Breakdown, Breakup, Breakthrough

"Germany's institutional anatomy, its norms, and the spirits that animate it can only be properly understood if one takes into account such factors as its economic power and central position within Europe. This volume traces the difficult passage of German society to modernity offering new perspectives on the "German question," largely characterized by the absence of key ideological underpinnings of democracy in the early modern period and a constitutional exceptionalism on the eye of the twentieth century."--BOOK JACKET.