Focusing on three seminal cases of military defeat--the South after the Civil War, France in the wake of the Franco-Prussian War, and Germany following World War I--Wolfgang Schivelbusch reveals the complex psychological and cultural responses of vanquished nations to the experience of loss on the battlefield. Drawing on reactions from every level of society, Schivelbusch charts the narratives defeated nations construct and finds remarkable similarities across cultures. Eloquently and vibrantly told, The Culture of Defeat is a brilliant and provocative tour de force of history.

The Culture of Defeat: On National Trauma, Mourning, and Recovery

History

SCHIVELBUSCH, Wolfgang

Historical Study & Educational Resources

Picador

Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt's America, Mussolini's Italy, and Hitler's Germany, 1933-1939

Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal is regarded today as the democratic ideal, a triumphant American response to a crisis that forced Germany and Italy toward National Socialism and Fascism. Yet in the 1930s, before World War II, the regimes of Roosevelt, Mussolini, and Hitler bore fundamental similarities. In this groundbreaking work, Wolfgang Schivelbusch investigates the shared elements of these three "new deals"--focusing on their architecture and public works projects--to offer a new explanation for the popularity of Europe's totalitarian systems. Writing with flair and concision, Schivelbusch casts a different light on the New Deal and puts forth a provocative explanation for the still-mysterious popularity of Europe's most tyrannical regimes.

Americas

A look at how humanity transformed history in its search for rare spices, stimulants, and intoxicants documents the drive for these substances that fueled journeys across the Atlantic to the "new world"

TASTES OF PARADISE

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Pantheon

Text: English, German (translation)

The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the 19th Century

Engineering & Transportation

Transportation

University of California Press

Examines the interplay between new and revolutionary technology and nineteenth-century imagination

Disenchanted Night: The Industrialization of Light in the Nineteenth Century

Business & Money

Economics

The impact of constant technological change upon our perception of the world is so pervasive as to have become a commonplace of modern society. But this was not always the case; as Wolfgang Schivelbusch points out in this fascinating study, our adaptation to technological changethe development of our modern, industrialized consciousnesswas very much a learned behavior. InThe Railway Journey, Schivelbusch examines the origins of this industrialized consciousness by exploring the reaction in the nineteenth century to the first dramatic avatar of technological change, the railroad. In a highly original and engaging fashion, Schivelbusch discusses the ways in which our perceptions of distance, time, autonomy, speed, and risk were altered by railway travel. As a history of the surprising ways in which technology and culture interact, this book covers a wide range of topics, including the changing perception of landscapes, the death of conversation while traveling, the problematic nature of the railway compartment, the space of glass architecture, the pathology of the railway journey, industrial fatigue and the history of shock, and the railroad and the city. Belonging to a distinguished European tradition of critical sociology best exemplified by the work of Georg Simmel and Walter Benjamin,The Railway Journey is anchored in rich empirical data and full of striking insights about railway travel, the industrial revolution, and technological change. Now updated with a new preface,The Railway Journey is an invaluable resource for readers interested in nineteenth-century culture and technology and the prehistory of modern media and digitalization.

Wolfgang Schivelbusch tells the story of the development of artificial light in the nineteenth century. Not simply a history of a technology, Disenchanted Night revelas the ways that the technology of artificial illumination helped forge modern consciousness. In his strikingly illustrated and lively narrative, Schivelbusch discusses a range of subject including the political symbolism of streetlamps, the rise of nightlife and the shopwindow, and the importance of the salon in bourgeois culture.

The impact of constant technological change upon our perception of the world is so pervasive as to have become a commonplace of modern society. But this was not always the case; as Wolfgang Schivelbusch points out in this fascinating study, our adaptation to technological change―the development of our modern, industrialized consciousness―was very much a learned behavior. In The Railway Journey, Schivelbusch examines the origins of this industrialized consciousness by exploring the reaction in the nineteenth century to the first dramatic avatar of technological change, the railroad. In a highly original and engaging fashion, Schivelbusch discusses the ways in which our perceptions of distance, time, autonomy, speed, and risk were altered by railway travel. As a history of the surprising ways in which technology and culture interact, this book covers a wide range of topics, including the changing perception of landscapes, the death of conversation while traveling, the problematic nature of the railway compartment, the space of glass architecture, the pathology of the railway journey, industrial fatigue and the history of shock, and the railroad and the city. Belonging to a distinguished European tradition of critical sociology best exemplified by the work of Georg Simmel and Walter Benjamin, The Railway Journey is anchored in rich empirical data and full of striking insights about railway travel, the industrial revolution, and technological change. Now updated with a new preface, The Railway Journey is an invaluable resource for readers interested in nineteenth-century culture and technology and the prehistory of modern media and digitalization.

Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the Nineteenth Century

In a Cold Crater: Cultural and Intellectual Life in Berlin, 1945-1948 (Volume 18) (Weimar and Now: German Cultural Criticism)

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

A fascinating look at history's losers-the myths they create to cope with defeat and the steps they take never to be vanquished again History may be written by the victors, Wolfgang Schivelbusch argues in his brilliant and provocative new book, but the losers often have the final word. Focusing on three seminal cases of modern warfare-the South after the Civil War, France in the wake of the Franco-Prussian War, and Germany following World War I-Schivelbusch reveals the complex psychological and cultural reactions of vanquished nations to the experience of military defeat. Drawing on responses from every level of society, Schivelbusch shows how conquered societies question the foundations of their identities and strive to emulate the victors: the South to become a "better North," the French to militarize their schools on the Prussian model, the Germans to adopt all things American. He charts the losers' paradoxical equation of military failure with cultural superiority as they generate myths to glorify their pasts and explain their losses: the nostalgic "plantation legend" after the fall of the Confederacy; the cult of Joan of Arc in vanquished France; the fiction of the stab in the back by "foreign" elements in postwar Germany. From cathartic epidemics of "dance madness" to the revolutions that so often follow battlefield humiliation, Schivelbusch finds remarkable similarities across cultures. Eloquently and vibrantly told, The Culture of Defeat is a tour de force that opens new territory for historical inquiry.

Military

Metropolitan Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by SCHIVELBUSCH, Wolfgang. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by SCHIVELBUSCH, Wolfgang

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by SCHIVELBUSCH, Wolfgang. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Culture of Defeat: On National Trauma, Mourning, and Recovery

Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt's America, Mussolini's Italy, and Hitler's Germany, 1933-1939

TASTES OF PARADISE

The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the 19th Century

Disenchanted Night: The Industrialization of Light in the Nineteenth Century

The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the 19th Century

Disenchanted Night: The Industrialization of Light in the Nineteenth Century

Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the Nineteenth Century

In a Cold Crater: Cultural and Intellectual Life in Berlin, 1945-1948 (Volume 18) (Weimar and Now: German Cultural Criticism)

The Culture of Defeat: On National Trauma, Mourning, and Recovery