Germany

Few countries are more haunted by the darker aspects of their history than Germany. Nazi crimes continue to cast a long shadow at home and abroad. Germans have nevertheless managed to put their violent, genocidal past behind them, creating a peaceful and prosperous democracy at the heart of Europe.

In this refreshing book, Andrew I. Port tells the story of that extraordinary transformation. Tracing the histories of the Eastern and Western halves of postwar Germany in tandem, he highlights their obvious differences and unexpected commonalities. This novel approach explains not only the country’s many accomplishments since the fall of the Berlin Wall, but also the challenges it has faced - from the difficulty of unifying two distinct societies to violent forms of xenophobia and the rise of extremist parties. Whether the Federal Republic remains a stable and successful power is the new ＂German Question＂ of the twenty-first century.

Andrew I. Port, a leading scholar of contemporary German history, is professor of history at Wayne State University in Detroit. He is the author of two widely-acclaimed books, Never Again: Germans and Genocide after the Holocaust and Conflict and Stability in the German Democratic Republic, and co-editor (with Mary Fulbrook) of Becoming East German: Structures and Sensibilities after Hitler. Port received degrees in history and political science from Yale, Harvard, and the Institut d’Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po, Paris), and is the recipient of the DAAD Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in German and European Studies. He is also the former editor-in-chief of the flagship journal Central European History.