Between society and culture: new approaches to twentieth-century German history

Abstract

All too often, edited collections based on conference proceedings merely compile previously published work with little thematic or methodological coherence. Not so, however, these two volumes. The Work of Memory, edited by Alon Confino and Peter Fritzsche, and Pain and Prosperity, edited by Paul Betts and Greg Eghigian, bring together some of the most cuttingedge research in German cultural history while also providing, each in its own way, a series of methodological and thematic propositions for (re)conceptualizing modem German history. Both volumes also mark an important historiographical moment. They are inspired by and draw on central premises of the (by now no longer so) 'new cultural history'. Many of the contributions also move beyond what William Sewell has called 'linguistic reductionism'.1 These volumes seek new ways of (re)integrating the 'social' into the study of 'culture', of relating the study of discourse and representations to social experience and action. In so doing, both volumes chart out possible paths for transcending the artificial boundaries between cultural and social history. In The Work of Memory, Alon Confino and Peter Fritzsche sketch out an ambitious agenda for the future study of 'memory'. The excellent introduction, which is ideally suited for