Description: The role of the middle class in national development has always been of interest to historians concerned with the "peculiarities" of German history. Recently, the professional sector of the German middle class has come under historical scrutiny as part of a re-examination of those features of German society common to Western industrializing nations. This work provides comprehensive coverage of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Germany from the point of view of this new field. The contributors discuss the formation and development of such diverse professions as law, medicine, teaching, engineering, social work, and psychology, as well as the special cases of the bureaucracy and the military. They examine such questions as the role of the state in the creation and regulation of professions, the social and political role of various professional groups during the turbulent Weimar and Nazi periods, and the remarkable and troubling institutional continuity of certain professions through the Third Reich and into the postwar republics.
Review Quotes: "[An] excellent anthology....The volume makes an important contribution to the history and sociology of the professions, especially in its efforts to refine and to revise the theories of Larson."--Journal of Interdisciplinary History
"Essential reading for sociologists doing research on modern German society, as well as for students of the professions, especially those using a comparative and historical approach."--Contemporary Sociology"[A] superb collection."--CHOICE"Makes a major contribution to the increasingly popular field of professionalisation history."--Business History"Cocks and Jarausch have brought together some of the very best new scholarship on German professions."--Central European History