Political Friendship, Liberal Notables; Networks; and the Pursuit of the German Nation State; 1848-1866

Author

Weaver; Michael

Year

2024

Publisher

Berghahn Books

Language

English

Pages

ISBN

978-1-80539-285-9

Link

Last Update

29-Nov-2025

Keywords

History ; European Studies ; Political Science

Description

This chapter focuses on the prerequisites for political friendship in the network of moderate liberals. It addresses members’ experiences from the period of Restoration Germany through the Revolutions of 1848/49 to the “Punctation” at Olmütz in 1850, as well as their family, religious, educational, professional, and early political lives. Class subsumes many of these overlapping categories. Separating the social, political, and religious strands is difficult in a liminal period when the meaning of liberalism, the bourgeoisie, and conservatism remained blurry.¹ Yet, investigating the nascent boundaries of class and oppositional politics shows how, by the late 1840s, shared experiences at home,...