Excerpt from The German Empire Between Two Wars: A Study of the Political and Social Development of the Nation Between 1871 and 1914 No political development in the past half-century has been so striking as the growth of the German empire. Such a statement is the merest platitude to-day when the world is being rocked to its foundation by the frightful readjustment which may be traced mainly to this cause. It is, perhaps, equally trite to say that hand in hand with this growth there has gone forward an evolution within the empire which is just as striking. Year after year as the nation went on adding to its population and pilling up matchless resources and industry and commerce and still greater possibilities in the training of its scientist and men of affairs it also added tremendously to its burdens and problems. To the growing dangers without there were added dangers within, caused by the ever sharpening strife between feudalism and democracy, agriculture and commerce, industry and labor. The unstable equilibrium thus caused might long since have toppled to a fall had not the rise in power without been accompanied by a growing devotion to national unity and national ambitions. Out of the turmoil of Germany's foreign and domestic struggles there has stood forth more and more clearly great contrast, the contrast between the progress of the nation along economic lines and its arrest in political and social development. It was this contrast, which has struck the attention of so many observers, that suggested the present work. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.