Cultural Histories of Democracy (Routledge Approaches to History)

Over the last two decades German political history has changed fundamentally. It has reinvented itself as cultural history and sought to apply symbolic, linguistic, and praxeological approaches.

This book brings for the first time in English, Thomas Mergel’s inquiries into the history of democracy in Germany, with comparative perspective across the 19th and 20th centuries, while offering frequent sideways glances at its Western European and American neighbors. Politics is highlighted as a social and symbolic practice; the body, language, symbolism, and routine action are examined as factors that let politics emerge as a process of communication.

The contributions in this volume have been written over the past 25 years, with two previously unpublished chapters. They are intended to make the largely German discussion more visible on an international level and to show the application of theoretical concepts. By concentrating on parliamentary politics, parties, and elections, the book not only studies political practices and forms of communication but also deciphers political mentalities in order to historicize "democracy" as a political concept. Against the background of the German experience during the 20th century, the democratic culture of the Weimar Republic occupies a special place.

Thomas Mergel is Professor of History at Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany.