Textbook Reds

“Put Rodden's new book on education in East Germany, Textbook Reds, next to his earlier one, Repainting the Little Red Schoolhouse, and you have all the library you need to understand the dynamics of the former German Democratic Republic, in every aspect, from its beginning to its end. Not even more specialized studies range as far and probe as deep, thanks to Rodden's astonishing versatility as a historian. He moves deftly from analysis of textbooks to personal interviews, from the teaching of the high-school disciplines to the corruption and the cult of personality in the GDR. The interviews bring an immediacy one seldom finds in a book so scholarly, and the scholarship is thorough across a spectrum of approaches. Make no mistake—using the educational system as a starting point does not narrow the perspective but opens out whole horizons instead. Comprehensive, brilliant, and vivid.”

—Vincent Kling, La Salle University

“A perceptive and creative study of eastern German education. The sections on Wolfgang Harich and of hopeful reformers among the technical intelligentsia are very well done. I especially liked the treatment of the World Youth Games, held in East Berlin in 1973, which I attended during my first trip to the GDR. The Games were exactly as John Rodden describes them, with thousands of eager, blue-shirted FDJ students swarming among the city. Oddly, Angela Davis was the celebrity speaker for the event, who seemed at last to have found a receptive audience for her tirades.”

—A. James McAdams, Director, Nanovic Institute for European Studies, University of Notre Dame

“Rodden eschews scholarly cautiousness and is both epic and personal in his approach to German history. I was especially impressed by his ability to link the founding and history of the GDR to the ups and downs of Soviet policy, all of which is executed in the context of a richly textured narrative of German cultural and social history. But this is not a history of education in the usual sense. Rodden is both critical of the GDR system and its current effort to mold its citizens and also deeply sympathetic with the many GDR citizens who were victims of the Marxist-Leninist hoax that their leaders perpetrated on them.”

—Sterling Fishman, University of Wisconsin at Madison

“The scope of this book goes beyond previous investigations of the subject, both in the sense of its comprehensive inclusiveness of topics beyond education in narrowly conceived terms, and in its extension of the historical narrative to post-GDR life. Never before have the intricate interactions among educational programs, ideological motivations, and the exigencies of practical politics in the GDR been demonstrated so thoroughly and with such rich documentation. Rodden’s illumination of the interconnections among educational programming, social engineering, and political power make this study a significant contribution not just to German studies, but to the sociology of nation-building as well. But this work does not merely demonstrate the centrality of education to Marxist nation-building, it also shows the reasons and conditions leading to the successive failures and ultimate undoing of this communist project.

One of the most appealing features of Textbook Reds is Rodden’s lively, witty, and forceful writing style. This style is thoroughly compatible with the book’s sound scholarship, because it serves to highlight his basic themes by giving dramatic power to various anecdotes, personal encounters, and historical scenes. Most engaging is Rodden’s very personal viewpoint in his portraits of the East Germans that he interviewed. His vignettes show vividly the fateful determination of German lives by history, and the poignant, sometimes humorous tone brings his nuanced yet sympathetic American perspective into the foreground, often mitigating the gloom and endowing the tragedy with promise and hope.”

—Walter Sokel, University of Virginia

“Because I was a professor during the GDR era and contributed toward the formation of East German education, I am thoroughly familiar with the stories and events that John Rodden relates. His book is fascinating, sometimes even thrilling to read, and it addresses a public far beyond academic specialists. It is accessible to the general reader and deserves the widest possible audience.

I have been most impressed by Rodden's scholarly expertise, profound philosophical grasp, and power of verbal and intellectual expression. He has an unusual stance that is both sympathetic and critical at the same time, and it facilitates his penetrating understanding of the essential purposes and aspirations of GDR education and cultural politics. I say all this as a man who himself lived through most of the history of GDR educational and cultural politics, first as a supporter of the regime and then, beginning in the mid-1980s, increasingly in opposition to the dictatorship—and who experienced the events of 1989–90 as a personal and intellectual liberation from an ideological straitjacket. I can, therefore, on the basis of my own intimate knowledge of that history, evaluate with great confidence the outstanding achievement of this book as a work of scholarship and human empathy. This book exhibits an amazingly detailed knowledge of the German situation, not just with regard to its educational institutions but in its grasp of the entire cultural and philosophical context of the former GDR and eastern Europe.”

—Wolfgang Strauss, University of Jena

“I simply cannot praise this book enough. It is a truly impressive work. It is beautifully conceived and executed, as well as intellectually and morally engaging. Above all, it is so very, very well written with a lively style, a tempered wit, a remarkable literary and historical erudition, and a refreshing human empathy. The portraits are robust and dominant. I could swear that some of Rodden’s conversation partners have crossed my path over the years, under different names to be sure. This is the kind of work that teachers can use in a seminar on recent German or European history and politics. It will certainly stimulate interest and discussion among all students in these areas.”

—Christian Söe, California State University at Long Beach

“This book makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of the functioning of dictatorship as well as to the general processes of social change. I am most impressed by the beautiful essayistic style and sovereign command of German jokes, conversational language, and everyday slang. This is an excellent book that will be of great value to the scholar and general reader alike.”

—Karl-Heinz Fuessl, Institute for Education and History, Humboldt University, Berlin

“This stimulating book is written with grace. It is a fascinating portrait gallery of GDR life. I was particularly intrigued with the latter material given my extensive contact with GDR citizens from 1988 on.”

—Randall Bytwerk, Calvin College

“The interviews he recorded with both teachers and students soon after reunification, reproduced in a section entitled ‘The Voices Behind the Page’ and encompassing nearly half the book, represent some of the most insightful original sources we have on this enigmatic process. Textbook Reds should be included on every reading list dealing with East German politics and culture. A German translation would make a valuable contribution to the ongoing—and excruciatingly slow—renegotiation of German culture and society since 1989.”

—Alan Nothnagle Slavic Review