Established in 1918–19, in the wake of Germany’s catastrophic defeat in the First \nWorld War and the revolution that followed swiftly on its heels, the Weimar Republic \nushered in widespread social reform, a radical cultural flowering and the most \ndemocratic conditions the German people had ever known. \nAt its beginning, Weimar held out the hope that democracy, stability and prosperity \nwould take root in Germany, but it was beset by frequent changes of government, waves \nof economic upheaval and spasms of violence of increasing intensity between the \nforces of left and right. Agitation and assassination by rightwing nationalists – enraged \nby the severity of the Treaty of Versailles and the acceptance of its terms by liberal \nGerman politicians – formed a threatening descant to the conciliatory efforts of \nsuccessive coalition governments. Ultimately, the instabilities of Weimar would lead to \nthe appointment as German Chancellor of the Nazi Fu¨hrer Adolf Hitler, who created a \none-party dictatorship that abandoned the rule of law, democracy and civil rights. In the \nwords of Gustav Stresemann, Germany’s Nobel Peace Prize­winning Foreign Minister \nfrom 1923 to 1929, Weimar democracy was ‘dancing on a volcano’. \nThe Weimar Years is a vivid and compelling narrative of a dramatic period in German \nhistory. Year by year, from 1918 to 1933, Frank McDonough covers the major events in \nboth domestic and foreign policy and the personalities who shaped them, together with \ndevelopments in music, art, theatre and literature. McDonough places particular focus \non the parliamentary history of Weimar, arguing that it was the failure of parliamentary \ndemocracy to bring stability that eroded public confidence and allowed the power of the \nelected Reichstag to gradually diminish, culminating in Hitler’s accession to power in \nJanuary 1933. \nThe Weimar Years is the tragic story of a rise and fall, as well as a warning of how, \nunder poor leadership, economic pressure and unrelenting political volatility, a \ndemocracy can drift towards a form of authoritarian rule that eventually destroys it