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The article explores the recent state and development of churchliness and religiosity in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe from three perspectives (decline, individualization, and (re)vitalitazion) and according to three theoretical approaches (secularization theory, individualization thesis, and supply-side model of religious competition). The central results can be summarized as follows: overall, in terms of change in the religious sphere, no homogenous or characteristic pattern can be established for the whole region. While most Orthodox societies have experienced a clear religious growth, the situation in Catholic and Protestant countries has been very varied. Indeed, in countries such as the Czech Republic and East Germany, the process of secularization since the political upheavals in the early 1990s seems to be even more advanced. As far as the ability of the theoretical models to explain religious change is concerned, there is no evidence to support the theory of religious competition. In contrast, the individualization thesis can certainly claim a degree of plausibility for itself, although some findings do contradict its assumptions. All in all, a context-sensitive secularization-theory approach, one which looks at specific cultural and political developments, seems best able to explain development.

Introduction: Reconfiguring German colonialism / Volker Langbehn and Mohammad Salama -- pt. 1. Colonial (dis)continuities : framing the issue -- Borrowed light : Nietzsche and the colonies / Timothy Brennan -- German colonialism : some reflections on reassessments, specificities, and constellations / Birthe Kundrus -- pt. 2. Lebensraum and genocide -- Against "human diversity as such" : Lebensraum and genocide in the Third Reich / Shelley Baranowski -- Hannah Arendt, imperialisms, and the Holocaust / A. Dirk Moses -- Caesura, continuity, and myth : the stakes of tethering the Holocaust to German colonial theory / Kitty Millet -- pt. 3. Looking East : Poland, the Ottoman Empire, and politicized Jihadism -- Germany's adventures in the Orient : a history of ambivalent semicolonial entanglements / Malte Fuhrmann -- Arguing the case for a colonial Poland / Kristin Kopp -- Colonialism, and no end : the other continuity theses / Russell A. Berman -- pt. 4. Of Missionaries, Economics, and Intranational Self-Perception -- The purpose of German colonialism, or, The long shadow of Bismarck's colonial policy / Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann -- Christian missionary societies in the German colonies, 1884/85-1914/15 / Ulrich van der Heyden -- German colonialism and the British neighbor in Africa before 1914 : self-definitions, lines of demarcation, and cooperation / Ulrike Lindner -- pt. 5. Postcolonial German politics -- "Kalashnikovs, not Coca-Cola, bring self-determination to Angola" : the two Germanys, Lusophone Africa, and the rhetoric of colonial difference / Luis Madureira -- Germany, Palestine, Israel, and the (post)colonial imagination / Martin Braach-Maksvytis.

The events of 1989 in Eastern and Central Europe have shaken the foundations of the post-war bipolar security system. The quest for democracy-demonstrated by such disparate events as the election of a Solidarity prime minister in Poland, East Germans "voting with their feet" and leaving in droves for West Germany.

"Like in many low moor regions in East Germany, long-standing intensive arable farming - enabled by complex melioration - has caused soil deterioration and high water runoff in the 'Schraden'. More than ten years of economic and political transformation has worsened the situation and even added new problems. The visible consequences are drought periods in the summer, waterlogged plots in the spring and worn-down water management facilities that operate in an uncoordinated or even unauthorized way. It is here argued that the reallocation of property rights on melioration systems, together with ineffective co-ordination mechanisms, have impeded appropriate land use. Transformation related problems like the discontinuity of land property rights, the unclear legal situation regarding melioration plants built in socialist times, and highly-fragmented land ownership have not been effectively dealt with by the newly-established Water Association and Water Administration, respectively. Profoundly heterogeneous water-user interests and the complexity of ecosystem relations have contributed to the persistence of the problems. This analysis is based on regional planning material as well as on qualitative, semi-structured interviews with local stakeholders, representatives of the administration and politicians at all levels of government." (author's abstract)

For the first time, people are questioning the sustainability of a state-centered understanding of censorship that harkens back to traditions of 19th century liberalism. Censorship has been widely studied as it was manifest in the Biedermeier period, during the Nazi era, and in East Germany, yet to date, there has been an alarming lack of attention to this issue in relation to West Germany or the modern, unified Germany

"During the first decades of the twentieth century, modern states fighting World War I and II for the first time experimented with feeding--and starving--entire populations. Within the new globalizing economy, food became intimately intertwined with waging war. In Europe, starvation claimed more lives than any other weapon of war. As Alice Weinreb shows in Modern Hungers, nowhere was this more apparent than in Germany, initiator and loser of both wars. The end of armed conflict in 1945 did not mean that such military strategies declined in significance. Fears of hunger and fantasies of abundance were instead reframed within a new political system that saw the world as divided between capitalism and communism. Divided Germany rapidly became the key European stage for the Cold War. During the postwar decades, Europeans lived longer, possessed more goods, and were healthier than ever before. Nothing signaled this shift more clearly than the disappearance of famine from the continent. So powerful was the experience of post-1945 abundance that it is hard today to imagine a time when the specter of hunger haunted Europe and the primary targets for American food aid was Belgium and Germany rather than Africa. Yet under both capitalist and communist systems, economic growth and political priorities proved inseparable from the modern food system. Drawing on sources ranging from military records to cookbooks to economic and nutritional studies from East and West German archives, Modern Hungers reveals similarities and striking ruptures in popular experience and state policy relating to the industrial food economy. It thus offers historical context for many key contemporary concerns ranging from humanitarian food aid to the gender-wage gap to the obesity epidemic." - Provided by publisher

Intro -- Series Editor'S Foreword -- Preface -- Part I. Social And Behavioral Sciences Reports -- Regional Diversity And Familial Forms Of Life - Structural And Social Conditions Of Child Socialization -- Is There Social Change? Photographs As A Means Of Contrasting Individual Development And Societal Change In The New States Of Germany -- Adolescent Peer Relations In Times Of Social Change -- Child Poverty In East Germany - The Interaction Of Institution Transfer And Family Type In The Transformation Process -- Qualities Of Children'S Friendships In Middle Childhood In East- And West Berlin -- Future Oriented Control And Subjective Well-Being Of Students In East- And West-Berlin -- Risk Conditions And Developmental Patterns Of Mental Disorders From Childhood To Early Adulthood - Results From Two Longitudinal Studies In Rostock And Mannheim -- The Influence Of Changing Contexts And Historical Time On The Timing Of Initial Vocational Choices -- Social Change And Individual Development In East Germany: A Methodological Critique -- Part Ii. Methods -- The Time Of The Wende: Social Change And The Reception Of Political Broadcasting In The German Democratic Republic. Time-Series Analyses Of News Usage -- Standard And Non-Standard Log-Linear Models For Analyzing Change In Categorical Variables -- A Strategy For Data Reanalysis In Longitudinal Studies -- Analysis Of Emotional Response Patterns For Adolescent Stepsons Using P-Technique Factor Analysis -- Dynamic Factor Analysis Of Emotional Dispositions Of Adolescent Stepsons Towards Their Stepfathers -- Event History Analysis In Human Developmental Research -- Contributors.

Understanding the political impact of economic growth requires knowledge of the timing of structural changes within a national economy. The decline of agriculture's share in the national economy and variations in regional economic structures are of particular importance. The corrected figures on farm employment discussed in Section II indicate that between 1861 and 1907 the share of agriculture in national employment in Germany declined considerably more rapidly than appears in the census results; regional shares also tended to diverge from each other and from the average throughout the period. New international competition and the thrust of urban and industrial development required regional readjustments within German agriculture. They also made it progressively more difficult for agricultural regions to compete for resources and markets without outside help. In the absence of internally generated pressure from commerce and industry, the elite in the eastern regions of Prussia opposed outside help whenever it threatened the local economic structure. The result was to increase the dependence of the region's labor for jobs on relatively declining regional industry. The response of the landowners to these changes in turn strongly influenced national political groupings. The whole experience laid a foundation for the reaction in German political life to the social discontents and economic miseries of the First World War and decades following.

The division of Germany separated a nation, divided communities, and inevitably shaped the life histories of those growing up in the socialist dictatorship of the East and the liberal democracy of the West. This peculiarly German experience of the Cold War is usually viewed through the lens of divided Berlin or other border communities. What has been much less explored, however, is what division meant to the millions of Germans in the East and West who lived far away from the Wall and the centres of political power. This volume is the first comparative study to examine how villagers in both Germanies dealt with the imposition of two very different systems in their everyday lives. Focusing on two villages, Neukirch (Lausitz) in Saxony and Ebersbach an der Fils in Baden-Württemberg, it explores how local residents experienced and navigated social change in their localities in the postwar era. Based on a wide range of archival sources as well as oral history interviews, the work argues that there are parallel histories of responses to social change among villagers in postwar Germany. Despite the different social, political, and economic developments, the residents of both localities desired rural modernisation, lamented the loss of 'community', and became politically active to control the transformation of their localities. The work thereby offers a bottom-up history of divided Germany which shows how individuals on both sides of the Wall gave local meaning to large-scale processes of change.

"Decree organising the public property in French West Africa": p. 10-16. ; "Ordinanace to protect the forests in German East Africa": p. 7-10. ; Photocopy. ; Mode of access: Internet.

The goal of this article is to present the transition in the situation of women in the former West Germany and East Germany as a consequence of German reunification. Starting with an outline of the legal framework defining gender equality, as well as the actual circumstances of females in society as part of a family and on the labour market in both German countries, the situation of women in the united country is analysed within the context of their professional activity, remuneration and pension amounts and promotion prospects as well as the ability to combine their professional and family lives. I try to answer whether women in the former East Germany became underprivileged due to the German reunification process and whether the situation of the West German women changed as a result of certain equality incentives which could be considered the heritage of the German Democratic Republic.