Turning to Nature in Germany is a study of mass movements that aimed to bring the German people into closer contact with nature. In the early twentieth century organized hikers, nudists, and conservationists all looked to nature for solutions to the nation's political crises. Following these movements over three political eras―the Second Empire, the Weimar Republic, and the Third Reich―the book shows how manifestations of popular culture reflected the concerns and hopes of their time. Williams breaks with historians who have long seen nature movements as anti-modern and irrational by arguing that naturists were calling not for Germany to turn back the clock, but for the nation to find a way to navigate the treacherous waters of contemporary life and strive toward a brighter future.

John Alexander Williams is a Professor of European History at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. His other publications (as editor) are Berlin Since the Wall's End: Shaping Society and Memory in the German Metropolis After 1989 (2008) and Weimar Culture Revisited (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011 hardback/2013 paperback).