Vienna and Berlin constituted a veritable maelstrom of ideologies in the era following the Franco-Prussian War. From the café culture of Vienna to the cynicism of Brecht and Weill’s Berlin, these two cities represent the culmination—and, ultimately, the decadence and destruction—of an entire European culture. This course will examine the clash between authoritarianism and liberalism in Berlin; the expressionism of painters such as Klimt and Kokoschka; composers from Mahler to those of the Second Viennese School, the philosophies of Freud and Wittgenstein, and political figures such as Bismarck.