Germany Divided: From the Wall to Reunification

(Paperback, Revised edition)

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Germany Divided is the first comprehensive scholarly interpretation of the forty-year relationship between East and West Germany and of the problems of contemporary German unity. When the Berlin Wall was opened on November 9, 1989, there was widespread surprise at the rush to unification: Germany was reuniting just when almost everyone, political participant and observer alike, had become accustomed to it being divided. In this politically controversial and analytically sophisticated account, A. James McAdams dissects the complex process by which East and West German leaders moved over the years from first pursuing the ideal of German unity, to accepting what they believed to be the inescapable reality of division, and then, finally, to meeting the challenges of an unanticipated reunification. In addition to relevant primary and secondary materials, including archival holdings in both German states, McAdams draws on an unprecedented series of interviews conducted throughout the 1980s and early 1990s with officials of the Federal Chancellery, the Foreign Office, and the Ministry of Intra-German Relations of the Federal Republic in Bonn, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the SED Central Committee of the German Democratic Republic in East Berlin. With this unique access to information on high-level decision making, he chronicles an era when the restoration of German unity appeared anything but assured.

Reviews

"A masterly and elegantly written account of the interweaving of domestic politics and inter-German relations."--International Affairs "... a notable analysis of the two Germanys and how they became one."--Publishers Weekly "... comprehensive coverage and first-rate analysis of the intricate East-West German relationship in the 1970's and 80's..."--Choice "A. James McAdams' excellent book is above all the story of the two Germanies' forty-year history with each other... Using a plethora of interviews and other primary sources, McAdams presents a story unavailable elsewhere."--The Historian "Well documented and consistently rigorous, McAdams' study points out the immense challenges that remain before a liberal democratic Germany can be created."--Orbis "An outstanding analysis of the changing relations between East and West Germany."--Osteuropa

Author Bio

A. James McAdams is a Departmental Fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies and Associate Professor of Government and International Relations at the University of Notre Dame.