Kenneth F. Ledford
Associate Professor of History and Law
I am a social historian of modern Germany, from
1789 to the present. My research interests focus
primarily upon processes of class formation, particularly
the emergence and decline of the profound influence
of the educated, liberal middle-class of education,
the Bildungsbürgertum. The salient
ideology of this social group was classical liberalism,
whose vocabulary both shaped and was shaped by
the primary social institution of the Bürgertum,
law and the legal order. Thus, I have written
about German lawyers in private practice, and
my present work is on a book about the Prussian
judiciary between 1848 and 1918; in all my work,
a clearer analysis of the complex interplay among
state, civil society, and the ideology of the
state ruled by law (Rechtsstaat) remains
the goal. My teaching interests extend beyond
German history since 1789 to include the history
of the European middle classes, the history of
the professions, European legal history, other
processes of class formation including German
and European labor history, as well as the history
of European international relations and diplomatic
history. I enjoy interdisciplinary intellectual
work by belonging to the faculties of the College
of Arts and Sciences as well as the School of
Law, and by participating in both the International
Studies and German Studies programs within the
College.
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