Bücher der Reihe Contemporary European History

German attitudes toward migrants have been profoundly shaped by the legacies of the Second World War. This volume explores the history of migration and diversity in Germany from 1945 onward.

Despite the growing interest in general European history, the European dimension is surprisingly absent from the writing of contemporary history. In most countries, the historiography on the 20th century continues to be dominated by national perspectives.

Modern military history, inspired by social and cultural historical approaches, increasingly puts the national histories of the Second World War to the test. New questions and methods are focusing on aspects of war and violence that have long been neglected. What shaped people's experiences and memories? What differences and what similarities exist

It is hard to imagine nowadays that, for many years, France and Germany considered each other as "arch enemies." And yet, for well over a century, these two countries waged verbal and ultimately violent wars against each other.

Due to the demand for flexible working hours and employees who are available around the clock, the time patterns of childcare and schooling have increasingly become a political issue. The book compares the development of different time policiesA" of half-day and all-day provisions in a variety of Eastern and Western European countries...

The neighboring boroughs of Friedrichschain and Kreuzberg shared a history and identity until their fortunes diverged dramatically following the construction of the Berlin Wall, which placed them within opposing political systems. This revealing account of the two towns during and after the Cold War...

In many ways what is identified today as "cultural globalization" in Eastern Europe has its roots in the Cold War phenomena of samizdat ("do-it-yourself" underground publishing) and tamizdat (publishing abroad). This volume offers a new understanding of how information flowed between East and West during the Cold War...

Exploring the visions of the end of the Cold War that have been put forth since its inception until its actual ending, this volume brings to the fore the reflections, programmes, and strategies that were intended to call into question the bipolar system and replace it with alternative approaches or concepts.

This innovative volume brings together internationally known experts from the fields of comparative education, history, and the social and political sciences, and makes a significant contribution to the new interdisciplinary field of comparative study.

An examination of the role of history and memory is vital in order to better understand why the grand design of a United Europe - with a common foreign policy and market yet enough diversity to allow for cultural and social differences - was overwhelmingly turned down by its citizens.

Modern military history, inspired by social and cultural historical approaches, increasingly puts the national histories of the Second World War to the test. New questions and methods are focusing on aspects of war and violence that have long been neglected. What shaped people's experiences and memories?

An examination of the role of history and memory is vital in order to better understand why the grand design of a United Europe-with a common foreign policy and market yet enough diversity to allow for cultural and social differences-was overwhelmingly turned down by its citizens.

The hostilities in Europe from 1936 to 1945 have exerted enormous influence over the cultural life of Europe. Bringing together over twenty leading scholars across disciplines, this interdisciplinary volume investigates the intertwining dynamics of Europeans' individual and collective memories and the ways in which they have shaped cultural forms.

In studies of a common European past, there is a significant lack of scholarship on the former Eastern Bloc countries. This volume offers a reflection on memory in an Eastern European historical context, one that can be measured against and applied to historical experience in other parts of Europe.

Each chapter analyzes the political, economic, and social transformation processes that have taken place in a given nation, identifying structural similarities and assessing outcomes compared to one another as well as the rest of Europe.

This volume explores the history of migration and diversity in Germany from 1945 onward, showing how conceptions of "otherness" developed while memories of Nazism were still fresh, and identifying the continuities and transformations they have exhibited up until today.

In recent years, wartime captivity has taken on new urgency as a historical topic. This wide-ranging volume brings together an international selection of scholars to trace the contours of this evolving research agenda, offering fascinating new perspectives on historical moments ranging from the Great War to Guantanamo Bay.

In studies of a common European past, there is a significant lack of scholarship on the former Eastern Bloc countries. This volume offers a reflection on memory in an Eastern European historical context, one that can be measured against and applied to historical experience in other parts of Europe.

In the second half of the nineteenth century a new kind of social and cultural actor came to the fore: the expert. During this period complex processes of modernization, industrialization, urbanization, and nation-building gained pace, particularly in Western Europe and North America.

In July 1995, the Bosnian Serb Army commanded by General Ratko Mladic attacked the enclave of Srebrenica, a UN "safe area" since 1993, and massacred about 8,000 Bosniac men. While the responsibility for the massacre itself lays clearly with the Serb political and military leadership...

From the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s West German foreign policy underwent substantial transformations: from bilateral to multilateral, from reactive to proactive. The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) was an ideal setting for this evolution, enabling the Federal Republic to take the lead early on in Western preparations for the conference and to play a decisive role in the actual East-West negotiations leading to the Helsinki Final Act of 1975. Based on extensive original research of recently released documents, spanning more than fifteen archives in eight countries, this study is a substantial contribution to scholarly discussions on the history of dtente, the CSCE and West German foreign policy. The author stresses the importance of looking beyond the bipolarity of the Cold War decades and emphasizes the interconnectedness of European integration and European dtente. He highlights the need to place the genesis of the CSCE conference in its historical context rather than looking at it through the prism of the events of 1989, and shows that the bilateral and multilateral elements (Ostpolitik and the CSCE) were parallel rather than successive phenomena, parts of the same complex process and in constant interaction with each other.

By looking at state-sponsored memory projects, such as memorials, commemorations, and historical museums, this book reveals that the East German communist regime obsessively monitored and attempted to control public representations of the past to legitimize its rule. It demonstrates that the regime's approach to memory politics was not stagnant, but rather evolved over time to meet different demands and potential threats to its legitimacy. Ultimately the party found it increasingly difficult to control the public portrayal of the past, and some dissidents were able to turn the party's memory politics against the state to challenge its claims of moral authority.

It is hard to imagine nowadays that, for many years, France and Germany considered each other as "e;arch enemies."e; And yet, for well over a century, these two countries waged verbal and ultimately violent wars against each other. This study explores a particularly virulent phase during which each of these two nations projected certain assumptions about national character onto the other - distorted images, motivated by antipathy, fear, and envy, which contributed to the growing hostility between the two countries in the years before the First World War. Most remarkably, as the author discovered, the qualities each country ascribed to its chief adversary appeared to be exaggerated or negative versions of precisely those qualities that it perceived to be lacking or inadequate in itself. Moreover, banishing undesirable traits and projecting them onto another people was also an essential step in the consolidation of national identity. As such, it established a pattern that has become all too familiar to students of nationalism and xenophobia in recent decades. This study shows that antagonism between states is not a fact of nature but socially constructed.

Despite the interest in general European history, the European dimension is surprisingly absent from much of the writing of contemporary history. In most countries, the historiography on the 20th century is dominated by national perspectives. This book focuses on the development of a shared conception of European history.

This volume offers a new understanding of how information flowed between East and West during the Cold War as well as the much broader circulation of cultural products that was instigated and sustained by these practices.

Focusing on areas such as the heritage of 1989 revolutions, ambivalence, disillusionment, individualism, and collective identities, this text explores the expectations and goals that Eastern Europeans had during the 1989 revolutions and the decade thereafter, and the problems and disappointments they encountered in the course of the transformation.

In Europe and around the world, social policies and welfare services have faced increasing pressure in recent years as a result of political, economic, and social changes. Just as Europe was a leader in the development of the welfare state and the supportive structures of corporatist politics from the 1920s onward...

This volume offers the first extensive analysis of entreaties from persecuted Jews in the Nazi era, demonstrating their largely unappreciated value as a historical source and as an attempt to reclaim agency in increasingly desperate political circumstances.

Each chapter analyzes the political, economic, and social transformation processes that have taken place in a given nation, identifying structural similarities and assessing outcomes compared to one another as well as the rest of Europe.