Identity and Intolerance: Nationalism, Racism, and Xenophobia in Germany and the United States

by Norbert Finzsch, Dietmar Schirmer

Overview

In a world of increasingly heterogeneous societies, matters of identity politics and the links between collective identities and national, racial, or ethnic intolerance have assumed dramatic significance. Identity and Intolerance attempts to show how German and American societies have historically confronted and currently confront matters of national, racial, and ethnic inclusion and exclusion. The comparative perspective sheds light on the specific links among the cultural construction of nationhood and otherness, the political modes of integration and exclusion, and the social conditions of tolerance and intolerance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521591584
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	08/13/1998
Series:	Publications of the German Historical Institute
Pages:	466
Product dimensions:	6.34(w) x 9.33(h) x 1.18(d)

Table of Contents

Introduction; Part I. Concepts of National Identity and the Symbolic Construction of Nations: 1. National identity and the conditions of tolerance; 2. The historical invention and modern reinvention of two national identities; 3. Segmented politics: xenophobia, citizenship, and political loyalty in Germany; 4. The discoursive construction of national stereotypes: collective imagination and racist concepts in Germany before World War I; 5. Integration and fragmentation discourses: demanding and supplying 'identity' in diverse societies; Part II. The Social and Cultural Practice of Racism: 6. Race, class, and Southern racial violence; 7. Racism and Empire: a perspective on a new era of American history; 8. Police, African Americans, and Irish immigrants in the nation's capital; 9. The politics of boycotting: experiences in Germany and the United States since 1880; 10. Jews and the German language; Part III. Race, Gender, Body, Biology: 11. Ambiguous roles: the racial factor in American womanhood; 12. Citizenship embodied: racialized gender and the construction of nationhood in the United States; 13. Body matters: race, gender, and perceptions of physical ability from Goethe to Weininger; 14. A horse breeder's perspective: scientific racism in Germany, 1870–1933; 15. The thin line between eugenics and preventive medicine.

Editorial Reviews

"This volume, seeking to resolve the issue by theoretically informed discussion, opens with the provocative reflection that racial prejudice should be regarded as a feature of modernity. The revival of racism in Eastern Europe, and the cultural paradigm of nationalism serve as starting points for a volume which is diverse in terms of methodological approaches and issues. Certainly ambitious in scope and interesting..." Canadian Journal of History

From the Publisher