Postcolonial studies, colonization and East Germany -- The Federal Republic's 'Orient'? Dealing officially with the GDR -- 'Writing back' : dealing with the Stasi in literature -- Productive hybridity : nostalgia and the GDR in film -- Re-exoticizing the normal : the Ostalgie industry and German television -- A postcolonial culture? Surfing for the GDR in cyberspace.

Cooke maps out the problematic path of German national identity as it struggles to deal with the legacy of division. Drawing on postcolonial theory, he argues that the East has been defined as the West's exotic other and shows how this stereotype has been vigorously challenged.

This work considers the problems of the socialist legacy left by the unification of Germany, as East Germans adjusted to uncertainties in employment, education, family life and immigration.

The contributors to this volume consider the economic history of East Germany within its broader political, cultural and social contexts.

The transformation of east Germany since unification has wrought vast changes in the economy and in society and left deep scars as the types of social protection offered by the centralised socialism of the previous regime gave way to uncertainties and individualised life chances. Social Transformation in Eastern Germany investigates the deep economic and social processes which east Germany has undergone, highlighting the restructuring, the social impacts and the stresses of adjustment experienced by key social groups whose workplace and social context has been recast almost out of recognition since 1990.

Analyzes the development from the divided to the unified Germany and asks to what extent East Germans have adopted a national identity in line with that of the West Germans. The text examines such identity markers as attitudes toward territory, economics, ethnicity and mass culture.