Geographies of Renewal - Heimat and Democracy in West Germany, 19451990

"This wide-ranging study explores changing conceptions of home and Heimat in West Germany from the end of the Second World War to national reunification. Jeremy DeWaal challenges ideas that Heimat was taboo or a largely reactionary idea after 1945, exploring efforts to reconceive the concept in democratic, inclusive, and post-nationalist ways"--

List of contents

Introduction; 1. Heimat, renewal and life after death in a Rhenish Metropolis; 2. 'Democratic' and 'Open to the World': reshaping narratives of local identity in cologne; 3. Heimat and renewal at the water's edge: Hamburg, Lübeck, and Bremen; 4. Contesting the spatial foundations of democracy: The Southwest State Debates, 1945-1956; 5. The Nation as a redemptive geography: Heimat meetings and expellee politics; 6. Transcending the need for home?: The anti-Heimat movement of the 1960s; 7. Between Rhetoric and practice: re-reading the Heimat renaissance, 1970-1989; Epilogue: the immutable Heimat question; Bibliography; Index.

About the author

Jeremy DeWaal is a Lecturer in European History at the University of Exeter. His research focuses on German cultural history, spatial history, memory, and the history of emotions. DeWaal's work on Heimat and democracy has been supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the German Academic Exchange Service, the Central European History Society, and the Berlin Programme at the Free University of Berlin.

Product details

• Authors: Jeremy DeWaal, Jeremy (University of Exeter) Dewaal
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 02.01.2025
• EAN: 9781009513432
• ISBN: 978-1-0-0951343-2
• No. of pages: 386
• Series: New Studies in European History
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Regional and national histories; Postwar 20th century history, from c 1945 to c 2000, History of Ideas, European History, HISTORY / Europe / General, Political structures: democracy, West Germany, c 1945 to c 2000 (Post-war period), c 1945 to c 1990 (the Cold War period)