Analyzes Germany's new role in world politics

Originally published in 1995. This study of the integration of East and West German education following the collapse of the German Democratic Republic in 1989 focuses on policy formation and implementation during this period of great social and political turbulence. It is the result of a research project undertaken shortly after the unification. The authors lived in East Germany for a full year, looking carefully at individual schools, vocational training centers, teacher colleges, and universities. The book considers questions of how education policy is successfully formulated, conditions in which that policy is implemented and the consequences of the implemented educational reform. The first chapters present the context and history of German education and the later chapters discuss the unification and the formation of the new school laws and the successes and failures. The authors' research shows that even before the unification East Germans had already opted for a system consistent with West German education law. However, the West Germans disregarded these changes and imposed their own version of reform on East Germany. The German situation at this time is of great interest to all educators, particularly students of educational policy making, as well as researchers in political science, economics, and sociology.

Reflexionen und Positionen der deutschen Zeitgeschichte im transatlantischen Dialog. Zeitgeschichte boomt. Und sie tut es nach 1989 in besonderem Maße in dem Land, das im 20. Jahrhundert fünf unterschiedliche staatliche und gesellschaftliche Ordnungen erfahren hat: Deutschland. Welche Auswirkungen sind aus dieser besonderen Prägung für die deutsche Zeitgeschichtsschreibung erwachsen? In den den hier versammelten Studien wird diesem Problem aus deutscher wie transatlantischer Perspektive nachgegangen, um den Ort der deutschen Zeitgeschichtsschreibung näher zu bestimmen.

The recommendations that follow are the product of a series of meetings of a group of German and American scholars. The deliberations at no time consisted of scholars of only one nationality. Among the scholars were American experts on German history as well as German experts on American history. What follows should, therefore, be regarded as an attempt to identify the most important events and developments in the two countries, both domestic and international. The recommendations claim neither completeness nor any deliberate exclusion of material. They are not intended to provide specific points of emphasis. Their aim is to stimulate a discussion of one or another aspect of German or U.S. postwar history or to place it in a broader context of historical perspective.