Germany / Edition 2

by Stefan Berger

Overview

Fully revised and updated, the new edition of Germany explains the diverse ways in which national identity has been constructed over more than three centuries. It highlights the plurality of contested definitions of 'Germanness'. The themes covered include

- The struggles between the small-German and the greater-German movements in the 19th century and those between democratic and non-democratic inventions of the nation
- The construction of the racial nation under Nazism
- Economic definitions of the nation, foreigners and 'Germanness'
- The gendering of the national discourse, the nation as community of memory
- The federal nature of German nationalism
- The impact of war on the construction of German national identity

Including two completely new chapters on Germany from the Middle Ages to 1750 and on Germany since its reunification in 1990, this book uses history and historiography, as well as literature, art, architecture, music and a range of other disciplines to provide answers to a question which has haunted Germans ever since it was first asked by Ernst Moritz Arndt: 'What is a German's fatherland?'

Product Details

ISBN-13:	2900340705840
Publication date:	06/25/2004
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 1.25(h) x 9.00(d)

About the Author

Stefan Berger is Professor of Social History and Director of the Institute of Social Movements and the House for the History of the Ruhr at the Ruhr University, Bochum, Germany.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Constructing Germany
A Movement of 'Marginal Men': The National Idea until 1819
Nationalism in Search of a Mass Audience 1819-1871
Making Germans, 1871-1912
The Mythologies of War and the Republican Nation, 1914-1933
The Racial Nation, 1933-1945
Towards Postnationalism? The Federal Republic of Germany, 1945-1990
The Failure of a 'Socialist Nation': The German Democratic Republic, 1945-1990
Quo Vadis Germany? National identity Debates after Reunification
Conclusion: Reinventing Germany for the Twenty-first Century
Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

"[Berger's] insightful guide over this slippery but crucial terrain convincingly shows how each different "Germany" was dependent on its predecessors and contemporary events."—CHOICE

From the Publisher

[Berger's] insightful guide over this slippery but crucial terrain convincingly shows how each different "Germany" was dependent on its predecessors and contemporary events.

CHOICE

It is overall an interesting, balanced, and very readable account of a fascinating and pertinent topic.

Central European History