Not Dusk, but Dawn: The Cultural Turn and German Social History After 1990

In: East central Europe: L' Europe du centre-est : eine wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift, Band 34-35, Heft 1-2, S. 37-62

Abstract

This article focuses on the evolution of social history in pre- 1989 West Germany and the GDR and, on the basis of this overview, identifies new, innovative historiographical trends on (re-)writing social history in unified Germany. It is argued that, for many decades, West German historiography had been characterized by sharp debates between the more established advocates of investigations into social structures and processes, on the one hand, and the grass-roots historians of everyday life, on the other. Since the early 1990s, however, this antagonism has considerably receded in favour of synthetic perspectives. At the same time, interest in the history of East European states and regions has considerably increased. This article highlights these new analytical trends in recent German historiography by taking as example studies of the social history of the GDR. In the unified Germany, the history of the GDR has received particular attention. Access to new sources has also enabled historians to link the histories of Eastern and Western Europe, either by employing comparative perspectives or investigating cross-border entanglements.