Free Download The Alternative Culture: Socialist Labor in Imperial Germany by Vernon L. Lidtke
English | 1985 | ISBN: 0195035070 | 310 Pages | PDF | 11.7 MB
This book is a study of the social and cultural aspects of the German Social Democratic labour movement in the era between the 1860s and the outbreak of World War I.
Asserting that the style and form of a social movement are as integral to its nature as its official doctrines, Lidtke discusses phenomena such as the way in which popular political songs raised the consciousness of the masses who would otherwise have remained uninvolved with the movement.
This book is about the creation and maintenance of a Socialist sub-culture in the German Kaiserreich (1871-1918). As such, it is a work of cultural history that highlights the importance of symbols, festivals, and other events in the formation of a Social Democrat identity. Lidtke’s book argues that the Social Democratic labor movement "presented German society with a radical alternative to existing norms and arrangements". This ‘alternative culture’ was not radical in that it wanted to overthrow the imperial government in a swift revolution. Instead, it was radical in the sense that it "embodied in its principles a conception of production, social relations, and political institutions that rejected existing structures, practices, and values at almost every point".