Shattered past : reconstructing German histories
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Bibliographic Information
Shattered past : reconstructing German histories
Princeton University Press, c2003
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Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Broken glass and piles of debris - these are the early memories of the children who grew up amid the ruins of the Third Reich. More than five decades later, German youth inhabit manicured suburbs and stroll along prosperous pedestrian malls. Shattered Past is a bold reconsideration of the perplexing pattern of Germany's twentieth-century history. Konrad Jarausch and Michael Geyer explore the staggering gap between the country's role in the terrors of war and its subsequent success as a democracy. They argue that the collapse of Communism, national reunification, and the postmodern shift call for a new reading of the country's turbulent development, one that no longer suggests continuity but rupture and conflict. Comprising original essays, the book begins by reexamining the nationalist, socialist, and liberal master narratives that have dominated the presentation of German history but are now losing their hold.
Treated next are major issues of recent debate that suggest how new kinds of German history might be written: annihilationist warfare, complicity with dictatorship, the taming of power, the impact of migration, the struggle over national identity, redefinitions of womanhood, and the development of consumption as well as popular culture. The concluding chapters reflect on the country's gradual transition from chaos to civility. This penetrating study will spark a fresh debate about the meaning of the German past during the last century.
Table of Contents
Preface ii INTORDUCTION: Twentieth-Century Germany: Rethinking a Shattered Past 1 PART I: THE ECLIPSE OF THE MASTER NARRATIVES 1. A Return to National History? The Master Narrative and Beyond 37 2. The Collapse of the Counternarrative: Coping with the Remains of Socialism 61 3. Modernization, German Exceptionalism, and Post-Modernity: Transcending the Critical History of Society 85 PART II: RECONSTITUTING GERMAN HISTORIES 4. War, Genocide, Extermination: The War against the Jews in an Era of World Wars 111 5. The Totalitarian Temptation: Ordinary Germans, Dictatorship, and Democracy 149 6. From Empire to Europe: The Taming of German Power 173 7. Unsettling German Society: Mobility and Migration 197 8. A Struggle for Unity: Redefining National Identities 221 9. Defining Womanhood: The Politics of the Private 245 10. In Pursuit of Happiness: Consumption, Mass Culture, and Consumerism 269 PART III: LOOKING BACK AT THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 11. Survival in Catastrophe: Mending Broken Memories 317 12. The Century as History: Between Cataclysm and Civility 342 Index 371
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