Product Description

'What is a German's fatherland?', asked Ernst Moritz Arndt at the beginning of the nineteenth century. This has arguably been the central question of modern German history. Germans did not have a united fatherland until 1871, and, thereafter, major political events in 1918, 1933, 1945, 1968 and 1989 ensured that the answers to Arndt's question proliferated and diverged with breath-taking speed.

Germany explains the diverse ways in which national identity has been constructed over more than three centuries. It focuses on the plurality of contested definitions of Germanness . The themes covered include the struggles between democratic and non-democratic inventions of the nation, the construction of the racial nation under Nazism, economic definitions of the nation, foreigners and Germanness , the nation as a community of memory , the gendering of the national discourse, the federal nature of German nationalism and the impact of war on the construction of a German national identity. This is a fundamental reappraisal of Germany s history from a perspective available only now that the dust from the demolished Berlin Wall is settling in a reunited Germany.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #680582 in Books
• Published on: 2004-06-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Review
'[Berger's] insightful guide over this slippery but crucial terrain convincingly shows how each different 'Germany' was dependent on its predecessors and contemporary events.' --Choice

'It is overall an interseting, balanced, and very readable account of a fascinating and pertinent topic.' --Central European History Vol 38, No 4

About the Author
Stefan Berger is Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Glamorgan, UK