Berlin Cabaret (Studies in Cultural History) (Paperback)

~ (Author) "Every metropolis tends to generate an urban mythology, and Berlin is no exception..." (more)
Key Phrases: positive cabaret, agitprop troupes, cabaret movement, Motley Theater, Social Democrats, Tiller Girls (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

In this well-written book, Peter Jelavich has tracked down cabaret openings, closings, and programs, and discusses politics and personalities. His writing makes the history of Berlin cabarets come alive in a very special way. I found myself increasingly fascinated with the 'showtime' experiences, both on-stage and back-stage.
--Richard Hunt, Harvard University

Jelavich has set the stage in a masterful work on the interaction between culture and commerce and the relatedness of decadence and exuberance as manifest in the Berlin cabaret. It was no mere frivolity but a legitimate expression--see Walter Benjamin and Georg Simmel's observations on the big city-see indeed Friedrich Nietzsche's Dionysian exhilaration--of a diversity and fragmentation that conditioned life in the Berlin metropolis. Jelavich clearly has had fun collecting all the evidence on the cabaret, and as he unfolds the story of its proponents, the texts of skits and songs and police reports, he succeeds in moving a seeming fringe phenomenon into the center of political and cultural dialogue of the big city whose idiosyncrasies he has recaptured with skill. The scholarship is impeccable, the writing is elegant; the author's fascination with his subject is contagious to the fellow-scholar as well as, I imagine, to all readers.
--Klemens Von Klemperer, Smith College

Jelavich makes an important contribution to the study of cultural history.
--James L. Zychowicz (Monatshefte )

Like the eloquent conférenciers who comment on the cabaret acts that are his subject here, Jelavich expertly takes readers in hand, introduces them to the exuberant affairs of Berlin, and does so in a witty and insightful fashion...A great achievement.
--Peter Fritzsche (American Historical Review )

Peter Jelavich first explored the development of aesthetic modernism in Munich and Theatrical Modernism (1987). His superb new book carries this inquiry into the more complex and variegated life of Germany's political and cultural capital...Jelavich has contributed significantly to our understanding of modernist culture and its metropolitan context. He illuminates every subject he touches upon: the intersection of elite and popular art in the development of aesthetic modernism, the history of popular theater in Berlin, the city's cultural politics, and the broader social and political history of Germany. Like the best of cabarets, this book enlightens and entertains.
--Warren Breckman (Journal of Social History )

Peter Jelavich has dismantled many legends about the politics of popular entertainments in his fine history, Berlin Cabaret.
--Anthony Grafton (New York Review of Books )

The definitive account of the German capital's club and revue circuit from its origins around 1900 to its terrible coda in the transit camps, where performers would play for chuckling SS commandants before they were sent to their deaths. (New Statesman and Society )

The reader is transported clearly and smoothly on a fascinating journey through the history of an urban art form that was strongly stimulated by some of the same forces that gave rise to the [Berlin-focused] publications...Covering a period of almost half a century, from the founding of Ernst von Wolzogen's Motley Theater in 1901 through performances by inmates of concentration camps during the Second World War, Jelavich makes an especially valuable contribution to the analysis of culture in an urban context.
--Andrew Lees (Culture in Modern Germany )

[A] well-written and clearly organized book that displays all the hallmarks of a comprehensive standard work and reference source, rich in information that entices further investigation.
--Frederick A. Lubich (Germanic Review )

[A] wonderful book...Berlin cabaret...was embedded in Berlin intellectual life. Jelavich's documentation of these relationships offers a great gift to historians of German culture--indeed to all historians of modern Germany.
--Barbara Miller Lane (Central European History )

Review

Jelavich has set the stage in a masterful work on the interaction between culture and commerce and the relatedness of decadence and exuberance as manifest in the Berlin cabaret. It was no mere frivolity but a legitimate expression--see Walter Benjamin and Georg Simmel's observations on the big city-see indeed Friedrich Nietzsche's Dionysian exhilaration--of a diversity and fragmentation that conditioned life in the Berlin metropolis. Jelavich clearly has had fun collecting all the evidence on the cabaret, and as he unfolds the story of its proponents, the texts of skits and songs and police reports, he succeeds in moving a seeming fringe phenomenon into the center of political and cultural dialogue of the big city whose idiosyncrasies he has recaptured with skill. The scholarship is impeccable, the writing is elegant; the author's fascination with his subject is contagious to the fellow-scholar as well as, I imagine, to all readers.
--Klemens Von Klemperer, Smith College --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press; First Edition edition (February 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674067622
• ISBN-13: 978-0674067622
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #500,114 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding chronicle of a very unique period, June 29, 2001

By A Customer

Sadly there are few books that give one a real sense of the Weimar years in Germany when the economy collapsed, near-anarchy reigned & bourgeois morality was evaporating along with the value of the mark. Berlin was the quintessential moderne city. Literature, painting & architecture all seemed to explode into new worlds in a kind of Big Bang. This book does a masterful job of documenting the evolution of cabaret theater from the innocent reviews of the early 1920s to the biting political commentary of the late 1920s & early 1930s when the last performances succumbed to the growing influence of the national socialists (nazis). Along the way you get the syncopated nude musical reviews & stage tableaux. There's a lot of careful considered analysis, but also a great feel for the time & place. Very well written & with many fascinating illustrations.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thoroughly excellent, February 22, 2007

By	Ludwig (Milford, New Hampshire) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

One caveat: this is an academic study, and you won't find the quantity or quality of photographs published in more coffee-table oriented books on the subject. That said, it is thoroughly excellent, and what you won't find in the coffee-table books is a discussion that is anywhere near as complete or insightful.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Jelavich, mixing culture and politics, April 14, 2000

By	Colleen AF Venable (NYC) - See all my reviews

Jelavich's goal in this historical book is to relate the culture of the berlin cabaret at the turn of the century with a political context. Each chapter focuses on a different cabaret, such as Sound and Smoke, and its satires on Berlin life. The book was extremely informative following a tradition that Carl Schorske started with his book "Fin de Siecle Vienna". Though mainly easy to read, I found their was too much information at times, and it became difficult to follow the different characters that Jelavich illuminated.