United City, Divided Memories?
Cold War Legacies in Contemporary Berlin
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Lexington Books
Published:3rd Feb '10
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This paperback is available in another edition too:
- Hardback£113.00(9780739118399)
United City, Divided Memories? focuses on the basic question of how Berlin today deals with three specific Cold War-era legacies: the presence of the four Great Powers, the East German Stasi, and the Berlin Wall. Dirk Verheyen looks at monuments, museums, and memorial sites as illustrations of Berlin's struggle to craft an effective shared identity that ties together its western and eastern halves. Verheyen's comprehensive and critical analysis is considered against the broader background of Germany's efforts at coming to grips with its dual twentieth-century totalitarian past. This book demonstrates that important elements of east-west contrast linger and complicate the city's efforts at crafting a more definitively future-oriented united identity. United City, Divided Memories? will stimulate debate among German studies scholars, as well as among those interested in German history and cultural studies.
Each topic is very thoroughly documented, weaving together historical information and current political debates surrounding memorial sites....Highly valuable as a chronicle of the politics of memory....Recommended. Two-star review. * CHOICE, March 2009 *
Dirk Verheyen has written a fascinating, exhaustive analysis of the evolving and conflicting memories of the Cold War memorialized by the most controversial monuments and museums in Berlin. He is at his best in his demonstration of the ongoing controversies. -- Robert Billinger, Wingate University * Reviews *
Verheyen's book is a useful and welcome history of reunified Germany's troubled capital over the last two decades. * American Historical Review, October 2009 *
Anyone who has been in Berlin over the past decade will recognize the diverse and frequently contradictory emotions that politicians, intellectuals, architects, and pundits have evoked in their efforts to bring the city together again. Dirk Verheyen has written a thoughtful and perceptive book that captures the complexity of these endeavors and that is always sensitive to the challenges all human beings face in wrestling with historical memory. This study will be of interest not only to those who are fascinated with Berlin, but also to anyone who seeks to make sense of the multiple, overlapping histories that continue to challenge Germany as a whole. -- A. James McAdams, director, Nanovic Institute for European Studies, University of Notre Dame
ISBN: 9780739118405
Dimensions: 232mm x 155mm x 20mm
Weight: 510g
320 pages