Measured by its capacity to endure, the Prussian nobility was the most successful in the modern history of continental Europe. Throughout the long vicissitudes of its history, this class--the Junkers--displayed a remarkable ability to adapt to new circumstances and maintain its own political power. Robert Berdahl presents a comprehensive interpretation of the tenacity of the Prussian nobles from the late eighteenth century until the revolution of 1848. At one level, he provides a richly detailed economic, social, and political history: the story of how the landowning nobility coped with changes in rural social relations after the emancipation of the serfs in 1807 and of how it survived the agrarian depression of the 1820s by the development of capitalist agriculture. At another level, he shows how the Junkers developed an ideology of conservatism that justified their control of a society that was becoming increasingly bourgeois.

Princeton University Press, 1988.
ISBN: 9780691055367. 384 pp.
Hardcover. Near fine in a near fine jacket.