This volume is concerned with aspects of education in Germany over the 10 years prior to 2000, focusing on schools, teachers, vocational training and higher education in those eastern parts of the Federal Republic which formerly constituted the territory of the German Democratic Republic. The articles deal with notions of transition and adaptation at a time of considerable upheaval and rapid change. There is a particular focus in some contributions on the problems involved in conducting research on the views of teachers involved in complex processes of adjustment to a new status quo.

This study of the integration of East and West German education following the collapse of the German Democratic Republic in 1989 focuses on policy formation and implementation during this period of great social and political turbulence. It is the result of a research project undertaken shortly after the unification. The authors lived in East Germany for a full year, looking carefully at individual schools, vocational training centers, teacher colleges, and universities. They asked macro analytic questions: What are the conditions in which educational policy is successfully formulated? How is this educational policy implemented? What are the consequences of this policy? From the start, West Germany demanded a complete dismantling of the educational system in the former German Democratic Republic. West German political leaders insisted as a condition of unification that all important agreements concerning education made by the GDR states be accepted by the new states. The authors' research shows that even before the unification East Germans had already opted for a system consistent with West German education law. However, the West Germans disregarded these changes and imposed their own version of reform on East Germany. The study reveals that in this period of confusion the East Germans did not fully analyze the implications of the imposed conditions, which now have unforeseen negative consequences. The German situation is of great interest to all educators, particularly students of educational policy making, as well as researchers in political science, economics, and sociology.

Cooke maps out the problematic path of German national identity as it struggles to deal with the legacy of division. Drawing on postcolonial theory, he argues that the East has been defined as the West's exotic other and shows how this stereotype has been vigorously challenged.

In Rereading German History, first published in 1997, Richard J. Evans draws together his seminal review essays on the political, economic, cultural and social history of Germany through war and reunification. This book provides a study of how and why historians – mainly German, American, British and French – have provided a series of differing and often conflicting readings of the German past. It also presents a reconsideration of German history in the light of the recent decline of the German Democratic Republic, collapse of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany. Rereading German History re-examines major controversies in modern German history, such as the debate over Germany’s ‘special path’ to modernity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the discussions in the 1980s on the uniqueness or otherwise of Auschwitz. Evans also analyses the arguments over the nature of German national identity. The book offers trenchant and important analytical insights into the history of Germany in the last two centuries, and is ideal reading material for students of modern history and German studies.

Textbooks in history, geography and the social sciences provide important insights into the ways in which nation-states project themselves. Based on case studies of France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Greece, Turkey Bulgaria, Russia, and the United States, this volume shows the role that concepts of space and time play in the narration of 'our country' and the wider world in which it is located. It explores ways in which in western European countries the nation is reinterpreted through European lenses to replace national approaches in the writing of history. On the other hand, in an effort to overcome Eurocentric views,'world history' has gained prominence in the United States. Yet again, East European countries, coming recently out of a transnational political union, have their own issues with the concept of nation to contend with. These recent developments in the field of textbooks and curricula open up new and fascinating perspectives on the changing patterns of the re-positioning process of nation-states in West as well as Eastern Europe and the United States in an age of growing importance of transnational organizations and globalization.

The fall of the Berlin Wall and the unification of East and West Germany in 1989/90 were events of world-historical significance. The twentieth anniversary of this juncture represents an excellent opportunity to reflect upon the evolution of the new Berlin Republic. Given the on-going significance of the country for theory and concept–building in many disciplines, an in-depth examination of the case is essential. In this volume, unique in its focus on all aspects of contemporary Germany - culture, historiography, society, politics and the economy - top scholars offer their assessments of the country’s performance in these and other areas and analyze the successes and continued challenges.

Exam Board: AQA, Edexcel, OCR & WJEC Level: A-level Subject: History First Teaching: September 2015 First Exam: June 2016 Give your students the best chance of success with this tried and tested series, combining in-depth analysis, engaging narrative and accessibility. Access to History is the most popular, trusted and wide-ranging series for A-level History students. This title: - Supports the content and assessment requirements of the 2015 A-level History specifications - Contains authoritative and engaging content - Includes thought-provoking key debates that examine the opposing views and approaches of historians - Provides exam-style questions and guidance for each relevant specification to help students understand how to apply what they have learnt This title is suitable for a variety of courses including: - Edexcel: The Unification of Germany, c1840-71 - OCR: The Challenge of German Nationalism 1789-1919

In the mid-summer of 1989 the German Democratic Republic-- known as the GDR or East Germany--was an autocratic state led by an entrenched Communist Party. A loyal member of the Warsaw Pact, it was a counterpart of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), which it confronted with a mixture of hostility and grudging accommodation across the divide created by the Cold War. Over the following year and a half, dramatic changes occurred in the political system of East Germany and culminated in the GDR's "accession" to the Federal Republic itself. Yet the end of Germany's division evoked its own new and very bitter constitutional problems. The Imperfect Union discusses these issues and shows that they are at the core of a great event of political, economic, and social history. Part I analyzes the constitutional history of eastern Germany from 1945 through the constitutional changes of 1989-1990 and beyond to the constitutions of the re-created east German states. Part II analyzes the Unification Treaty and the numerous problems arising from it: the fate of expropriated property on unification; the unification of the disparate eastern and western abortion regimes; the transformation of East German institutions, such as the civil service, the universities, and the judiciary; prosecution of former GDR leaders and officials; the "rehabilitation" and compensation of GDR victims; and the issues raised by the fateful legacy of the files of the East German secret police. Part III examines the external aspects of unification.

The Prussian School of History first predicted and advocated, then celebrated and defended, the unification of Germany by Prussia. Experts in German historiography and the history of German liberalism have often complained about the lack of a book, in any language, that traces the origins and explains the ideas of this school of history. Here is that book. Robert Southard finds that, for the Prussian School, history had an agenda. These historians generally expected history to complete its main tasks in their own time and country. The outcome of their politics was, really, an "end of history"—not a cessation to historical occurrences, but a cessation of onward historical movement because the historical process had already achieved its long-term, beneficent purposes. Leading us through the intricacies of important but untranslated works of J. G. Droysen, Max Duncker, Rudolph Hayn, and Heinrich von Sybel, Southard demonstrates their belief that the historical sequence was a continual unfolding of God's plan. Indispensable for those interested in the history of German historical writing, this book also has major implications for understanding the history of political liberalism.