Synopses & Reviews
This is the first English-language study of GDR education and the first book, in any language, to trace the history of Eastern German education from 1945 through the 1990s. Rodden fully relates the GDR's attempt to create a new Marxist nation by means of educational reform, and looks not only at the changing institution of education but at something the Germans call Bildung--the formation of character and the cultivation of body and spirit. The sociology of nation-building is also addressed.
Review
"The most complete treatment of East German education that has appeared in English, yet most of the book does not touch upon schools or schooling. Rodden's work evokes the dilemas of everyday totalitarianism with unusual poignancy, and it is to be warmly recommended to all those wanting to probe the deeper currents of social reality in the 'former East Germany.'" --Central European History
"A wealth of interesting stories about the process of unification as experienced by individual Germans and about Rodden's personal grappling with the merits and disadvantages of socialism and capitalism."--H-Net
"This vividly written, often idiosyncratic, even polemical education history offers a colorful prism through which to view East Germany in the cold war and subsequent German reunification."-- History: Reviews of New Books
Table of Contents
Prologue. Unlessons, Far and Near Introduction. "Who has the Youth, has the Future"
Part One. "The Citadel of Learning": The Making and Unmaking of the German Communist, 1945-1989
Chapter 1. From Brown to Red: The Fall and Rise of an Educational System, 1945-1951
Chapter 2. Marooned in the Workers' Paradise: Cold War Catechetics, 1951-1961
Chapter 3. After the Wall: Pride before the Fall, 1961-1989
Part Two. (Post) Socialism with a German Face, 1989-1995
Chapter 4. After the Wall II: The Fall and Rise of an Educational System
Chapter 5. Leipzig, 1990
Chapter 6. Plauen, 1990/1992/1994
Chapter 7. Leipzig, 1991
Chapter 8. Berlin, 1991
Chapter 9. Leipzig, 1993
Chapter 10. Weimar, 1991, Weimar/Rocken, 1994
Chapter 11. Berlin, 1994
Chapter 12. Weimar, 1994
Chapter 13. Berlin, 1994
Epilogue. Education for Tolerance, Education for National Identity: The Unusable German Past?
List of Abbreviations
Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
Index