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Peter C. Caldwell and Karrin Hanshew's Germany Since 1945 traces the social, political and cultural history of Germany from the end of the Second World War right up to the present day. The book provides a narrative that not only explores the histories of East and West Germany in their international contexts, but one that also takes the significantly different world of the Berlin Republic seriously, analyzing it as a distinct and significant period of German history in its own right.Split into three parts roughly devoted to a quarter-century each, this book guides students through contemporary Germany from the catastrophe of war, genocide and the country's division to the very different challenges facing the reunified Germany of the 21st century. There are key primary source excerpts integrated throughout the text, as well as 32 images, numerous maps, charts and tables and a detailed bibliography to further aid study. The book is complemented by online resources which include sample syllabi and a pedagogical supplement.Germany Since 1945 underscores both the particularities of German history and the international trends and transactions that shaped it, giving good coverage to key aspects of post-1945 German society and politics, including: * East and West German paths to reconstruction * The development of consumer society and the welfare state * The politics of memory and coming to terms with the Nazi past * The Cold War * New social and political movements that opposed the postwar status * Immigration and the move toward a multicultural societyThis is an essential text for any student of contemporary German history.
List of contents
List of IllustrationsList of Document ExcerptsAcknowledgementsList of AbbreviationsIntroduction: Total DefeatPart One: Dividing Germany, 1945-19701. Germany's "Zero Hour"2. New States, East and West3. Stability, Consolidation, and Dissent in West and East4. Politics and Generational Change in 1960s West Germany5. Behind the Wall: East Germany on a New PathPart Two: New Beginnings, 1969-19926. New Social Republics, East and West7. Crisis and Change: The Federal Republic in the 1970s8. The Socialist Nation and the Rise of Dissidence: Honecker's East Germany9. The Paradoxical Conservatism of West Germany under Helmut Kohl10. Collapse, Revolution, Unification, 1989-1990Part Three: The Berlin Republic, 1990-201711. Tensions of Unification12. The Berlin Republic, the Red-Green Coalition, and the Identity of the New Germany 13. Economics, Politics, and Diplomacy of a Civilian State, 2007-2017Index
About the author
Peter C. Caldwell is Samuel G. McCann Professor of History at Rice University, USA. Professor Caldwell is a Humboldt Fellow, and has received grants from the DAAD and the Humboldt Foundation, as well as a residential fellowship at the Center for German and European Studies at Georgetown University, USA. He is the author of several books, including Dictatorship, State Planning, and Social Theory in the German Democratic Republic (2003), Love, Death, and Revolution in Central Europe (2009) and Democracy, Capitalism, and the Welfare State: Debating Social Order in Postwar West Germany, 1949-1989 (2019).Karrin Hanshew is Associate Professor of History at Michigan State University, USA. She is the author of Terror and Democracy in West Germany (2012).
Summary
Peter C. Caldwell and Karrin Hanshew’s Germany Since 1945 traces the social, political and cultural history of Germany from the end of the Second World War right up to the present day. The book provides a narrative that not only explores the histories of East and West Germany in their international contexts, but one that also takes the significantly different world of the Berlin Republic seriously, analyzing it as a distinct and significant period of German history in its own right.
Split into three parts roughly devoted to a quarter-century each, this book guides students through contemporary Germany from the catastrophe of war, genocide and the country’s division to the very different challenges facing the reunified Germany of the 21st century. There are key primary source excerpts integrated throughout the text, as well as 32 images, numerous maps, charts and tables and a detailed bibliography to further aid study. The book is complemented by online resources which include sample syllabi and a pedagogical supplement.
Germany Since 1945 underscores both the particularities of German history and the international trends and transactions that shaped it, giving good coverage to key aspects of post-1945 German society and politics, including:
* East and West German paths to reconstruction
* The development of consumer society and the welfare state
* The politics of memory and coming to terms with the Nazi past
* The Cold War
* New social and political movements that opposed the postwar status
* Immigration and the move toward a multicultural society
This is an essential text for any student of contemporary German history.
Foreword
A comprehensive social, political and cultural history of Germany from 1945 to the present day which places it firmly in an international context.
Additional text
Teaching the history of Germany since 1945 has hitherto been hampered by the lack of a single volume, up-to-date survey. Peter C. Caldwell and Karrin Hanshew have not only filled this gap, but squared a circle – with a thematically and conceptually wide-reaching yet brief and accessible book.
Report
In sum, this textbook can only be highly recommended. H-German
