The enduring issue of conscription is impressed as a social and not an inter­nal military debate. Close ally France’s scrapping of conscription was not well re­ceived by the German military or the(then Kohl) government. In the same year (2002) that France switched to a fully professional military, the number of mili­tary service refusals in Germany reached a record(189,000)(p. 155). Most other eu states and nato partners had ended conscription far earlier. The author views the phasing out of conscription in Germany as inevitable and considers that the sooner it happens the better. On the other hand, the demands on Germany – its society, politics and econ­omy as well as its military – to contribute to global security have grown and will grow more. In 1995 former»Bundespräsident« Roman Herzog said that the glo­balisation of German foreign policy, including security and defence components, was ›unavoidable‹. That implied an increased involvement by the Bundeswehr in eu , nato and un missions. Dependent upon how Germany and its allies and partners organise themselves, what kind of technological innovations they de­velop, and the number and severity of security threats that emerge, this could mean greater financial cost and/ or a greater range of often dangerous deploy­ments. The precursors to such probable future deployments, along with their politi­cal and legal underpinnings, and ›superficial public acceptance‹, are documented here(p. 231–247). A wide range of other topics, from the structure and develop­ment of the European Security and Defence Policy( esdp ), to the mentality of dif­ferent ›soldier types‹, the possibility and effects of death in action, internal lead­ership, three»Weißbücher«, in particular that which appeared in 2006, and the future of the»Bundeswehr« are competently and systematically dealt with. There is no more complete book on this multidimensional subject, and it is written by a scholar with an authoritative grasp of the field. Steve Wood, Flinders University, Australia MATTHIAS LEMKE: Republikanischer Sozialismus Positionen von Bernstein, Kautsky, Jaurès und Blum Frankfurt/ M. u. New York 2008 Campus Verlag, 433 S. V or inzwischen fünf Jahren stellte der israelische Historiker Yehuda Bauer die These auf, dass es sich beim radikalen Islamismus, den er gleichermaßen von Islam und islamischem Fundamentalismus unterschied, um den inzwischen »dritten Totalitarismus« handle(vgl. die zeit 32/ 2003). Bauer argumentierte, ipg 3/2008 Rezensionen/Book Reviews 157