Suchergebnisse

During the last two decades of the nineteenth century protection for agriculture became an important feature of the economic and political landscape in Germany. The large landlords, who specialized in arable agriculture, used their political power to get high levels of protection. Peasants, who specialized in animal husbandry, received lower but substantial and rising levels of protection. Material interest can thus help explain the peasants' political alliance with the landlords. Protection encouraged German agriculture to modernize along intensive lines, bringing to the countryside the social and political developments dreaded by the same conservative elites who promoted protection.

"The article takes the recent (re-)emergence of punitive concepts as a starting point to reflect on the relation between the notion of childhood as a happy phase of life and disciplinary styles of education. While the two ideas seem incommensurable at first glance, several interconnections can be found in a historical perspective. The example of the 'Zeitschrift für Kinderforschung' reveals how romantic notions of childhood were activated between 1896 and 1914 to reproduce the hierarchical structures of Wilhelminian Germany. Moreover, analysis shows that happiness was seen as having a conditional and limited character in relation to children and therefore may also refer to disciplinary concepts of education." (author's abstract)