Recasting Bourgeois Europe: Stabilization in France, Germany, and Italy in the Decade after World War I

Charles Maier, one of the most prominent contemporary scholars of European history, published Recasting Bourgeois Europe as his first book in 1975. Based on extensive archival research, the book examines how European societies progressed from a moment of social vulnerability to one of political and economic stabilization. Arguing that a common trajectory calls for a multi country analysis, Maier provides a comparative history of three European nations and argues that they did not simply return to a prewar status quo, but achieved a new balance of state authority and interest group representation. While most previous accounts presented the decade as a prelude to the Depression and dictatorships, Maier suggests that the stabilization of the 1920s, vulnerable as it was, foreshadowed the more enduring political stability achieved after World War II. The immense and ambitious scope of this book, its ability to follow diverse histories in detail, and its effort to explain stabilization--and not just revolution or breakdown--have made it a classic of European history.

Table of Contents:
Preface to the 2016 Reprinting ix Preface to the 1988 Reprinting xix Preface xxvii Abbreviations xxxi Introduction: From Bourgeois to Corporatist Europe 3 PART 1: THE CONTAINMENT OF THE LEFT Chapter 1: The Dimensions of Social Conflict at the End of World War I 19 The Language of Class Anxiety (1900-1925) 22 Elites--Resilient and Vulnerable 39 Business Accommodation in Germany and France 53 Chapter 2: Politics among the Victors: Issues and Elections in November 1919 88 Bourgeois Cohesion in France 91 Bourgeois Disarray in Italy 109 Chapter 3: The Limits of Economic Restructuring 135 The Evolution of Leftist Objectives 136 Strategies of Bourgeois Defense 153 The Coal Crisis 194 PART II: THE FAILURE OF THE PARLIAMENTARY CENTER Chapter 4: The Politics of Reparation 233 The Wager on "Fulfillment" 233 Reparation, Taxes, and the Demands of German Heavy Industry 249 The Bankruptcy of Moderation (1922) 272 Chapter 5: The Attrition of the Liberal Regime in Italy 305 The Political Ecology of Fascism 305 From Giolitti to Mussolini: The Liberals' Search for Order 322 PART III: PATHS TOWARD CORPORATIST STABILITY Chapter 6: Between Nationalism and Corporatism: The Ruhr Conflict 355 Inflation, Social Democracy, and the Challenge to Sovereignty in Germany 356 Corporatist Forces voices Poincare and Stresemann 387 Chapter 7: Majorities without Mandates: Issues and Elections in the Spring of 1924 421 The Limits of Mussolini's Majority 422 The Limits of Social Democratic Eclipse 440 The Limits of the Cartel des Gauches 458 Chapter 8: Achieving Stability 481 Inflation, Revaluation, and the Decomposition of Parliamentary Politics 483 Iron, Steel, and the International Organization of Capitalism 516 Corporative State in Corporatist Europe 545 Conclusion: The Structure and Limits of Stability 579 Bibliography 595 Index 609

About the Author :
Charles S. Maier His many books include Among Empires: American Ascendancy and its Predecessors, and Dissolution: The Crisis of Communism and the End of East Germany (Princeton). He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations