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Catalog Archive / Spring 2021

The Crisis of German Ideology
Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich
With a critical introduction by Steven E. Aschheim

“A milestone in the study of National Socialism. . . . Indispensable for any serious student of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe.”
New York Review of Books

This new edition revisits the renowned historian George L. Mosse's landmark work exploring the ideological foundations of Nazism in Germany. First published in 1964, this volume was among the first to examine the intellectual origins of the Third Reich. Mosse introduced readers to what is known as the völkisch ideal—the belief that the German people were united through a transcendental essence. This mindset led to the exclusion of Jews and other groups, eventually allowing Nazi leaders to take their beliefs to catastrophic extremes. The critical introduction by Steven E. Aschheim, the author of Beyond the Border: The German-Jewish Legacy Abroad and many other books, brings Mosse's work into the present moment.

George L. Mosse (1918–99) was a legendary scholar, teacher, and mentor. A refugee from Nazi Germany, in 1955 he joined the Department of History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he was both influential and popular. Mosse was an early leader in the study of modern European cultural and intellectual history, fascism, and the history of sexuality and masculinity. Over his career he authored more than two dozen books.

 

Praise

“Mosse takes us back to a vital undercurrent of the German mind. . . . A major contribution to scholarship.”
American Historical Review

“A disturbing but necessary book.”
Catholic Historical Review

 

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June 2021
LC: 2020044290 DD
416 pp. 6 x 9

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Paper $21.95 S
ISBN 9780299332044
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