- Oxford University Press, USA
The Rush to German Unity
Key Metrics
- Konrad H Jarausch
- Oxford University Press, USA
- Paperback
- 9780195085778
- 9.04 X 6.04 X 0.78 inches
- 1.09 pounds
- History > Europe - Germany
- English
Book Description
The Rush to German Unity presents a clear historical reconstruction of the confusing events. It focuses on the dramatic experiences of the East German people but also explores the decisions of the West German elite. Konrad H. Jarausch draws on the rich sources produced by the collapse of the GDR and on the public debate in the FRG. Beginning with vivid media images, the text probes the background of a problem, traces its treatment and resolution and then reflects on its implications.
Combining an insider's insights with an outsider's detachment, the interpretation balances the celebratory and the catastrophic views. The unification process was democratic, peaceful and negotiated. But the merger was also bureaucratic, capitalistic and one-sided. Popular pressures and political manipulation combined to create a rush to unity that threatened to escape control. The revolution moved from a civic rising to a national movement and ended up as reconstruction from the outside. An ideal source for general readers and students, The Rush to German Unity explores whether solving the old German problem has merely created new difficulties.
Author Bio
Konrad H. Jarausch has written or edited about forty books in modern German and European history. Starting with Hitler’s seizure of power and the First World War, his research interests have moved to the social history of German students and professions German unification in 1989/90, with historiography under the Communist GDR, the nature of the East German dictatorship, as well as the debate about historians and the Third Reich.
More recently, he has been concerned with the problem of interpreting twentieth-century German history in general, the learning processes after 1945, the issue of cultural democratization, and the relationship between Honecker and Breshnew.
Education
- MA University of Wisconsin, 1964
PhD University of Wisconsin, 1969
Source: University of North Carolina
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