Suchergebnisse

"Germany, 1871-1945 presents a pragmatic interpretation of German history, from the unification to the end of the Nazi regime. This more open approach acknowledges the strong trend in German society towards modernization and democratization, particularly before 1914, while also highlighting the factors which propelled Germany toward World War I. The rise of the Nazis also demands a close analysis of the economic and political instability of the 1920s and early 1930s. Finally, a detailed assessment of the Third Reich explains how the regime's early successes fostered a loyalty and acceptance that remained hard to shake until disaster was obvious and unavoidable."--Jacket

During the last four decades the German Revolution 1918/19 has only attracted little scholarly attention. This volume offers new cultural historical perspectives, puts this revolution into a wider time frame (1916-23), and coheres around three interlinked propositions: (i) acknowledging that during its initial stage the German Revolution reflected an intense social and political challenge to state authority and its monopoly of physical violence, (ii) it was also replete with »Angst«-ridden wrangling over its longer-term meaning and direction, and (iii) was characterized by competing social movements that tried to cultivate citizenship in a new, unknown state

The Institute for Human Sciences (Institut fur die Wissenschaften vom Menschen) was founded in Vienna in 1982 by a group of scholars from Eastern Europe and the West. The purpose of the Institute was to overcome the cultural and intellectual division of Europe by promoting conferences, seminars and research programmes. The latest report of the Institute stresses that the disappearance of the Iron Curtain has made the work of the Institute all the more important. As the authors of the report explain, '…the civil society which is reemerging in Eastern Europe will hardly be viable without living connections to the West and, equally, the Western world will be much poorer without the historical experiences of the East. The Institut fur die Wissenschaften vom Menschen views itself as a place where the experiences and perspectives of Eastern Europeans can be (re-) introduced into the Western discussion as a means of rousing, changing and broadening Western culture. Europe should be seen as a challenge: as a manifold, but also contradictory, intellectual and cultural unity.'

Today it often appears as though the European Union has entered existential crisis after decades of success, condemned by its adversaries as a bureaucratic monster eroding national sovereignty: at best wasteful, at worst dangerous. How did we reach this point and how has European integration impacted on ordinary people's lives - not just in the member states, but also beyond? Did the predecessors of today's EU really create peace after World War II, as is often argued? How about its contribution to creating prosperity? What was the role of citizens in this process, and can the EU justifiably claim to be a 'community of values'? Kiran Klaus Patel's bracing look back at the myths and realities of integration challenges conventional wisdoms of Europhiles and Eurosceptics alike and shows that the future of Project Europe will depend on the lessons that Europeans derive from its past.

Because the history of fan fiction in Germany is not congruent with the more dominant Anglo-American history of fan fiction, it requires separate revision and evaluation. By outlining the history of fan fiction in Germany, we present and discuss certain national aspects in the development of the phenomenon, arguing that although the Internet globally links fans, the production of fan fiction is still strongly rooted in a national writing community.

From the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s West German foreign policy underwent substantial transformations: from bilateral to multilateral, from reactive to proactive. The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) was an ideal setting for this evolution, enabling the Federal Republic to take the lead early on in Western preparations for the conference and to play a decisive role in the actual East-West negotiations leading to the Helsinki Final Act of 1975. Based on extensive original research of recently released documents, spanning more than fifteen archives in eight countries, this study is a substantial contribution to scholarly discussions on the history of detente, the CSCE and West German foreign policy. The author stresses the importance of looking beyond the bipolarity of the Cold War decades and emphasizes the interconnectedness of European integration and European detente. He highlights the need to place the genesis of the CSCE conference in its historical context rather than looking at it through the prism of the events of 1989, and shows that the bilateral and multilateral elements (Ostpolitik and the CSCE) were parallel rather than successive phenomena, parts of the same complex process and in constant interaction with each other