Prussian discipline is legendary. Arguments about the oppressive nature of the Prussian state and the shadow that it allegedly cast on the development of civil society have been central to debates about the modern history of Germany. In particular, many historians have seen the absence of a revolution in the eighteenth century as a symptom of a delayed and incomplete emancipation of the Prussian bourgeoisie. Prussia's urban dwellers have often been portrait as poor relations of the self-reliant and assertive bourgeois of Western Europe and the Atlantic world: economically backward and politica ... More

Prussian discipline is legendary. Arguments about the oppressive nature of the Prussian state and the shadow that it allegedly cast on the development of civil society have been central to debates about the modern history of Germany. In particular, many historians have seen the absence of a revolution in the eighteenth century as a symptom of a delayed and incomplete emancipation of the Prussian bourgeoisie. Prussia's urban dwellers have often been portrait as poor relations of the self-reliant and assertive bourgeois of Western Europe and the Atlantic world: economically backward and politically oppressed they were allegedly in no position to challenge the iron grip of the state and question the authority of the Hohenzollern dynasty. This book challenges some of the received views about the relation between state and urban society in eighteenth century Prussia. Based on detailed research the author explores several instances where urban dwellers successfully resisted government policies and forced Frederick the Great and his successors to give in to their demands. The study thus sheds light on a little known historical reality in which weak Hohenzollern monarchs and a still weaker Prussian bureaucracy were confronted with prosperous, fearless, argumentative and occasionally violent Prussian burghers. Such conflicts between state and citizens were by no means specific to Prussia. Rather the events in Prussia were on many levels connected to similar contemporary developments in other parts of Europe and North America. The study systematically explores these links and thus develops a new European and Atlantic perspective on Prussian history in the eighteenth century.