United Germany: Debating Processes and Prospects

✍ Scribed by Konrad H. Jarausch (editor)

• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Year: 2013
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 300
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Since the attempt to unite two parts of a country divided for four decades yielded contradictory results, this volume provides a balance sheet of the successes and failures of German unification during the first quarter century after the fall of the Wall. Five themes, ranging from the transfer of political institutions to the economic crisis, from the social upheaval for women’s movements to the cultural efforts at interpretation and the changes in foreign policy have been chosen to illustrate the complexity of the process. The contributors represent a broad interdisciplinary mix of political scientists, historians, and literary scholars. Because personal experiences tend to color scholarly judgments, they are drawn from West Germany, East Germany, and the United States. This collection is the most up-to-date and comprehensive assessment of the political, social, and intellectual consequences of the efforts to regain German unity.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents
Preface
Introduction: Growing Together? Processes and Problems of German Unification
Part I Political Processes
Chapter One. Two Decades of Unity: Continuity and Change in Political Institutions
Chapter Two. United, Yet Separate: A View from the East
Chapter Three. Debates and Perceptions about German Unification: The Centrality of Discourse
Part II Economic Problems
Chapter Four. Institutional Coping: The Treuhandanstalt and the Collapse of the East German Economy, 1989–1990
Chapter Five. East Germany 1989–2010 A Fragmented Development
Chapter Six. Getting Even East German Economic Underperformance after Unification
Part III Social Upheaval
Chapter Seven. 1989 and the Crisis of Feminist Politics
Chapter Eight. Women’s Movements in East Germany: Are We in Europe Yet?
Chapter Nine. Feminist Encounters: Germany, the EU, and Beyond
Part IV Cultural Conflict
Chapter Ten. GDR Literature Beyond the GDR?
Chapter Eleven. Unity and Difference: Some Reflections on a Disparate Field
Chapter Twelve. The Painful Exit from the Cold War: East German Writers and the Demise of the Reading Culture
Part V International Normalization
Chapter Thirteen. The “Normalization” of Humanitarian and Military Missions Abroad
Chapter Fourteen. German Foreign Policy after 1990: Some Critical Remarks
Chapter Fifteen “To Deploy or Not to Deploy” The Erratic Evolution of German Foreign Policy since Unification
Contributors
Selected Bibliography
Index