German Intellectuals and the Challenge of Democratic Renewal

Erscheinungsjahr 2015
ISBN: 978-1-107-04957-4
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 400 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 722 g

This book examines how democracy was rethought in Germany in the wake of National Socialism, the Second World War and the Holocaust. Focusing on a diverse network of public intellectuals in the immediate post-war occupation years, Sean A. Forner traces their attempts to reckon with the experience of Nazism and scour Germany's ambivalent political and cultural traditions for materials with which to build a better future. In doing so, he reveals, they formulated an internally variegated but distinctly participatory vision of democratic renewal – a paradoxical counter-elitism of intellectual elites. Although their projects ran aground on internal tensions and on the Cold War, their commitments fuelled critique and dissent in East and West during the 1950s and thereafter. The book uncovers a conception of political participation that went beyond the limited possibilities of the Cold War era and which would influence the political struggles of later decades in both post-war Germanys.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Forner, Sean A.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Deutsche Geschichte Deutsche Geschichte: Holocaust
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Theorie, Politische Philosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kultur- und Ideengeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Jüdische Studien Geschichte des Judentums Antisemitismus, Pogrome, Shoah
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Systeme Demokratie
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Ideologien Faschismus, Rechtsextremismus
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Geschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction: democratic renewal and Germany's 'zero hour'; 1. Germans, occupiers, and the democratization project; 2. Rethinking democracy: freedom, order, participation; 3. Renewing culture: the 'unpolitical German' between past and future; 4. Subjects of politics: publicness, parties, elites; 5. A parliament of spirit? Mobilizing the cultural nation; 6. Into East Germany: intelligentsia and the Apparat; 7. Into West Germany: nonconformists and the Restoration; 8. 1968, 1989, and the legacies of participation; Select bibliography; Index.

Über Autor(innen)

Forner, Sean A.
Sean A. Forner is a historian of twentieth-century Europe and Germany interested in the intersections of intellectual history and the history of political culture. His primary focus is on post-war ideas and practices of democracy, especially in moments when debate and experimentation intensified (for example around 1945, 1956, 1968 and 1989). He also has long-standing interests in memory and representation; social and political thought; and historical methods. His teaching ranges from surveys of the European Union and twentieth-century Europe to upper-level topical courses and a graduate seminar on social theory and historiography.