The Emancipation of Writing is the first study of 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. Ian F. McNeely reveals that Germany's notoriously oppressive bureaucracy, when viewed through the writing practices that 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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Editorial Reviews
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"A superbly crafted major intervention into the hotly contested issue of German civil society - its origins, formation, and fate. McNeely turns the tables on deconstructive approaches to formalism in writing and shows how writing was thoroughly implicated in state power and corporate culture."-David Sabean, author of Kinship in Neckarhausen, 1700-1870
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"A superbly crafted major intervention into the hotly contested issue of German civil society - its origins, formation, and fate. McNeely turns the tables on deconstructive approaches to formalism in writing and shows how writing was thoroughly implicated in state power and corporate culture."--David Sabean, author of Kinship in Neckarhausen, 1700-1870
"This work's use of archival evidence to overhaul grand theory puts it in a league of its own. McNeely crafts a startlingly original argument about the inventions of citizenship and of modern political culture. It will be required if unsettling reading for anyone pondering the legacies of Tocqueville, Habermas, or Foucault."--Richard Biernacki, author of The Fabrication of Labor: Germany and Britain, 1640-1914
"This work's use of archival evidence to overhaul grand theory puts it in a league of its own. McNeely crafts a startlingly original argument about the inventions of citizenship and of modern political culture. It will be required if unsettling reading for anyone pondering the legacies of Tocqueville, Habermas, or Foucault."--Richard Biernacki, author of The Fabrication of Labor: Germany and Britain, 1640-1914
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
German history has long centered on the state. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
intelligence gazettes, village foremen, ducal superintendents, constitutional fetishism, statistical topography, administrative exploitation, textual formalities, patriotic science, cantonal assemblies, cantonal seats, political ventriloquism, old duchy, cantonal assembly, intelligence provision, collegial deliberation, protocol excerpts, junior scribes, cantonal constitution, village delegates, universal estate, ducal officials, ducal government, new scribe, civic landscape, corporative system Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Black Forest, Space of Freedom, Good Old Law, Heinrich Bolley, Standing Committees, Ludwig Hofacker, Court Notaries, French Revolution, Holy Roman Empire, Main Report, Reform Landtag, Statistical-Topographical Bureau, Tiibingen Compact, Friedrich List, Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart, King Friedrich, Privy Council, Wildberg Schreiberei, Bolley's Protestation, Central Europe, Reform Party, Stuttgart Landtag, Swabian Jura, Viktor Hofacker, Immanuel Kant New!
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!
German history has long centered on the state. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
intelligence gazettes, village foremen, ducal superintendents, constitutional fetishism, statistical topography, administrative exploitation, textual formalities, patriotic science, cantonal assemblies, cantonal seats, political ventriloquism, old duchy, cantonal assembly, intelligence provision, collegial deliberation, protocol excerpts, junior scribes, cantonal constitution, village delegates, universal estate, ducal officials, ducal government, new scribe, civic landscape, corporative system Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Black Forest, Space of Freedom, Good Old Law, Heinrich Bolley, Standing Committees, Ludwig Hofacker, Court Notaries, French Revolution, Holy Roman Empire, Main Report, Reform Landtag, Statistical-Topographical Bureau, Tiibingen Compact, Friedrich List, Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart, King Friedrich, Privy Council, Wildberg Schreiberei, Bolley's Protestation, Central Europe, Reform Party, Stuttgart Landtag, Swabian Jura, Viktor Hofacker, Immanuel Kant New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 78
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- The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition by John Greville Agard Pocock in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- Philosophy of Right (Dover Philosophical Classics) by Georg W. F. Hegel on page 156, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany by Rogers Brubaker in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology) by Pierre Bourdieu in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Civil Society by John Ehrenberg in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
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