This is the first full-length study of the relationship between political change and the law in Bismarckian and Wilhelmine Germany. John focuses on the preparation of the civil code of 1896 to show how changes in politics affected the ways in which the legal system was considered, and sheds new light on the strengths and weaknesses of German liberalism and the German state, merging ideological and structural explanations for the nature of modern German development.

Abbreviations; Introduction; The theory and practice of Codification, 1814-1867; The politics of legal unity, 1867-1873; The approach to codification, 1874-1888; The public response and the campaign for legal reform, 1888-1896; The Wilhelmine State and the revision of the code, 1888-1896; The final stage: The civil code in the Bundesrat and Reichstag, 1895-1896; Conclusion