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Product Identifiers

PublisherYale University Press

ISBN-100300144245

ISBN-139780300144246

eBay Product ID (ePID)66689308

Product Key Features

Book TitlePeople's State : East German Society from Hitler to Honecker

Number of Pages352 Pages

LanguageEnglish

Publication Year2008

TopicEurope / Germany, Political Ideologies / Communism, Post-Communism & Socialism, Sociology / General, World / European

IllustratorYes

GenrePolitical Science, Social Science, History

AuthorMary Fulbrook

FormatTrade Paperback

Dimensions

Item Height0.9 in

Item Weight20.8 Oz

Item Length9.5 in

Item Width7 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

TitleLeadingThe

Dewey Edition22

Dewey Decimal943/.1087

SynopsisWhat was life really like for East Germans, effectively imprisoned behind the Iron Curtain? The headline stories of Cold War spies and surveillance by the secret police, of political repression and corruption, do not tell the whole story. After the unification of Germany in 1990 many East Germans remembered their lives as interesting, varied, and full of educational, career and leisure opportunities: in many ways perfectly ordinary lives. Using the rich resources of the newly-opened GDR archives, Mary Fulbrook investigates these conflicting narratives. She explores the transformation of East German society from the ruins of Hitler's Third Reich to a modernizing industrial state. She examines changing conceptions of normality within an authoritarian political system, and provides extraordinary insights into the ways in which individuals perceived their rights and actively sought to shape their own lives. Replacing the simplistic black-and-white concept of totalitarianism by the notion of a participatory dictatorship, this book seeks to reinstate the East German people as actors in their own history., An insight into the experience of life within the East German dictatorship What was life really like for East Germans, effectively imprisoned behind the Iron Curtain? The headline stories of Cold War spies and surveillance by the secret police, of political repression and corruption, do not tell the whole story. After the unification of Germany in 1990 many East Germans remembered their lives as interesting, varied, and full of educational, career, and leisure opportunities: in many ways "perfectly ordinary lives." Using the rich resources of the newly-opened GDR archives, Mary Fulbrook investigates these conflicting narratives. She explores the transformation of East German society from the ruins of Hitler's Third Reich to a modernizing industrial state. She examines changing conceptions of normality within an authoritarian political system, and provides extraordinary insights into the ways in which individuals perceived their rights and actively sought to shape their own lives. Replacing the simplistic black-and-white concept of "totalitarianism" by the notion of a "participatory dictatorship," this book seeks to reinstate the East German people as actors in their own history.

LC Classification NumberHN460.5.A8