want to say that the project is funded by the Australian Research Council (DP DP180100118 for those who like details).
As I see it, the project is trying to explore what constitutional monarchy looked like outside of Britain. In the Anglosphere, indeed elsewhere too, Britain's political development is seen more or less as the default success story in Europe, with everywhere else marred by some historical Geburtsfehler. As anyone with a passing knowledge of German history knows, this is often used to 'explain' why Germany was so different. Yep, the Sonderweg argument.
My hunch in this project is that Britain and Germany weren't as radically different as many believe. There were of course important differences, but the role of the monarch may not be one of them. We shall see whether this holds up or not.
So, anyway, assuming that foreign policy is generally seen as the strong suite of the monarch, this book looks at the role of Kaiser Wilhelm II in the formulation of German foreign policy. In particular I want to see how the creation and management of a global empire was handled by various elements of the German state and civil society, to see how authoritarian Germany was (or was not).
Comments
Post a Comment