Andrew G. Bonnell's innovative survey examines the history of revolution in modern Germany by focusing on key revolutionary developments in the German states. There is coverage of Germany and the French Revolution, the 1848 revolutions, the Industrial Revolution, the 1918-19 revolution, the Nazi 'revolution' of 1933, the revolution from above in Eastern Germany 1945-49, and the revolution in East Germany in 1989-90.

Revolutions in Modern German History sheds new light on the subject by stressing the continuity of conflicts between revolution and counter-revolution in German history, thereby restoring a sense of the dramatic social conflicts that punctuated the history of the country. It also reveals the significance of wider European and transnational developments of revolutionary and counter-revolutionary movements and events. Bonnell even reconstructs a sense of the participants' changing 'horizon of expectations' during these events by looking in-depth at the lives of men and women who lived and experienced these tumultuous times.