Intellectuals, Socialism, and Dissent: The East German Opposition and Its Legacy - Brossura

Torpey, John C.

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0816625670 ISBN 13: 9780816625673

Casa editrice: Univ of Minnesota Pr, 1995

Riassunto

Intellectuals, Socialism, and Dissent was first published in 1995. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

Once the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the people of East Germany had little use for the dissident intellectuals who had helped bring it down. Intellectuals, Socialism, and Dissent offers a penetrating look into the circumstances of this fall from grace, unique among the former Communist states.

John Torpey traces the dissident intellectuals' fate to the peculiar situation of the East German regime, which sought to build "socialism in a quarter of a country" on the anti-fascist foundations of Communist opposition to Nazism. He shows how the regime's unusual history and subnational status helped sustain the East German intelligentsia's conviction that socialism could be reformed and humane-that there was a "third way" between Soviet-style socialism and the capitalism that took root in West Germany. How the pursuit of this third way both supported and undermined the regime, and both galvanized and alienated the East German people, becomes clear in Torpey's nuanced analysis. His book makes a powerful contribution to our understanding of the politics of intellectuals during one of the most painful chapters in modern German history.

John C. Torpey is currently a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence.

Su questo libro

L'autore:

John Torpey is Professor of Sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center. He is the author or editor of several books, including Making Whole What has Been Smashed: On Reparations Politics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006); Old Europe, New Europe, Core Europe: Transatlantic Relations after the Iraq War (edited with Daniel Levy and Max Pensky; London and New York: Verso, 2005); Politics and the Past: On Repairing Historical Injustices (ed.), Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003; Documenting Individual Identity: The Development of State Practices in the Modern World (co-edited with Jane Caplan), Princeton University Press, 2001; and The Invention of the Passport: Surveillance, Citizenship, and the State, Cambridge University Press, 2000. His interests lie broadly in the area of comparative historical sociology and his current research focuses on the problem of “American exceptionalism.”

Product Description:

Once the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the people of East Germany had little use for the dissident intellectuals who had helped bring it down. This book offers a look into the circumstances of this fall from grace, unique among the former Communist states. John Torpey traces the dissident intellectuals' fate to the peculiar situation of the East German regime, which sought to build "socialism in a quarter of a country" on the anti-fascist foundations of Communist opposition to Nazism. He shows how the regime's unusual history and subnational status helped sustain the East German intelligentsia's conviction that socialism could be reformed and humane - that there was a "third way" between Soviet-style socialism and the capitalism that took root in West Germany. How the pursuit of this third way both supported and undermined the regime, and galvanized and alienated the East German people, becomes clear in Torpey's analysis. His book makes a powerful contribution to our understanding of the politics of intellectuals during one of the most painful chapters in modern German history.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Univ of Minnesota Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0816625670
• ISBN 13: 9780816625673
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 304