Germany Since 1945: Politics, Culture, and Society

This text provides an unparalleled social, political and cultural history of Germany from the end of the Second World War to the contemporary moment. As well as carefully balancing the histories of East and West Germany, Peter C. Caldwell and Karrin Hanshew convincingly make the case for analysing the Berlin Republic as a serious and distinct historical period in its own right.

Offering international context throughout, Caldwell and Hanshew navigate students through the catastrophe of war, genocide and the country’s division to the new challenges facing the reunified Germany in the 21st century. There are key primary source excerpts integrated throughout the text, as well as 50 images, 10 maps, several charts and tables and a detailed bibliography to further aid study. The book is also supported by an updated online Instructor’s Guide which focuses on how to use the book in teaching, where to find the best collections of documents and images for teaching, and models for the many different kinds of courses that might be taught using the book.

New content and features for the 2nd edition include:

- A chapter on recent German history and expanded coverage of the post-1990 era

- Enhanced material on topics including far-right sympathies through the decades and West German foreign policy beyond Europe

- Additional images and maps

- An updated introduction, online Instructor’s Guide, conclusion and historiographical updates throughout

Peter C. Caldwell is Samuel G. McCann Professor of History at Rice University, USA. Professor Caldwell is a Humboldt Fellow, and has received grants from the DAAD and the Humboldt Foundation, as well as a residential fellowship at the Center for German and European Studies at Georgetown University, USA. He is the author of several books, including Dictatorship, State Planning, and Social Theory in the German Democratic Republic (2003), Love, Death, and Revolution in Central Europe (2009) and Democracy, Capitalism, and the Welfare State: Debating Social Order in Postwar West Germany, 1949-1989 (2019). He is also a series editor for Bloomsbury’s short-format German History in Focus series.

Karrin Hanshew is Associate Professor of History at Michigan State University, USA. She is the author of Terror and Democracy in West Germany (2012).