The home town could be many things to many people, simultaneously local and universal, parochial and cosmopolitan. This dissertation examines the home town complexities through a window of time and place, fusing geographically on the southwestern states and specifically on the Free Imperial City of Uberlingen during the French Revolutionary Wars. It explores the impact of the Revolutionary Wars on the Swabian home town, the classic prototype examined by Mack Walker in his 1967 study. How did this home town adapt to a decade of violence and political turmoil? In focusing on the Swabian experience, the study investigates an area that the secondary literature on early modem Germany has largely ignored. Through the experience of Uberlingers in the revolutionary era, it reexamines some of the major themes of particularism, culture and community and the uneven nature of modernization in the broader historiography of the German states. Over the course of the revolutionary decade, Uberlingers endured military invasions, occupations by friend and foe, increasing severe shortages of food and, ultimately, the loss of their imperial status and rights. Overall, the response was characterized by openness to foreigners, even as community solidarity also constantly manifested itself in actions against foreigners. The city's inhabitants responded with flexibility and creativity to an extreme crisis, demonstrating that their city's ethos and culture were not static and turned inward, as would be suggested by perceived wisdom of German particularism.
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