Moving on form the socio-economic to the political side of developments during these years, the sixth chapter describes the meaning of unification and the split between Austria and the new imperial Germany, ruled by Prussia, for many Jews and non-Jews. The act of unification was often felt by them as a painful rupture, but at the same time for Jews it also meant their own full integration in the emerging new Germany. Interestingly, this also included their entry into the political sphere, especially the liberal camp. In addition to their fight for final emancipation, they were also part of the efforts to establish Germany as a liberal state, despite and often against its conservative leadership. The life of Eduard Lasker, from Posen through Vienna and London to Berlin, is related in this chapter as an example. Especially interesting is Lasker’s evolvement into Bismarck’s major opponent among the liberals in the 1870s, standing for another, progressive vision of the new state, supported by the majority of the Jews, now torn from their co-religionists south of the new border.

When Wagner was born in 1813, Germany did not exist. Saxony was part of Napoleon’s ‘Confederation of the Rhine’, a collection of puppet-states. By the time he died, the German Empire was the most powerful and prosperous state in continental Europe. This sensational transformation was marked by periodic domestic upheaval (the revolutions of 1830 and 1848–9), a demographic explosion, an industrial revolution and three victorious wars for Prussia (against Denmark in 1864, Austria in 1866, and France in 1870). The accompanying political, social, and cultural changes were on a commensurate scale. Nationalism, liberalism, conservatism, socialism, and political Catholicism all emerged as mass movements, responding to radical changes in the public sphere driven by urbanisation, mass literacy and a communications revolution. By the time Wagner died in 1883, Germany had changed more than during the previous millennium.

This chapter covers the Verein für Sozialpolitik, Sering’s professorship in Bonn, the Althoff System, Bismarck, and Colonialism. It also explores the expulsion of Poles and Jews from eastern Germany in 1885, the involvement of Sering, Schmoller, and Tiedemann in the writing of the memorandum for the creation of the Program of Inner Colonization, and how the program began in 1886. It discusses Sering’s time as a professor in Bonn during 1884 to 1889, and the publication of his book on the North America trip, Die landwirthschaftliche Konkurrenz Nordamerikas in Gegenwart und Zukunft. Landwirthschaft, Kolonisation und Verkehrswesen in den Vereinigten Staaten und in Britisch-Nordamerika (The Agricultural Competition of North America in the Present and Future. Agriculture, Colonization, and Transportation in the United States and in British North America) in 1887. Sering became a professor in Berlin in 1889. Inner Colonization during the Caprivi Era is discussede, alongside Hugenberg and Schwerin. In 1893, Sering published The Inner Colonization in Eastern Germany. Max Weber, who was rabidly anti-Polishm, supported Sering. Sering’s second journey to America was in 1890, where he attended the World’s Fair in Chicago. The chapter also covers the Frederick Jackson Turner Frontier Thesis, Hohenlohe, Werner Sombart, and Socialists of the Chair.

Chapter 1 begins with a discussion of the early interest of German bankers in the Chinese market, including the failed attempt of the Deutsche Bank to establish branches in East Asia in the 1870s. The chapter then explores the early development of foreign banking in modern China from the middle of the nineteenth century and the growing interest of Chinese reformers and officials in using foreign capital and cooperating with foreign banks. We then return to the German bankers and investigate the activities of a study mission sent to China by a group of German banks and industrial concerns. Finally, the chapter traces the establishment of the Deutsch-Asiatische Bank in China by leading German banks in 1889.

We begin our consideration of Brahms’s politics and religion with the great historical turn that occurred in the centre of Europe in the year 1870. With the decisive German military defeat of France and proclamation of King Wilhelm I of Prussia as German Emperor, the German Question was at last given its definitive Prussian-dominated Smaller German solution. Brahms probably would have preferred a Larger German solution that included Austria, Prussia’s traditional rival for leadership in the loosely bound German Confederation that was established by the Congress of Vienna following Napoleon’s final defeat in 1815. But what mattered most was that Germany had at last emerged from its political impotence to become a nation-state possessed of power and influence in the world commensurate with its long-recognised achievements in the cultural sphere.

We begin our consideration of Brahms’s politics and religion with the great historical turn that occurred in the centre of Europe in the year 1870. With the decisive German military defeat of France and proclamation of King Wilhelm I of Prussia as German Emperor, the German Question was at last given its definitive Prussian-dominated Smaller German solution. Brahms probably would have preferred a Larger German solution that included Austria, Prussia’s traditional rival for leadership in the loosely bound German Confederation that was established by the Congress of Vienna following Napoleon’s final defeat in 1815. But what mattered most was that Germany had at last emerged from its political impotence to become a nation-state possessed of power and influence in the world commensurate with its long-recognised achievements in the cultural sphere.