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The Emancipation of Writing: German Civil Society in the Making, 1790s-1820s

Online ISBN:
9780520928527
Print ISBN:
9780520233300
Publisher:
University of California Press
Book

The Emancipation of Writing: German Civil Society in the Making, 1790s-1820s

Published online:
22 March 2012
Published in print:
21 January 2003
Online ISBN:
9780520928527
Print ISBN:
9780520233300
Publisher:
University of California Press

Abstract

This book studies writing in its connection to bureaucracy, citizenship, and the state in Germany. Stitching together micro- and macro-level analysis, it reconstructs the vibrant, textually saturated civic culture of the German southwest in the aftermath of the French Revolution and Napoleon's invasions. The book reveals that Germany's notoriously oppressive bureaucracy, when viewed through the writing practices which were its lifeblood, could also function as a site of citizenship. Citizens, acting under the mediation of powerful local scribes, practiced their freedoms in written engagements with the state. Their communications laid the basis for civil society, showing how social networks commonly associated with the free market, the free press, and the voluntary association could also take root in powerful state institutions.

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