A completely new look at the history of Europe over the last one hundred years, showing how the fabric of everyday life and the major political upheavals of the twentieth century were fundamentally shaped by the culture and environment of the city.
Germany's Other Modernity explores the physical spaces and mental attitudes that shaped lives, restructured society, and conditioned beliefs about the past and expectations for the future in the crucial German generations that formed the young Reich, fought the Great War, and experienced the Weimar Republic. Focusing on ordinary buildings, this study shows how material space could influence the lives of citizens, from the ways the elderly slept at night to the economy of the city as a whole. It also shows how we integrate the spaces of our lives into our explanations of politics, culture, and economics. It is aimed at those who want to understand urban modernity, Wilhelmine, and Weimar Germany, the use of space in social policy and politics, and the design of cities.