Description
Book SynopsisExplores the staggering gap between the country's role in the terrors of war and its subsequent success as a democracy. Comprising original essays, this book begins by reexamining the nationalist, socialist, and liberal master narratives that have dominated the presentation of German history but are losing their hold.
Trade Review"An excellent introduction to newly emerging views on the study of contemporary German history."--Cecil Trice, History: Reviews of New Books "A compelling, challenging analysis."--Choice "Shattered Past is the most important book in German history to appear in recent years... [It] will surely provoke discussion and debate for many years to come."--Eric D. Weitz, Slavic Review
Table of ContentsPreface 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
