A Berlin republic : writings on Germany

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Title:

Author:

Habermas, Jurgen.

ISBN:

9780745620459

9780745620442

Personal Author:

Habermas, Jurgen.

Uniform Title:

Normalitat einer Berliner Republik. English

Publication Information:

Cambridge : Polity Press, 1998.

Physical Description:

xxiv, 187 p. ; 23 cm.

Contents:

Introduction / Peter Uwe Hohendahl -- 1. Can We Learn from History? -- 2. A Double Past. What Does 'Working Off the Past' Mean Today? Replies to Questions from a Bundestag Investigative Commission -- 3. German Uncertainties. French Views, French Anxieties: An Interview with Le Monde. The Germans' 'Sense of Being Special' Is Regenerating Hour by Hour: An Interview with the Frankfurter Rundschau. The Adenauer Restoration's Debts: An Interview with the Kolner Stadtanzeiger -- 4. The Need for German Continuities. A Letter to Christa Wolf. Carl Schmitt in the Political Intellectual History of the Federal Republic. Das Falsche im Eigenen: On Benjamin and Adorno -- 5. Between Facts and Norms. A Conversation about Questions of Political Theory -- 6. Which History Can We Learn From? 1989 in the Shadow of 1945: On the Normality of a Future Berlin Republic.

Subject Term:

Political culture -- Germany.

Geographic Term:

Germany -- Historiography.

Germany -- History -- Philosophy.

Germany -- History -- 1990-

Germany -- Intellectual life.

Germany -- Foreign relations -- 1945-

Copies:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Item Barcode	Shelf Number	Copy	Status
Searching... 1:IIEMSA	1:GEN-BOOK	33168023699453	943.0879 H114B 1998	1	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

A Berlin Republic brings together writings on the new, united Germany by one of their most original and trenchant commentators, Jürgen Habermas. Among other topics, he addresses the consequences of German history, the challenges and perils of the post-Wall era, and Germany's place in contemporary Europe.

Here, as in his earlier The Past as Future, Habermas emerges as an inspired analyst of contemporary German political and intellectual life. He repeatedly criticizes recent efforts by historical and political commentators to 'normalize' and, in part, to understate the horrors of modern German history. He insists that 1945 - not 1989 - was the crucial turning point in German history, since it was then that West Germany decisively repudiated certain aspects of its cultural and political past (nationalism and antisemitism in particular) and turned towards Western Traditions of democracy: free and open discussion, and respect for the civil rights of all individuals. Similarly, Habermas deplores the renewal of nationalist sentiment in Germany and throughout Europe. Drawing upon his vast historical knowledge and contemporary insight, Habermas argues for heightened emphasis on trans-European and global democratic institutions - institutions far better suited to meet the challenges (and dangers) of the next century.