The Making of a German Constitution: A Slow Revolution

By: Margaret Barber Crosby

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Synopsis: The Making of a German Constitution is one of the first books to explore the important place of the theory and practice of private law (civil law) in the transformation of Modern Germany's fin-de-siècle constitutional arrangements. Reading sources from early nineteenth-century private law scholarship, the book offers a thought-provoking and novel understanding of German political development. The author argues that the German idea of sovereignty grew out of a dual conception of law not only as the product of socio-political transformation, but also as a means to it. In the short term, a modern social and political system in Germany was attained through non-violent means and the domestic authority of the Kaiser was severely limited by law. However, the exclusive bourgeois socio-political arrangements that were installed in this era led to considerable discontent in German society, particularly with regard to gender and class tensions. The "slow Bürgerliche Revolution" thus contributed to the traumatic ruptures that mark German history in the first third of the twentieth century.