Germany Since Unification: The Development of the Berlin Republic

A decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the GDR and the end of the Cold War, Germany has begun to cope with the political, economic, social and nationalistic challenges unification has posed to its institutions and way of life in both the western and eastern part of the once divided nation. The books’ eleven authors, all experts in their field, analyse the way united Germany has tackled the many unforeseen problems and highlighted the gradually emerging short- and long-term patterns in Germany’s slow adjustment to the new realities. The country has not only become more populous and territorially bigger, but also burdened with much underestimated problems, particularly economic and social ones. The emergence of a new economic, political and perhaps military superstate as feared by many in 1990 has not materialised. Instead, Germany today is only just coping with the domestic and external challenges of unification. The economic and social integration of the former East Germany into the Federal Republic has still not been completed and may take yet another ten to fifteen years. The book is a timely and well-researched effort by a team of outstanding experts to evaluate Germany’s performance to date. It gives the reader ample and well-analysed information to comprehend the many challenges facing Germany and its European neighbours in the post-Cold War world

WILLIAM M. CHANDLER Professor of Political Science, University of California, San Diego MICHAEL COX Professor of International History, Department of International Politics, University of Wales, Aberystwyth CHRISTOPHER FLOCKTON Lecturer, Department of Linguistic and International Studies, University of Surrey, Guildford TILL GEIGER Lecturer in European Studies, Queen’s University, Belfast STEVEN HURST Lecturer, Department of Politics, Manchester Metropolitan University ADRIAN HYDE-PRICE Senior Lecturer, Institute for German Studies, University of Birmingham CHARLIE JEFFERY Deputy Director, Institute for German Studies, University of Birmingham ERIC OWEN SMITH Senior Lecturer in Economics, Loughborough University, Leicester PANIKOS PANAYI Principal Lecturer in History, De Montfort University, Leicester ROLF STEININGER Professor of Modern History and Director of the Institute of Contemporary History, University of Innsbruck, Austria