Calleo surveys German history – less to present new material than to look afresh at the old. He argues that recent explanations for Germany’s external conflicts have focused on flaws in the country’s traditional political institutions and culture. These German-centered explanations are convenient, Calleo notes, since they tend to exonerate others from their responsibilities in bringing about two world wars, as well as to legitimize subtly the outcome of those wars, namely the American and Russian hegemonies in Europe. As a result of this approach, the big questions in German history are still answered with the aging clichés of a generation ago, despite the proliferation of German historical studies.
Through these broad speculative essays, Calleo hoped to encourage a more balanced understanding of Germany’s position in modern history, one less obviously tailored to fit the preconceptions of Germany’s victors and also more relevant to the future. He maintains that Germany’s history of aggression, as well as the Nazi horrors, should be regarded not only in the light of Germany’s domestic character, but also within the context of the evolution of Western nation-states and the European state system and its broad geopolitical issues. In this perspective the book discusses Imperial Germany’s development and policies, Hitler’s geopolitical ideas and policies, Germany after World War II, and the Federal Republic’s probable options if present international trends continue. Throughout, Professor Calleo examines with some skepticism the concept of Germany’s uniqueness and its consequences. In effect, his study stressed the continuing relevance of traditional issues among Western states. Calleo does not agree with what he sees as the prevailing view – that history either began or ended in 1945.
‘Calleo’s attack on the established interpretations of the German problem is a brilliant failure. His argument about the importance of the international determinants of Germany’s aggressiveness is compelling. Since, among all the countries that industrialized after Britain, only Germany has been at the center of two world wars, Calleo’s analysis pushes us forward to ask further questions about the political consequences of different types of delayed industrialization and different geopolitical settings.’
– Peter Katzenstein, World Politics, July 1980
‘It is the great merit of Calleo’s book… to have demonstrated how a variety of international factors created a setting which presented Germany with certain problems and opportunities. Calleo’s demonstration demands, and receives, an analytical emphasis that tends towards the general rather than the particular, and that highlights the international configurations of power rather than the unique features of German society that influenced the Germans’ response to it.’
– Wolfram F. Hanrieder, The New York Review of Books, April 19, 1979