The Travails of Unification: East Germany's Economic Transition since 1990

The former German Democratic Republic underwent a unique post-communist transition because it was absorbed into the wealthy Federal Republic of Germany and has received massive subsidies. Nonetheless, serious difficulties have persisted, includingcurrency conversion; deindustrialization; market economy; transition, Treuhand,

The Two Postwar Eras and the Conditions for Stability in Twentieth-Century Western Europe

Histor

The travails of unification: East Germany's economic transition since 1989

The former German Democratic Republic underwent a unique post-communist transition because it was absorbed into the wealthy Federal Republic of Germany and has received massive subsidies. Nonetheless, serious difficulties have persisted, including higher unemployment, rapid deindustrialization, and greater political loyalty to the successor parties of the former Communists than in the West. The reasons for these phenomena remain debated, but seem to the legacy of concealed structural weakness in the old GDR, perhaps the one-to-one conversion of East German savings into Deutschmarks, and the commitment to elevate wage levels in the East close to those prevailing in the FRG

Empire’s Past . . . Empire’s Future

Histor

Als wär’ es ein Stuck von uns . . . German Politics and Society Traverses Twenty Years of United Germany

This essay looks at postunification Germany through the pages of German Politics and Society. The articles published during this period reveal the evolution of intellectuals' understanding of the unified country—concerns that mirrored changes in social, political, and cultural reality. Of course, academics are beholden to their own histories and Weltanschauung, a fact that produced, at times, prescient, sometimes fragmentary, and sometimes alarmist interpretations and analyses of the country in an attempt to provide orientation. Nevertheless, this review shows how German watchers have slowly up-dated their paradigms and are now not worrying as much about a mellowed, less German country that has fascinated them over the decades.Histor

Between Surprise and Social Science

Social scientists and historians have been living in a world of unexpected outcomes. The revival of passionate political ideologies in the l960s, the reversal of predicted secularization in the modern world, the collapse of communist regimes at the end of the l980s, and the contemporary economic crisis were all events that flew in the face of social-science predictions and analyses. But despite its prevalence most social science has not attempted to deal with surprise as a category of event. This essay seeks to analyze surprise at least as a category of explanation and narrative, one that mediates between counter-factual and factual.Histor

The Two Postwar Eras and the Conditions for Stability: Reply

Histor

Economic Consequences of the Peace, Social Consequences of the War

The article presents a debate on John Maynard Keynes' "The Economic Consequences of the Peace" and the social consequences of war. The article presents biographical information pertaining to the economist as published in "John Maynard Keynes, vol. 1, Speranze tradite 1883-1920," written by R. Skidelsky. It then outlines Keynes' beliefs on the viability of the Versailles Treaty and the negative influence that United States president Woodrow Wilson played during the peace conference and discusses the public reaction to Keynes' book.Histor

Christianity and Conviction: Gustav Mahler and the Meanings of Jewish Conversion in Central Europe

Histor

La historia comparada

RESUMEN:El presente estudio aborda en sus líneas generales las principales propuestas metodológicas y teóricas de la historiografía comparada, así como el marco normativo que, en sus variadas fórmulas o tendencias, caracteriza el trabajo de los últimos años en este campo de la historia. Desde las aportaciones iniciales de la sociología comparada, pasando por el método histórico comparativo en Tocqueville, Marx y Weber o el debate historiográfico de comienzos de siglo en Francia y Alemania -con especial mención a Marc Bloch y Otto Hintz-, hasta lo que el autor denomina los programas weberiano, tocquevilliano y antropológico, el artículo hace un breve pero denso recorrido por los principales canales por los que ha discurrido la historiografía comparada. A las dificultades metodológicas que han ido surgiendo se sobreponen, según se señala aquí, las ventajas y aún la necesidad que su cultivo supone para el conjunto de la disciplina histórica. ABSTRACT: This study deals with the general lines of the major methodological and theoretical proposals of comparative historiography, as well as with the normative framework which, in its diverse formulae or tendencies, has characterized the work carried out in this field of history during recent years. Starting with the initial contributions of comparative sociology, passing through the comparative history method in Tocqueville, Marx and Weber and the historiographie debate at the beginning of this century in France and Germany -with special mention of Marc Bloch and Otto Hintz- to arrive at what the author calls Weberian, Marxian, Tocquevillian and anthropological programs, the article carries out a brief but dense review of the main channels along which comparative history has passed. The advantages, and indeed the need that history as a whole has for their cultivation, have overcome the methodological difficulties which arisen, as is shown herein