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This article examines the description of Russia in German history and geography textbooks. Nineteenth-century German pedagogical theory linked the natural sciences and the human sciences; the connection supplies further evidence of the perceived organic nature of the nation-state. Although regional and confessional differences among the German states affected the description of German history, the depiction of Russia was consistent. Russia was depicted as a barbaric, backward, and Asiatic empire. The implicit, and often explicit, comparison in the texts was between Russia and Germany. The description of a foreign power served to reinforce German national identity. Moreover, an examination of German geography and history textbooks reveals striking similarities between the perception of Russia in Germany and the Anglo-French depiction of the Near East. Dieser Aufsatz befaßt sich mit dem Rußlandbild in deutschen Schulbüchern für Geschichte und Geographie. Deutsche Pädagogik im 19. Jahrhundert verband die Naturwissenschaft mit der Geisteswissenschaft; diese Verbindung ist noch ein Beweis für die Auf- fassung des Nationalstaats als organisches Wesen. Obwohl regionale und konfessionelle Unterschiede unter den deutschen Ländern die Darstellung von deutscher Geschichte beeinflußten, war die Schilderung von Rußland übereinstimmend. Rußland wurde als ein barbarisches, rückständiges, asiatisches Reich gezeichnet. Der unausgesprochene, und manchmal doch ausgesprochene Vergleich in den Büchern galt Deutschland und Rußland. Die Darstellung der fremden Macht verstärkte die deutsche Nationalidentität. Außerdem enthüllt eine Untersuchung der Schulbücher überraschende Ähnlichkeiten zwischen der deutschen Beschreibung von Rußland und den englischen und französischen Darstellungen des Nahen Osten. L'auteur de cet article analyse l'image de la Russie dans les manuels scolaires allemands d'histoire et de géographie. La pédagogie allemande du 19ème siècle faisait le lien entre les sciences naturelles et les sciences humaines; cette association fournit une preuve supplémentaire du fait que l'Etat-nation était perçu comme un organisme vivant. Alors que les différences régionales et confessionnelles existant entre les différents Etats allemands influençaient la présentation de l'histoire allemande, la description de la Russie était concordante. La Russie était dépeinte comme un empire barbare, arriéré et asiatique. La comparaison implicite, et souvent explicite des textes scolaires concernait la Russie et l'Allemagne. La représentation d'une puissance étrangère servait à renforcer l'identité allemande. En outre, l'analyse de ces manuels révèle des ressemblances étonnantes entre la perception de la Russie et les portraits français et anglais du Proche-Orient.

This essay revisits the work of the German historian Friedrich Meinecke and offers new interpretation of his major works, Weltbürgertum und Nationalstaat (1907), Die Ideen der Staatsräson in der neuen Geschichte (1924), and Die Entstehung des Historismus (1936). The standard interpretation of Meinecke's work maintains that World War I caused a break in his thinking and caused him to rethink the role of power in the state. By stressing the first half of Weltbürgertum rather than the second, this article delineates a continuity of Meinecke's thought and points to the limitations of historicism as a historical narrative. It offers a possible explanation for how the conservative implications in the thought of an individual, who personally and politically was a Vernuftrepublikaner, could escape the author himself. This article also discusses what could be called the classical liberal critique of Meinecke's historicism, points to some of its limitations, and offers a more measured criticism of Meinecke that examines him on his own terms—and finds him wanting.

The need for constructing an environmental ethics that keeps sustainability in mind is the result of a collision of the realization that the natural environment is neither limitless nor impervious to actions with a view of nature that has been fundamentally instrumentalist and anthropocentric. This paper will borrow from architectural theory in an effort to do two things: First, it will point to some of the limitations of an anthropocentric view of nature and how it impacts efforts to influence environmental policy; second, it will suggest that ideas from Aristotle and Actor Network Theory can help to provide a paradigm within which we can think about nature in a way that offers an alternative framing of questions about the environment.

Walter Benjamin’s observation that fascism turns politics into aesthetics is, by now, a well-worn idea. This article argues that Benjamin’s critique of politics can apply just as much to the modern democratic politics of the United States. Borrowing from Benjamin, Jürgen Habermas, and Carl Schmitt, this article suggests that modern political discourse in the United States does not follow the classical liberal ideal of rational discourse in the marketplace of ideas within the public sphere. Instead, contemporary politics has become spectacle where images and slogans replace thought and debate in a 24/7 news cycle and political infotainment programs. The result is that progressives and conservatives have their own political “ecospheres” which enable them to have their own perspective reinforced, and debate is replaced by straw man arguments and personal attacks.

This article examines the influence of Friedrich Ratzel’s idea of the struggle for space and its impact on cultural and national development depicted in German geography and history textbooks from the Wilhelmine era to the Third Reich. Ratzel’s concept of bio-geography conceived the state as a living organism that is the product of humanity’s interaction with the land and also facilitates humanity’s spread across the earth. German textbooks promoted a similar concept of the state in their portrayal of geography and history, the implications of which were appropriated by the National Socialists to support their geopolitical goals.

Reprinted in Zauber und Abwehr. Aur Kultutgeschichte der deutsch-russiachen Beziehungen, Dagmar Hermann and Mechthild Keller, eds. (Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2003)

"This collection explores the various forms of narrative, semiotic, and technological mediation that shape the experience of place. From the East End of London to Navajo lands to Ground Zero, Lived Topographies examines the great effect of language, mass media, surveillance, and other incursions of the contemporary world on topographical experience and description. Gary Backhaus and John Murungi have assembled a wide array of scholars to provide an interdisciplinary approach to this subject, giving this collection a unique perspective on the phenomenology of place."--Jacket.

World War I highlighted the influence of newspapers in rousing and maintaining public support for the war effort. Discussions of the role of the press in the Great War have, to date, largely focused on atrocity stories. This book offers the first comparative analysis of how newspapers in Great Britain, France, Russia, Germany, and Austria-Hungary attempted to define war, its objectives, and the enemy. Presented country-by-country, expert essays examine, through use of translated articles from the contemporary press, how newspapers of different nations defined the war for their readership and t., World War I highlighted the influence of newspapers in rousing and maintaining public support for the war effort. Discussions of the role of the press in the Great War have, to date, largely focused on atrocity stories. This book offers the first comparative analysis of how newspapers in Great Britain, France, Russia, Germany, and Austria-Hungary attempted to define war, its objectives, and the enemy. Presented country-by-country, expert essays examine, through use of translated articles from the contemporary press, how newspapers of different nations defined the war for their readership and t

German attitudes toward and stereotypes of Russia before the First World War and how they were inculcated in the public.