Abstract

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.

“This well-conceptualized, informative volume offers an overview of the conflicting assessments of “united Germany” that fuel ongoing debates about reunification… Jarausch introduces the collection of articles with a masterful and succinct summary of perceptions of German democracy, capitalism, society, culture, and international relations since 1990… American readers at many levels of knowledge will learn much from this book.” · German Studies Review

“The individual essays are engaging to scholars of manifold disciplinary backgrounds, including political and intellectual history, economics, gender studies, critical theory, literary studies, and governmental policy, and because Jarausch brings these fields into dialogue within a single volume, readers from individual disciplinary backgrounds gain a more nuanced understanding of the interdisciplinary trends to have traversed German unification” · EDGE - A Graduate Journal for German and Scandinavian Studies

“United Germany offers an informative summary for a number of open questions to be discussed, which can be useful for Anglo-Saxon readers. In addition, the basic structure of the volume suggests what a very recent contemporary history could look like…It is to be welcomed that also the united Germany attracts the attention of historical research, and that with this volume an important step has been undertaken towards the study of current history.” · Sehepunkte

“…a welcome addition to the literature. It is a collection of some very interesting essays... Jarausch’s introduction gives a masterly, balanced overview of the ongoing German unification process. The structure within the subsections of having three different authors (generally a West German, an East German, and an outsider) address the same general question works well.” · Andrew Beattie, The University of New South Wales, Sydney

“The book succeeds in giving a general overview of the issues connected to German unification, but does so in an unusually dynamic way. It shows unification as not just a state of affairs but a dynamic, tension-filled ongoing process of change and negotiation.” · Stephen Brockmann, Carnegie Mellon University

Konrad H. Jarausch is the Lurcy Professor of European Civilization at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Senior Fellow of the Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung in Potsdam. He has written or edited about forty books, spanning topics such as the First and Second World War, German students and professionals, the development of the GDR, post-war German history, and debates about historical methods and historiography. Some of the recent titles include After Hitler (2005), Reluctant Accomplice (2011), volume 3 of the Geschichte der Humboldt Universität 1945-2000 (2012) and Out of Ashes: A New History of Europe in the 20th Century (2015).