Skip to content
Account Login Winnipeg Toll-Free: 1-800-561-1833 SK Toll-Free: 1-877-506-7456 Contact & Locations

parsed(2023-06-20) - pubdate: 2023-06-20
turn:
pub date: 1687237200
today: 1711602000, pubdate > today = false

nyp: 0;

The Freest Country in the World

East Germany's Final Year in Culture and Memory

June 20, 2023 | Hardcover
ISBN: 9781640141544
$199.50
Out of stock. Available to order from publisher. We will confirm shipping time when order has been placed.
Checking Availibility...

Description

Shows that while the GDR is generally seen as - and mostly was - an oppressive and unfree country, from late 1989 until autumn 1990 it was the "freest country in the world": the dictatorship had disappeared while the welfare system remained.

Stephen Brockmann's new book explores the year 1989/1990 in East Germany, arguing that while the GDR is generally seen as - and was for most of its forty years - an oppressive and unfree country, from autumn 1989 until the autumn of 1990 it was the "freest country in the world," since the dictatorship had disappeared while the welfare system remained. That such freedom existed in the last months of the GDR and was a result of the actions of East Germans themselves has been obscured, Brockmann shows, by the now-standard description of the collapse of the GDR and the reunification of Germany as a triumph of Western democracy and capitalism.
Brockmann first addresses the culture of 1989/1990 by looking at various media from that final year, particularly film documentaries. He emphasizes punk culture and the growth of neo-Nazism and the Antifa movement - factors often ignored in accounts of the period. He then analyzes three later semiautobiographical novels about the period. He devotes chapters to dramatic films dealing with German reunification made relatively soon after the event and to more recent film and television depictions of the period, respectively. The final chapter looks at monuments and memorials of the 1989/1990 period, and a conclusion considers the implications of the book's findings for the present day.

We're sorry, but this item is not eligible for a Reader Reward discount.

About this Author

ISBN: 9781640141544
Format: Hardcover
Series: Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture
Pages: 352
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Inc.
Published: 2023-06-20

Reviews

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.

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.

If the product is in stock at the store nearest you, we suggest you call ahead to have it set aside for you, or you may place an order online and choose in-store pickup.