Freest Country in the World East Germany's Final Year in Culture and Memory
Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
STEPHEN BROCKMANN is Professor of German with courtesy appointments in English and History at Carnegie Mellon University.Freest Country in the World East Germany's Final Year in Culture and Memory
Outstanding. . . . This is one of the most exciting books on East Germany that I have read in a long time and should be required reading for all who are interested in East Germany, be they scholar, student, or the general public alike.
MONATSHEFTE
Brockmann demonstrates with this book that taking a second look at more obscure cultural texts can be extremely valuable for gaining a truer, more nuanced sense of a time once a standardized narrative has been established. This volume could serve as a foundation for any number of deeper investigations into that turbulent year and its impact on Germany today.
GERMAN STUDIES YEARBOOK
The Freest Country in the World shows us persuasively that memories of 1989-1990 are partial, local, complex, and vulnerable to being eclipsed by simplified dominant narratives driven by ideological interest. In revealing the haunted nature of this moment and its cultural reflections, Stephen Brockmann does a great service in allowing us to challenge such narratives, and he offers us an academic perspective on issues often driven by more polemical interventions (e.g., Hoyer, Kowalczuk, Mau, Oschmann).
SEMINAR
There is today a "dominant narrative" of 1989/90, Brockmann asserts, one that revolves around "national reunification and political freedom." One of the virtues of his book is that it helps recentre stories sidelined from this narrative.
ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW
The Freest Country in the World is a richly detailed and analytically acute book about 1989-1990 at the time in the GDR and in the memory of that time among both East and West Germans. I learned so much from every chapter: about novels, films, punks, neo-Nazis, the sausage-making of memorials.
- Donna Harsch, Professor of History, Carnegie Mellon University,
[A]n admirable and useful synthesis.
CHOICE
Provides an exciting contribution to the ongoing debate on Ostalgia and on what is remembered of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) more broadly. Shows not only how various media and subcultures have disrupted the time period from 1989 to 1990 but also how, by cracking open a space between GDR and FRG, the alternative spaces then become "interventions in the here and now" that affect narratives and actual realities in contemporary Germany.
CENTRAL EUROPEAN HISTORY
The survey of texts, films, television productions, commemorative events, and monuments that Brockmann provides is a stunning accomplishment. Written in an eminently accessible and engaging style, this book would be suitable for the graduate or even advanced undergraduate classroom and would be a fantastic starting point for anyone seeking an orientation to unification discourses for their own research.
GEGENWARTSLITERATUR
It is hard not to get quite dark in reflecting both on the missed opportunities of the 1989 revolutions, and on the way in which Western nations in a way exploited that moment to further impose a narrative of Western triumphalism. But instead of getting dark, I am inspired by this book to continue to think about promises and hope, and to use works of art and literature to inform how we recover possibilities rather than abandon them to the graveyard of history.
- Andreea Ritivoi, William S. Dietrich Professor of English and Department Head, Carnegie Mellon University,
Outstanding. . . . This is one of the most exciting books on East Germany that I have read in a long time and should be required reading for all who are interested in East Germany, be they scholar, student, or the general public alike.
MONATSHEFTE
Brockmann demonstrates with this book that taking a second look at more obscure cultural texts can be extremely valuable for gaining a truer, more nuanced sense of a time once a standardized narrative has been established. This volume could serve as a foundation for any number of deeper investigations into that turbulent year and its impact on Germany today.
GERMAN STUDIES YEARBOOK
The Freest Country in the World shows us persuasively that memories of 1989-1990 are partial, local, complex, and vulnerable to being eclipsed by simplified dominant narratives driven by ideological interest. In revealing the haunted nature of this moment and its cultural reflections, Stephen Brockmann does a great service in allowing us to challenge such narratives, and he offers us an academic perspective on issues often driven by more polemical interventions (e.g., Hoyer, Kowalczuk, Mau, Oschmann).
SEMINAR
There is today a "dominant narrative" of 1989/90, Brockmann asserts, one that revolves around "national reunification and political freedom." One of the virtues of his book is that it helps recentre stories sidelined from this narrative.
ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW
The Freest Country in the World is a richly detailed and analytically acute book about 1989-1990 at the time in the GDR and in the memory of that time among both East and West Germans. I learned so much from every chapter: about novels, films, punks, neo-Nazis, the sausage-making of memorials.
- Donna Harsch, Professor of History, Carnegie Mellon University,
[A]n admirable and useful synthesis.
CHOICE
Provides an exciting contribution to the ongoing debate on Ostalgia and on what is remembered of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) more broadly. Shows not only how various media and subcultures have disrupted the time period from 1989 to 1990 but also how, by cracking open a space between GDR and FRG, the alternative spaces then become "interventions in the here and now" that affect narratives and actual realities in contemporary Germany.
CENTRAL EUROPEAN HISTORY
The survey of texts, films, television productions, commemorative events, and monuments that Brockmann provides is a stunning accomplishment. Written in an eminently accessible and engaging style, this book would be suitable for the graduate or even advanced undergraduate classroom and would be a fantastic starting point for anyone seeking an orientation to unification discourses for their own research.
GEGENWARTSLITERATUR
It is hard not to get quite dark in reflecting both on the missed opportunities of the 1989 revolutions, and on the way in which Western nations in a way exploited that moment to further impose a narrative of Western triumphalism. But instead of getting dark, I am inspired by this book to continue to think about promises and hope, and to use works of art and literature to inform how we recover possibilities rather than abandon them to the graveyard of history.
- Andreea Ritivoi, William S. Dietrich Professor of English and Department Head, Carnegie Mellon University,