Our Friend "the Enemy"

Thomas Weber is a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He is the author of Lodz Ghetto Album (2004), which won the 2004 Golden Light Award for Best Edited Historical Book and a 2005 Infinity Award of the International Center of Photography in New York.

"...a well-researched, well-written, and provocative book that offers numerous perceptive insights..."—Jean-Guy Lalande, St. Francis Xavier University, Historical Studies in Education "While delivering a set of far-reaching arguments, Weber's book remains readable. He conducted considerable primary research, providing a wealth of fascinating detail interlaced with well-chosen quotations that drive home his arguments with force."—John R. Davis, American Historical Review "Weber has produced a compelling assessment of the role that Heidelberg and Oxford played in the reproduction of elites in German and British societies, respectively. His case studies enable him to offer a wholly persuasive reconsideration of the German Sonderweg. Our Friend "The Enemy" presents a first-rate argument for why historians should attempt to pursue comparative studies."—Paul Deslandes, University of Vermont, Burlington "Weber's argument poses real problems for the theory of an inevitable Anglo-German antagonism culminating in World War I. He shows that, contrary to what proponents of the German/Sonderweg thesis have long assumed, there was far more social and political conservatism—including anti-Semitism and even militarism—at the British university than at the German. And the evidence he uncovers of Anglo-German affinities among educational elites is truly compelling."—Niall Ferguson, Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History, Harvard University "Weber challenges the conventional historiography that the pre-1914 world was divided between a militaristic and Anti-Semitic Germany and a liberal, tolerant Britain."—CHOICE "Thomas Weber's engagingly written book Our Friend, The Enemy is a robust defense of the comparative method...This powerful book is an example of a new kind of comparative history—one that is not concerned with "big structures, large processes, and huge comparisons," but nuances in cultural representation and social agency in the past." —Central European History "This powerful book is an example of a new kind of comparative history—one that is not concer ned with "big structures, large processes, and huge compar isons," but explores nuances in cultural representation and social agency in the past." —H-German "With his well-informed and superbly researched study, replete with interesting details about student life at Oxford and Heidelberg, Weber makes a powerful and effective case that calls into question the hitherto prevailing historiography on which he concentrates his fire." —German Studies Review "It offers revealing insights into German and British academia before 1914 and delivers another death blow to the idea of an illiberal German or liberal British special path to modernity." —Reviews in History

• Contents Acknowledgments000 Abbreviations000 Introduction: Setting the Stage000 1. Oxford and Heidelberg in their National Contexts000 2. Transnational Nationalists: Anglo-German Life at Oxford and Heidelberg 000 3. Militarism and Nationalism at the two Universities000 4. Student Sexuality at Oxford and Heidelberg000 5. No Long History, No Proud Tradition? Women at the Two Universities 000 6. Anti-Semitism and Attitudes towards Foreigners000 Conclusion000 Notes000 Bibliography000 Index000