Pain and prosperity : reconsidering twentieth-century German history / edited by Paul Betts and Greg Eghigian.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Betts, Paul.

Eghigian, Greg, 1961-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Political culture--Germany.

Political culture.

National socialism--Moral and ethical aspects.

National socialism.

Germany--History--20th century.

Germany.

Germany--History--Philosophy.

Germany (East)--Social conditions.

Germany (East).

Physical Description:

viii, 276 p.

Place of Publication:

Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, 2003.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The turn of the millennium has stimulated much scholarly reflection on the historical significance of the twentieth century as a whole. Explaining the century’s dual legacy of progress and prosperity on one hand, and of world war, genocide, and mass destruction on the other, has become a key task for academics and policymakers alike. Not surprisingly, Germany holds a prominent position in the discussion. What does it mean for a society to be so closely identified with both inflicting and withstanding enormous suffering, as well as with promoting and enjoying unprecedented affluence? What did Germany’s experiences of misery and abundance, fear and security, destruction and reconstruction, trauma and rehabilitation have to do with one another? How has Germany been imagined and experienced as a country uniquely stamped by pain and prosperity? The contributors to this book engage these questions by reconsidering Germany’s recent past according to the themes of pain and prosperity, focusing on such topics as welfare policy, urban history, childbirth, medicine, racism, political ideology, consumerism, and nostalgia.

Contents:

Introduction: pain and prosperity in twentieth-century Germany / Greg Eghigian and Paul Betts

Pain, entitlement, and social citzenship in modern Germany / Greg Eghigian

Cities forget, nations remember: Berlin and Germany and the shock of modernity / Peter Fritzsche

Purchasing comfort: patent remedieis and the alleviation of labor pain in Germany between 1914 and 1933 / Patricia R. Stokes

Modern pain and Nazi panic / Geoffrey Cocks

The transformation of sacrifice: German identity between heroic narrative and economic sucess / Sabine Behrenbeck

The myth of a suspended present: prosperity's painful shadow in 1950s East Germany / Katherine Pence

Scarcity and success: the East according to the West during the 1950s / Ingrid M. Schenk

Remembrance of things past: nostalgia in West and East Germany, 1980s-2000 / Paul Betts.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0-8047-8043-9