What «The Weimar Republic: the Crisis of Classical Modernity» taught me

This book by Deutlev Pekert is a history book. It shouldn’t teach you life lessons, right? Well, wrong; for me at least.

From history and past experiences we can learn a lot and I believe the german «Weimar experience» is an ideal source for good lessons about society.

First, I’d like to say that I’ve learned about multiple fields, and I can affirm with confidence this book has provided me a better understanding of:

• appearances and how deceiving they can be: always dig deeper and only then you’ll really understand the world;
• the dangers of modernization (well, it’s in the title) and more generally of sudden and radical changes, making it appliable to an individual as well;
• analysis of history and sociopolitic trends on a more technical ground.

But here comes the most important point: the rise of Nazism in its very early stages is only somewhat covered in this book, as Peukert devolved a whole other book to such topic, but it still gives some insights that can be taken as example.

In politics but also in personal life, gut feelings and more hidden thoughts can be funneled and guided by astute (and often dishonest) people into action, even if against our will.