Stark has produced a lucid, thoroughly researched study of literary censorship in Wilhelmine Germany, i.e., the period from the founding of the Second Reich in 1871 to the end of WW I. Including an excellent bibliography, much of it in German, and elegant illustrations with English translations, this book may be the final word on this subject. Highly recommended.
Choice
...a thorough and absorbing study of literary censorship in imperial Germany...a succinct and scholarly account of 'repressive interventions' in the literary sphere.
European History Quarterly
Gary Stark has written a sophisticated and richly informative study of German censorship. The volume is not only a great introduction to the media and cultural production of Imperial Germany, but also a thoughtful primer on the general significance of censorship ...a marvellous book that should become a standard work in the historiography of Imperial Germany.
English Historical Review
Stark offers a convincing and differentiated picture based on wide ranging closely examined source material.
Historische Zeitschrift
Imperial Germany's governing elite frequently sought to censor literature that threatened established political, social, religious, and moral norms in the name of public peace, order, and security. It claimed and exercised a prerogative to intervene in literary life that was broader than that of its Western neighbors, but still not broad enough to prevent the literary community from challenging and subverting many of the social norms the state was most determined to defend. This study is the first systematic analysis in any language of state censorship of literature and theater in imperial Germany (1871-1918). To assess the role that formal state controls played in German literary and political life during this period, it examines the intent, function, contested legal basis, institutions, and everyday operations of literary censorship as well as its effectiveness and its impact on authors, publishers, and theater directors.
Gary D. Stark
is currently Professor of History and Associate Dean of Liberal Arts & Sciences at Grand Valley State University in Michigan. Previously, he was Professor of History, University of Central Arkansas (1994-1998) and Assistant and Associate Professor of History, University of Texas at Arlington (1975-1994), where he also held decanal positions. He is the author of
Entrepreneurs of Ideology: Neoconservative Publishers in Germany 1890-1933
(University of North Carolina Press) and of numerous articles on late nineteenth and early twentieth century German cultural history. He co-edited with Bede K. Lackner,
Essays on Culture and Society in Modern Germany
(College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 1982).