Political Friendship: Liberal Notables, Networks, and the Pursuit of the German Nation-State, 1848-1866
Journal: TSpace
Year: 2022

From the 1840s through the mid 1860s, a network of liberal academics, journalists, and artists across the German Confederation (1815-1866) formed close personal relationships with one another and with monarchs and state ministers. The resulting network rested on what contemporaries often called “political friendship.” My dissertation assesses how pro-Prussian liberals formed, maintained, and used these relationships in part to cultivate influence over leaders in Baden, Coburg, and Prussia. They