The years of the Weimar Republic saw complex cultural change in Germany as well as political turmoil. Writing Weimar draws on the large amount of research done on the period since the 1980s in order to show how literary writers developed critical perspectives on the social and political issues of the time, and how those perspectives were related to longer-term developments in German culture which run beyond the watershed events of 1918 and 1933. Individual chapters discuss the dominant trends in the poetry, the theatre, and the novel, as well as the literary representation of the city, of technology, and of the First World War. The book also sheds new light on one of the abiding mysteries of German culture in the 1920s: precisely what were the implications of the term Neue Sachlichkeit as it came to be applied to the cultural trends of the time?

Writing Weimar shows how German literature between 1918 and 1933 is related both to the politics of the time and to longer-term cultural developments. Individual chapters discuss the dominant trends in particular literary genres and the significance of the term Neue Sachlichkeit, as well as the literary representation of the city, technology, and the First World War.

Midgely's study cannot be recommended highly enough to scholars in the field of Weimar studies and Germanists generally. It has been written with tremendous care and attention to detail, is immaculately referenced, and I was unable to spot a single typographical error. It provides a much-needed overview of a complex era of literary production.