> within the mover and doer caste there was considerable interchange among merchants, officials, and intellectuals, or more nearly among their sons; and the university
> Students whatever their origins set themselves over against townsmen as opposites, calling townsmen philistines, Spiessbürger, and so defining themselves by the contrast, conceiving themselves collectively as individuals, free of social restraints and prejudices, outside the static dull complexities of Germany's predominant hometown and country life
I don't know how well it has come across in this series, but a big part of what I found so compelling about Walker's book is that even though he wrote it over half a century ago, about events occurring centuries earlier, somehow the theoretical lens through which he parses his historiography is impressively relevant to the theoretical framing of current political analyses. So, yes, sounds familiar.
> within the mover and doer caste there was considerable interchange among merchants, officials, and intellectuals, or more nearly among their sons; and the university
> Students whatever their origins set themselves over against townsmen as opposites, calling townsmen philistines, Spiessbürger, and so defining themselves by the contrast, conceiving themselves collectively as individuals, free of social restraints and prejudices, outside the static dull complexities of Germany's predominant hometown and country life
Sounds so ... familiar
I don't know how well it has come across in this series, but a big part of what I found so compelling about Walker's book is that even though he wrote it over half a century ago, about events occurring centuries earlier, somehow the theoretical lens through which he parses his historiography is impressively relevant to the theoretical framing of current political analyses. So, yes, sounds familiar.