When the former allies of World War II divided Germany into two provisional states, no one would have predicted that this would last for nearly half a century. Nor could anyone have predicted that sixty years later, Germany would have shaken off its Nazi past so thoroughly as to emerge as a key player in Western politics.Gert-Joachim Glaessner explains this historic transformation and provides an in-depth introduction to the German political system, its foundations and developments since 1949. Themes covered include the development of the FDR and GDR during the Cold War, the politics of Westernization, the controversies of West Germany's role in NATO and European integration. The author also examines parliamentary institutions, the role of the German Chancellor, party structure and organized interest groups. The book includes reference material from key documents, such as the German Constitution.Demonstrating how Germany went from political pariah to a model of modern liberal democracy, Glaessner offers a concise overview of the German political system in the post-war period.
Carefully piecing together the personal letters of Alice 'Liesel' Schwab, Escaping Nazi Germany tells the important story of one woman's emigration from Heilbronn to England. From the decision to leave her family and emigrate alone, to gaining her independence as a shop worker and surviving the Blitz, to the reunion with her brother and parents in England and shared grief as they learn about the fate of family members who died in the Holocaust, her story provides powerful insight into both the everyday realities of German-Jewish refugees in Britain and the ability of letters and life-writing to create transnational networks during times of trauma and separation. Elegantly written and deeply researched, Joachim Schlör's emphatic and unflinching re-telling of Alice Schwab's life sheds new light on the Jewish experience of persecution during the Holocaust and adds nuances to current debates on emigration, memory, and identity. This book is an essential primary resource for scholars of modern European history and Jewish studies, offering a compelling and intimate route into understanding what it meant to be a Jewish refugee caught up in the tragic and tumultuous events of World War II.
The twentieth century has seen Germany transformed from imperial monarchy, through Weimar democracy, National Socialist dictatorship, to finally divide into parliamentary democracy in the West and socialist Volksdemocratie in the East. Pivoting on two World Wars, intense political change has dramatically affected Germany's economic structure and development. This book traces the logic and the peculiarities of German economic development through the Weimar Republic, Third Reich and Federal Republic. Providing a comprehensive analysis of the period, the book also assesses controversial issues, such as the origins of the Great Depression, the primacy of politics or economics in the decision to invade Poland and the future risks to the Weltmeister economy of the Federal Republic oppressed by unemployment, the huge debts of some of its trading partners, and the possibility of worldwide protectionism.
Moving deftly among literary and visual arts, as well as the modern critical canon, Christopher Prendergast's book explores the meaning and value of representation as both a philosophical challenge (What does it mean to create an image that "stands for" something absent?) and a political issue (Who has the right to represent whom?). The Triangle of Representation raises a range of theoretical, historical, and aesthetic questions, and offers subtle readings of such cultural critics as Raymond Williams, Paul de Man, Edward Said, Walter Benjamin, and Hélène Cixous, in addition to penetrating investigations of visual artists like Gros, Ingres, and Matisse and significant insights into Proust and the onus of translating him. Above all, Prendergast's work is a striking display of how a firm grounding in theory is essential for the exploration of art and literature.
Germany and the Holy Roman Empire offers a striking new interpretation of a crucial era in German and European history, from the great reforms of 1495-1500 to the dissolution of the Reich in 1806. Over two volumes, Joachim Whaley rejects the notion that this was a long period of decline, and shows instead how imperial institutions developed in response to the crises of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, notably the Reformation and Thirty Years War. The impact of international developments on the Reich is also examined. Volume II begins with the Peace of Westphalia and concludes with the dissolution of the Reich. Whaley analyses the remarkable resurgence of the Reich after the Thirty Years War, which saw the Habsburg emperors achieve a new position of power and influence and which enabled the Reich to withstand the military threats posed by France and the Turks in the later seventeenth century. He gives a rich account of topics such as Pietism and baroque Catholicism, the German enlightenment, and the impact on the Empire and its territories of the French Revolution and Napolean. Whaley emphasizes the continuing viability of the Reich's institutions to the end, and the vitality of a political culture of freedom that has been routinely underestimated by historians of modern Germany.
From the late eighteenth century to the early twentieth century, Liverpool was frequently referred to as the 'second city of the empire'. Yet, the role of Liverpool within the British imperial system and the impact on the city of its colonial connections remain underplayed in recent writing on both Liverpool and the empire. However, 'inconvenient' this may prove, this specially-commissioned collection of essays demonstrates that the imperial dimension deserves more prevalence in both academic and popular representations of Liverpool's past. Indeed, if Liverpool does represent the 'World in One City' - the slogan for Liverpool's status as European Capital of Culture in 2008 - it could be argued that this is largely down to Merseyside's long-term interactions with the colonial world, and the legacies of that imperial history. In the context of Capital of Culture year and growing interest in the relationship between British provincial cities and the British empire, this book will find a wide audience amongst academics, students and history enthusiasts generally.
Volume 27 of the CGL-Studies – “Jewish Horticultural Schools and Training Centers in Germany and their Impact on Horticulture and Landscape Architecrture in Palestine / Israel“ – presents the results of a symposium which was held in September 2016 at the Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem, jointly organized by the Leo Baeck Institute, the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning of the Technion, Haifa, and the Center of Garden Art and Landscape Architecture of Leibniz University Hannover. The volume presents four main chapters. The first, „Hachsharot in Context“, deals with the context and changing role of Jewish agricultural training in Germany and Hachsharot in the time of the Nazi dictatorship. In the next chapter, „Perceptions of Nature“, ideas of the Jewish youth movement about nature and landscape and the perceptions of nature among Hachshara members are discussed. „Hachsharot in Germany and Palestine“, the third chapter, presents papers on Jewish horticultural training centers in Germany in the regions of Hannover and Berlin/Brandenburg, as well as on Gross-Gaglow, a cooperative Jewish settlement located near Cottbus, and on Kfar Ruppin and Sde Eliyahu, a secular and a religious Kibbutz in Israel, respectively. The papers in the concluding chapter „Beyond Hachsharot“, deal with the lives and work of female Jewish gardeners and garden architects in Vienna, and with the Ahlem memorial and documentation center, established at the site of the former Israelitische Gartenbauschule Ahlem (Jewish Horticultural School Ahlem) in Hannover.
In 2002 the seat of the German government will relocate from Bonn to Berlin, completing the reunification process begun in 1990. Can German democracy endure the stresses of reunification? Edinger and Nacos, using the United States as a counterpoint, explain the salient aspects of the Federal Republic's political system and shed new light on the problems posed by the reunification of two very different nations.
Criminal law norms are socially derived, being constructed in political processes, but only recently has criminological research began to focus on the political construction of criminal law. There has been increasing interest in the quality of these political processes, the decisions that result, and the rationales and social forces guiding these decisions. In Constructing White-Collar Crime, Joachim J. Savelsberg, a sociologist, and Peter Brühl, a lawyer, have provided an interdisciplinary case study of the construction of new German laws against white-collar crime, relating their results to internationally comparative findings. The analysis is empirical; it is theoretically grounded in a sociological approach that contrasts Marxist versus pluralist or differentiation theory, and functionalist versus conflict group or action theory. The authors also analyze their findings in relation to Max Weber's theory of rationalization of law. In addition the research is methodologically innovative, introducing the technique of cognitive mapping into the study of criminal justice legislation. The book represents the authors' attempts to bridge the gap between microsociological and macrosociological approaches to the construction of criminal law. The authors analyze action rationales, communication patterns, and power structures as they play out in different stages of the law-making process: claims-making in news media; participation of scholars and practitioners in an expert commission and in parliamentary hearings; involvement of industrial lobbying groups during the drafting of the bill in the Department of Justice; and parliamentary deliberations. The analysis demonstrates the considerable weight of economic and political rationales as opposed to justice criteria in the development of criminal legislation. It also indicates that white-collar crime legislation may have counterproductive consequences. The laws are intended to increase the quality of criminal justice by criminalizing the behavior of the powerful, but the less powerful groups within the white-collar classes are more likely to feel the effects. Constructing White-Collar Crime will be of interest to students and scholars in the areas of sociology, law, and criminology.
Learning How to Feel explores the ways in which children and adolescents learn not just how to express emotions that are thought to be pre-existing, but actually how to feel. The volume assumes that the embryonic ability to feel unfolds through a complex dialogue with the social and cultural environment and specifically through reading material. The fundamental formation takes place in childhood and youth. A multi-authored historical monograph, Learning How to Feel uses children's literature and advice manuals to access the training practices and learning processes for a wide range of emotions in the modern age, circa 1870-1970. The study takes an international approach, covering a broad array of social, cultural, and political milieus in Britain, Germany, India, Russia, France, Canada, and the United States. Learning How to Feel places multidirectional learning processes at the centre of the discussion, through the concept of practical knowledge. The book innovatively draws a framework for broad historical change during the course of the period. Emotional interaction between adult and child gave way to a focus on emotional interactions among children, while gender categories became less distinct. Children were increasingly taught to take responsibility for their own emotional development, to find 'authenticity' for themselves. In the context of changing social, political, cultural, and gender agendas, the building of nations, subjects and citizens, and the forging of moral and religious values, Learning How to Feel demonstrates how children were provided with emotional learning tools through their reading matter to navigate their emotional lives.
The world of steel is constantly evolving and has become astonishingly diverse, indeed so complex that it is not easy to keep track of it in practice. The aim is to give readers an understanding of this world, from steelmaking, ingot and continuous casting, forming and machining to finishing, testing and packaging of the products, the processes and equipment predominantly used throughout, including the environmentally compatible recycling and disposal of waste.
France and Germany have played a pivotal role in European politics and integration. Shaping Europe systematically investigates the interrelated reality of Franco-German bilateralism and multilateral European integration from the Elysée Treaty into the Twenty-first Century.
In the long history of warfare and cultural and ethnic violence, the twentieth century was exceptional for producing institutions charged with seeking accountability or redress for violent offenses and human rights abuses across the globe, often forcing nations to confront the consequences of past atrocities. The Holocaust ended with trials at Nuremberg, apartheid in South Africa concluded with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the Gacaca courts continue to strive for closure in the wake of the Rwandan genocide. Despite this global trend toward accountability, American collective memory appears distinct in that it tends to glorify the nation’s past, celebrating triumphs while eliding darker episodes in its history. In American Memories, sociologists Joachim Savelsberg and Ryan King rigorously examine how the United States remembers its own and others’ atrocities and how institutional responses to such crimes, including trials and tribunals, may help shape memories and perhaps impede future violence. American Memories uses historical and media accounts, court records, and survey research to examine a number of atrocities from the nation’s past, including the massacres of civilians by U.S. military in My Lai, Vietnam, and Haditha, Iraq. The book shows that when states initiate responses to such violence—via criminal trials, tribunals, or reconciliation hearings—they lay important groundwork for how such atrocities are viewed in the future. Trials can serve to delegitimize violence—even by a nation’s military— by creating a public record of grave offenses. But the law is filtered by and must also compete with other institutions, such as the media and historical texts, in shaping American memory. Savelsberg and King show, for example, how the My Lai slayings of women, children, and elderly men by U.S. soldiers have been largely eliminated from or misrepresented in American textbooks, and the army’s reputation survived the episode untarnished. The American media nevertheless evoked the killings at My Lai in response to the murder of twenty-four civilian Iraqis in Haditha, during the war in Iraq. Since only one conviction was obtained for the My Lai massacre, and convictions for the killings in Haditha seem increasingly unlikely, Savelsberg and King argue that Haditha in the near past is now bound inextricably to My Lai in the distant past. With virtually no criminal convictions, and none of higher ranks for either massacre, both events will continue to be misrepresented in American memory. In contrast, the book examines American representations of atrocities committed by foreign powers during the Balkan wars, which entailed the prosecution of ranking military and political leaders. The authors analyze news accounts of the war’s events and show how articles based on diplomatic sources initially cast Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in a less negative light, but court-based accounts increasingly portrayed Milosevic as a criminal, solidifying his image for the public record. American Memories provocatively suggests that a nation’s memories don’t just develop as a rejoinder to events—they are largely shaped by institutions. In the wake of atrocities, how a state responds has an enduring effect and provides a moral framework for whether and how we remember violent transgressions. Savelsberg and King deftly show that such responses can be instructive for how to deal with large-scale violence in the future, and hopefully how to deter it. A Volume in the American Sociological Association’s Rose Series in Sociology.
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