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This revised and enlarged edition brings the successful original volume of 1984 right up to date, taking into account the most recent developments. Each section begins with an introduction that provides the context for the following documents. There is no comparable volume of its kind available in English, and most documents have not previously been translated. ... Read more

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Imagine being forced to adopt an ideology that strips you of your political rights and plunges you into a life of despair and unending shortages. After the Second World War, the people of East Germany endured just such an appalling fate when socialism was forced upon them. Examining the effects of an oppressive and economically incompetent system, Sperlich presents a systematic review of post-war German history, with an emphasis on the founding of a communist state on German soil: the German Democratic Republic. He traces the imposition of communist rule, discussing the suppression of free elections and opposition to the infliction of a dictatorial one-party regime. Sperlich demonstrates how East Germans suffered under the restraints of socialism, and recounts the peaceful revolution of 1989, which led to the reunification of the two German states.

Customer Reviews (2)

If you grew up in the East, dont bother!
I purchased the book in relation to a research project involving East German consumer behavior. After reading through most of the book I decided to not waste anymore time reading the author's personal view about the GDR. Sperlich's portrayal of the East Germans' everyday experience shows signs of partisanship and resentment toward the past. Topics are biased and often reminded me of Fox news reports. While facts are delivered accurately the reader will notice a negative connotation attached to the writing.As I grew up in the former GDR, I expected a more precise analysis with well sough arguments. Instead, the reader will find sarcasm and numerous statements of some sort of personal aggravation with the former system. I attached 2 stars for the citable facts and correct timeline of events in the book.

Oppression and Scarcity Review
This is the second volume of Professor Sperlich's well-written East German trilogy. First, it provides a systematic review of post-WWII German history, with special attention given to the Soviet-induced founding of a communist state on German soil. It also traces the various stages of the imposition of communist rule, including importantly the suppression of free elections, the banishing of any form of opposition, and the establishment of a one-party dictatorship.

Next, Sperlich provides illuminating details of life in East Germany after the communist party had gained full control. This includes discussions of the nature of party control of the various aspects of state and society, the functioning of the East German police state, the citizens' mandatory participation in public rituals, the pretense of citizen influence, the manipulation of public opinion (including the manipulative use of "letters to the editor"), the extensive personality cults, the role of the communist youth organization and of the quasi-religious youth ritual (Jugendweihe), the regime's relationship to the churches, the immense importance accorded to sports (with the widespread doping of children), and the strange commerce culture in which the customer was always wrong.

The book also contains a detailed analysis of the East German economy, a matter frequently misunderstood in the West, where it was regarded as stunningly successful. It was not. At no time was the East German "planned economy" able to satisfy even the most basic needs of it citizen. The regime could maintain itself only because of the heavy subsidies it received from West Germany -- which was to make the life more tolerable for the fellow-Germans in the East.

Finally, the book includes a review of the many attempts of East German citizens to escape their imprisonment, often ending with death at the border. At the end, the desire for freedom could no longer be contained. Demonstration became a daily factor of East German life, leading to the breaching of the Wall and reunification. Once the Soviet tanks were no longer available to bail out the regime (as had been the case in 1953), its demise became inescapable. At no time in its history did the regime receive the consent and allegiance of its people. Without Soviet military support, it had to crumble.
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Modern Germany examines all aspects of contemporary political, economic, social and cultural life in the new Germany.Using a clearly structured approach and accessible language, the contributors explain the electoral and political systems and underline the significance of the Federal system in Germany. They also discuss the legendary German economy, industry and education system in light of recent problems. Modern Germany also describes the media landscape of the nation and the recent reforms to the German language. ... Read more

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Constitutional courts have emerged as central institutions in many advanced democracies. This book investigates the sources and the limits of judicial authority, focusing on the central role of public support for judicial independence. The empirical sections of the book illustrate the theoretical argument in an in-depth study of the German Federal Constitutional Court, including statistical analysis of judicial decisions, case studies, and interviews with judges and legislators. The book's major finding is that the interests of governing majorities, prevailing public opinion, and the transparency of the political environment exert a powerful influence on judicial decisions. Judges are influenced not only by jurisprudential considerations and their policy preferences, but also by strategic concerns. By highlighting this dimension of constitutional review, the book challenges the contention that high court justices are largely unconstrained actors as well as the notion that constitutional courts lack democratic legitimacy. ... Read more

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Kathleen Thelen explains the historical origins of important cross-national differences in four countries (Germany, Britain, the United States and Japan), and also provides a theory of institutional change over time. The latter is considered a frontier issue in institutionalist analysis, of which there are several varieties emerging from economics, political science, and sociology. Thelen's study contributes to the literature on the political economy of the developed democracies that focuses on different institutional arrangements defining distinctive models of capitalism.

"One cannot praise enough Thelen’s continuing contribution to the progress of institutional theory, especially the theory of institutional change. She masterfully weaves together a comparative tale of four countries to provide a critique of the functionalist rationalism of much of the current debate on institutions and economic systems in general."Wolfgang Streeck, The Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies

"Why do institutions vary across nations?How do institutions persist and change over time?Exploring vocational and skills training in major industrial nations, Kathleen Thelen casts new theoretical light on these fundamental questions.This brilliant book is a must-read, not only for students of the political economy of advanced industrial societies, but for all social scientists grappling with how to explain institutional development."Theda Skocpol, Harvard University

"This brilliant book, focusing on Germany in comparison to the UK, the US and Japan, makes three major and original contributions to the comparative political economy literature. First, Thelen provides a coherent comparative theory of why training systems differ across developed economies today based on the differences in institutional settlements a century or more earlier between business, unions and artisans. Second, and supplementing this, she develops a theory of institutional change which shows (contrary to the standard punctuated equilibria argument) how institutions embody continuities through reconfiguration even in the face of major external shocks. Third, she establishes the critical role of business in the evolution of training systems. Beyond these achievements, her analytic skill and her use of rich historical sources make the book a quite compelling read."David Soskice, Duke University ... Read more

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Cutting Edge Institutionalism
How Institutions Evolve is widely considered one of the most important recent contributions to the institutionalist literature.It received the Woodrow Wilson award, the most prestigious book award of the American Political Science Association.

Thelen is concerned with the interplay between continuity and change in institutions. Focusing on vocational training, she demonstrates the persistence of country specific patterns of vocational training through periods of dramatic political change. In an extended treatment of the German case she demonstrates how, in spite of this continuity, the function of vocational training in Germany has dramatically changed over the years. While created against the opposition of organized labor at the end of the 19th century, it gradually changed into an importan pillar of union power in Germany's political economy.
Her argument is directed mainly against the 'punctuated equilibrium' approach to institutional change, which views institutions as stable until a major 'critical juncture' changes them entirely.

Though 'vocational training' may not strike most readers as the most exciting of subjects, Thelen's focused theoretical lense, as well as the historical depth of her treatment make this book a good, at times fascinating, read. It is sure to become required reading for all students and scholars of political institutions. ... Read more

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A primer on medieval justice, this book focuses on France, Germany and England and covers the thousand years between the transformation of the Roman world in Western Europe, which took place around the 4th and 5th centuries, and the European Renaissance of the 14th and 15th centuries. It highlights key elements in the intricate, overlapping legal systems of the Middle Ages and describes a wide range of contemporary laws and cases. A discussion of the modern legacies of medieval law is included, as are a brief overview of the Inquisition, the 27 articles of Joan of Arc and useful commentary on many other topics. Illustrations range from the earliest known depictions of English courts and illuminations of torture to pictures of important sites, events, and instruments of punishment in medieval law. ... Read more

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Successful transition to the market in Germany is probably more crucial, although no less problematic, than anywhere else in East and Central Europe. The successful German economy has become a "role model of capitalism" for all the former Stalinist regimes of Eastern Europe and it is in Germany that the polarization between East and West has been most starkly accentuated. The east German states must now be successfully integrated into the German economy if the country is to remain stable and play its full role within the European Community. However, with east Germans struggling to pay Western prices, and rising levels of unemployment throughout Germany, it is clear that there are still serious problems ahead. This study examines the reasons behind the unexpectedly rapid collapse of the ruling Communist Party under Honecker's leadership, and the prospects for successful integration of the former East German states into the economy of the Federal Republic. ... Read more

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The Third Reich met its end in the spring of 1945 in an unparalleled wave of suicides. Hitler, Goebbels, Bormann, Himmler and later Goering all killed themselves. These deaths represent only the tip of an iceberg of a massive wave of suicides that also touched upon ordinary lives. As this suicide epidemic has no historical precedent or parallel, it can tell us much about the Third Reich's peculiar self-destructiveness and the depths of Nazi fanaticism.

Christian Goeschel looks at the suicides of both Nazis and ordinary people in Germany between 1918 and 1945, from the end of World War I until the end of World War II, including the mass suicides of German Jews during the Holocaust. He shows how suicides among different population groups, including supporters, opponents, and victims of the regime, responded to the social, cultural, economic and, political context of the time. He also analyses changes and continuities in individual and societal responses to suicide over time, especially with regard to the Weimar Republic and the post-1945 era.

Richly grounded in gripping and previously unpublished source material such as suicide notes and police investigations, the book offers a new perspective on the central social and political crises of the era, from revolution, economic collapse, and the rise of the Nazis, to Germany's total defeat in 1945. ... Read more

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A new Germany has come of age, as democratic, sophisticated, affluent, and modern as any other western nation. This remarkable transition in little more than a generation is the central theme of Germany Transformed. Here all the old stereotypes and conclusions are challenged and new research is marshalled to provide a model for an advanced democratic republic.

Baker, Dalton, and Hildebrandt, working with massive national election returns from 1953 onward, explain the Old Politics of the postwar period, which was based on the “economic miracle” and the security needs of West Germany, and the shift in the past decade to the New Politics, which emphasizes affluence, leisure, the quality of life, and international accommodation. But more than elections are examined. Rather, the authors delineate the transvaluation of the German civic culture as democracy became embedded in the nation's institutions, political ways, party structures, and citizen interest in governance. By the 1970s the quiescent German of Prussia, the Empire, and the 1930s had become the active and aware democratic westerner.

This is among the most important books about West Germany written since the late 1950s, when the nation, devastated by war and rebuilding its economy and political life, was still struggling with the possibilities of democracy. It is a political history, recounted in enormous detail and with methodological precision, that will change perceptions about Germany and align them with realities. Germany is now an integrated part of a democratic western community of nations, and an understanding of its true condition not only illuminates better the staunch European identity but also is bound to have an impact on American policy.

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W. R. Smyser explores the German Question and uses it to illustrate the story of how Germany was divided and then united against a background of global events and a continuing search for stable peace in an area that has not known it since the age of Charlemagne. Focusing on the personalities who controlled Germany's fate--FDR, Churchill, Stalin, Kennedy, Brandt, Reagan, Bush, Gorbachev, Kohl, and others--Smyser creates a masterful portrait of a country that has played a pivotal role in the history of the 20th century. Amazon.com Review
"No nation's fury, no nation's fate, had a greater impact onthe twentieth century" than Germany's, writes W.R. Smyser,a onetime State Department official now considered a leading expert onGermany. In this eye-opening account, Smyser suggests the question ofGermany is central to understanding the cold war. The country itselflies in the heart of Europe: "If one takes a map of Europe and drawsone line from Paris to Moscow and another line from Stockholm to Rome,the two lines intersect remarkably close to the Brandenburg Gate,"writes Smyser, in one of his characteristically smartobservations. The author has a strong grasp of the leaders whoquarreled over Germany between the end of the Second World War and itsunification in the 1990s, and an especially good grasp of theirmotives. Using new archival information, he suggests that Stalin didnot in fact want a divided Germany, and that President Kennedy, forhis part, had the opportunity to prevent construction of the BerlinWall but failed to take proper action. Despite all its agonies, theCold War did have some positive effects: "It served as the essentialincubator for a modern German state" and eventually allowed this mostproblematic of nations to become a peaceful member of the worldcommunity. As Smyser points out; the Cold War "ended as it had to end,not on the battlefield but on the streets, in the churches, atop theBerlin Wall and in the conference room. It ended so that all couldwin, and did." This is a winning account of how it happened. --JohnJ. Miller ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Detailed, dry and a good read
This book is quite intriguing. Although a mass of detail, possibly too much, it made my 35 minute train journeys to the city go by very quickly. That shows how readable it is. Most interesting of all are the author's descriptions of the various political and military leaders, and I agree with another reviewer that Lucius Clay comes out of it very well. Ulbricht on the other hand appears as a right villain.

One criticism is that Smyser hardly touches on the fact that the former East Germany has struggled so badly after unification. I have been there on more than one occasion, and various locals protest that they "had no problem with the GDR". They probably did, but things are not easy now, fourteen years on.

Accurate Account and Great Inside Info by W.R.Smyser
This is a really great and reliable account of the Cold War Struggle over Germany as a whole and/or parts thereof.
Smyser points out, that at the possibility of Re-Unification of German states time was of the essence (before an eventual Soviet Union Communist collaps, which actually happened). In order to grasp the opportunity of the moment, the illegally created Oder-Neisse River Line (Soviet Communist take-over of a third part of Germany and Expulsions) was left untouched. Smyser repeatedly refers to all four Occupiers, leaving things as they have been since 1945, a condition of giving their OK to Re-unification of the other two parts of Germany.

Only one mistake, Rathaus Schoeneberg, city hall is not situated in the (former) British Sector of Berlin, but in the (former) American Sector. Remember, this is , where PresidentKennedy held his famous speech ( Ich bin ein Berliner) at Kennedy Platz (square). For todays books (even in schools), dealing with Eastern Germany/Eastern Europe and especially many internet articles, such as Wikipedia, are so very unfactual and full of mistakes, that this book with only one obvious mistake, is truly amazing.

Effectively served my needs
I was only 5 when the Wall fell, and the Soviet Union began to collapse.I could not relate to the Cold War on the level to which my parent's generation can.I sought out this book for the purpose of building a foundation of my understanding of the events that took place in the Cold War with reference to Germany.This book effectively served my needs.It was well organized and presented research and arguments relevant to the german question formulated by Smyser.While my background with the subject matter is rather limited, I can assure you that a person who wishes to use this book for the purpose that I used it will be pleasantly suprised.

Informative, engaging, history as it was meant to be written
Anyone with even the slightest interest in German history or the history of the Cold War will find this well-written analysis of how Germany was divided, why it remained divided, and how it was reunified very worthwhile. Smyser does an exceptional job of making sense of a crucial element ofpostwar Europe, balancing the influence of a few great men (Truman, Stalin,Clay, Adenauer, Brandt, Kohl, DeGaulle, and Gorbachev) with the largerpolitical-economic influences at work during these years.He also verydeftly places "the German Question" in a larger worldcontext--linking, for example, the Cuban Missile Crisis and developments inGermany, and demonstrating how Allied uneasiness over Communistmachinations in the Korean War led to the rearmament of Germany and itsacceptance as a full-fledged member of the NATO alliance.He also revealssome surprising facts he has dug out of newly available Sovietarchives--for example, that Stalin preferred to reunify Germany after thewar, while the Western Allies opposed him because of his actions in EasternEurope.For anyone who has lived through these years without knowing thefull history--as I have, born in 1949--this book is especiallyenlightening.Smyser's style is at once lucid and persuasive, making thisa joy to read.

conscise overview of the east-west struggle over germany
This book shed increased light on the Cold War for a person who lived throughonly the final 25% of the four-decade struggle.The ideological struggle between expansionist totalitarianism and the freedom of the Westis the defining episode of our lifetimes. Germany was the crucible of thatstruggle.I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to expand theirknowledge of the titanic struggle that was the Cold War.

PS -- This bookhas introduced me to a new hero for whom I now have the utmost respect:USGen. Lucious Clay, who played a central role in both the Berlin Airlift of1948 and the Berlin Wall crisis and aftermath of 1961, etc. Please e-mailme at the address above if you can offer details on the life of thisgenuine American hero. ... Read more

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Striking a balance between the aspirations of individual freedom and the demands of organized society is a central quest of constitutional law. Germany and America provide different paths toward accomplishing this equilibrium, revealing two paths to freedom and its relation to community. Eberle challenges current thinking in the field by setting out alternative visions of human freedom, dignity, personality and expression; demonstrating that use of comparative methodology has much to offer critical examination of major constitutional and public policy issues; and showing that different conceptions of fundamental ideas are possible. ... Read more

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Comparative examination of the two most important constitutional systems
Constitutions are central elements of modern political society; they represent the basic framework of government and the values a society seeks to promote and protect. While Americans commonly believe that our Constitution is widely adopted overseas, the fact is that it has largely been set aside as a template by most new democracies in favor of the German model. In this study, Eberle examines the central principles of each constitution: liberty in America, dignity in Germany. He does this by examining a variety of constitutional issues to see how each principle affects the constitutional judgment of the courts. Most interesting are issues such as free speech and abortion. In free speech, we see that the US is the only country to protect hate speech, reasoning that liberty of the individual to speak must be protected from governmental restriction. In Germany, the dignity of racial minorities is considered more important and will limit the speech rights of individuals. The abortion jurisprudence of the US only weighs the liberty interests of the individuals and the state interest. This balancing comes out in the individuals favor. Yet in Germany, the Constitutional Court has emphasized the basic dignity of all human life, including fetal life, and the right to life in holding that the state must make abortion illegal (though it is still available).

These are only two small areas; the entire book examines a much wider selection of issues. For anyone interested in comparative constitutional studies this is an interesting and informative read. ... Read more

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Few historical changes occur literally overnight, but on August 13 1961 eighteen million East Germans awoke to find themselves walled in by an edifice which was to become synonymous with the Cold War: the Berlin Wall.

This new history rejects traditional, top-down approaches to Cold War politics, exploring instead how the border closure affected ordinary East Germans, from workers and farmers to teenagers and even party members, "caught out" by Sunday the Thirteenth. Party, police and Stasi reports reveal why one in six East Germans fled the country during the 1950s, undermining communist rule and forcing the eleventh-hour decision by Khrushchev and Ulbricht to build a wall along the Cold War's frontline.

Did East Germans resist or come to terms with immurement? Did the communist regime become more or less dictatorial within the confines of the so-called "Antifascist Defense Rampart?" Using film and literature, but also the GDR's losing battle against Beatlemania, Patrick Major's cross-disciplinary study suggests that popular culture both reinforced and undermined the closed society. Linking external and internal developments, Major argues that the GDR's official quest for international recognition, culminating in Ostpolitik and United Nations membership in the early 1970s, became its undoing, unleashing a human rights movement which fed into, but then broke with, the protests of 1989. After exploring the reasons for the fall of the Wall and reconstructing the heady days of the autumn revolution, the author reflects on the fate of the Wall after 1989, as it moved from demolition into the realm of memory. ... Read more

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With The Years of Extermination, Saul Friedländer completes his major historical work on Nazi Germany and the Jews. The book describes and interprets the persecution and murder of the Jews throughout occupied Europe. The enactment of German extermination policies and measures depended on the cooperation of local authorities, the assistance of police forces, and the passivity of the populations, primarily of their political and spiritual elites. This implementation depended as well on the victims’ readiness to submit to orders, often with the hope of attenuating them or of surviving long enough to escape the German vise.

Customer Reviews (29)

Hell Hath No Fury Like A Loony Leader Scorned
Reading Mr. Friedlander's essential first volume, "Nazi Germany and the Jews: 1933-1939," and immediately jumping to this second concluding work was just too much for me to handle in an emotional sense. I got somewhere into the middle of volume two before I had to take a few weeks break from the nightmarish descriptions. In the past thirty years, I can't recall ever having to do this with any other book. Starvation, ghettos, squallor, contagious diseases such as TB, crematoriums, gas chambers, mass shootings, burying people alive, human guineas pigs used for scientific exploration, torture, bashing babies skulls against concrete walls... it goes on and on and on. Also, the author clearly explains that it was not only a small portion of Germany citizenry that participated in vitriolic anti-Semitism but legions of other nations. Once other nations stopped the immigration of Jews to their countries, the victims were stuck between a rock and a hard place. Mr. Friedlander also explains the machinations of the Vatican's passivity as well as the religious rationalizations used by many to abuse Jews. There is an especially heart-wrenching diary entry on page 581 in the paperback edition which explains how some Jews had to remove gassed bodies and place them in industrial crematoriums.

Like the first volume, I had quite a few nightmares because of the author's excellent book. To hear people, such as the Iranian bonehead Ahmadinejad, deny that the Holocaust occurred is truly infuriating and sad. This book exposes the dark underbelly of the human condition. The Holocaust is a vivid reminder of how easily we can be manipulated into using our worst impulses. Heck, even today, there is a specific propagandist television network in the U.S. that would make Goebbels proud. This is a must read for anyone with a brain.

all titles of the 10 books i recently purchased
this is to much work for me


some other time

Sobering, essential reading
It's difficult to imagine that Professor Friedländer's detailed account of the greatest crime in history will ever be surpassed. He combines great detail with a storyteller's talent, such that what could so easily have become a very long recitation of facts is a continuous, cohesive, fluid account, no mean achievement. His command of many different primary source materials and his fusion of these are most impressive. Interwoven into the straight historical narrative are diary entries of people of all ages and walks of life, many of whom did not survive. These voices from beyond the grave add a poignancy to the story and a reminder that this was the murder not of a race but of six million individuals, each with his or her own individual spark, his or her own potential contribution, great or small, to humankind. These accentuate the sheer unadulterated monstrousness of what the Nazis did.

The story follows on from his first volume of the story ("The years of persecution"), and shows that the road from the Kristallnacht to the gas chamber was gradual and taken in small steps. There was never a specific decision where someone said, "Let's do in the whole lot", but rather a gradual outworking of a philosophy that decreed that Europe had to be "Judenfrei". The only question was how exactly to achieve the desired "Judenfrei" state. Initially, the idea was to export them to somewhere. However, with all possible exits cut off and the General Government (the "Polish" part of German-occupied Poland) bursting at the seams with Jews forcibly evacuated there, the unthinkable became fact and the dreadful machinery of extermination came into being. It had already been decided in principle by the time of the infamous Wannsee Conference, whose primary purpose was to exert the central role of Himmler, Heydrich and the Reich security apparatus (RSHA) over the whole affair.

An interesting aspect is that the Final Solution didn't really get into gear until the USA entered the war. Hitler regarded the USA as completely Jew-ridden and -dominated, and therefore, to some extent, he went (relatively) easy on the Jews as a sort of hostage against the USA's good behaviour. This is another interesting aspect of Prof. Friedländer's account, the degree to which anti-Semitism completely distorted Nazi policy, such that rational thinking was impossible, and the extermination continued unabated, even when the thousand-year Reich was collapsing around the Nazis' ears. He makes it clear how anti-Semitism was no bolt-on extra to Nazi philosophy, but was central to it.

One of Prof. Friedländer's main points, and perhaps one of the most tragic, is how so many in the occupied territories participated actively and passively in the Nazi crime. Most turned their backs and pretended not to know, others fell over themselves to help the Nazis. For every hero(ine) of unbreakable moral compass who was prepared to help (and Prof. Friedländer lists some very odd ones, such as the Japanese consul in Lithuania), there were a thousand collaborators, indifferent and downright opportunistic people. One (this one anyway) has the clear impression that Prof. Friedländer is at heart a Zionist who believes that the Jews have no place anywhere in Europe, such was the inherent anti-Semitism there. His view appears to be that, while the Nazis ploughed the earth, sowed the seed and cultivated the crop, that earth was inherently fertile. So, although Prof. Friedländer has major problems with the thesis of Daniel Goldhagen ("Hitler's willing executioners"), he often seems to be thinking along very similar lines.

The one jarring note in this other peerless account is whenProf. Friedländer pushes this point too far.As an example of British anti-Semitic feeling expressed in the press, he cites an article in, of all places, "Punch". Perhaps one needs to understand the British sense of humour, but to me the article is clearly typically "Punch", with its tongue firmly rammed in its cheek, saying one thing on the surface while clearly meaning precisely the opposite. Prof. Friedländer doesn't seem to have got the joke.

Nevertheless, the thing that really impresses is Prof. Friedländer's reasonable tone. This is no polemic (which, given the subject matter, it could so easily have become) but a rational, well-reasoned account in which the facts are allowed to speak for themselves, rather than have a particular agenda imposed on them. For example, Prof. Friedländer clearly understands the complex political undercurrents of the time, in which Allied governments and even Jewish organisations in the USA and Israel did less than they could have to rescue a people whom by 1943 everyone knew had been destined for the slaughterhouse.

In short, this account of the darkest side of human nature should be on everyone's reading list, particularly on that of the current State of Israel, which, while keen to remember this past, has not apparently learned anything from it and appears only too happy to inflict torment on others.

Very detailed book of Nazi Germany & the Jews
A very detailed account of Nazi Germany and the Jewish people. Gives lots of views from different citizens of the time through diary entries. A very good book.

A "different" account of the Holocaust
I have read several accounts of the Holocaust and also survived it. Friedlenders' second volume of "Nazi Germany and the Jews - the Years of Extermination, 1939-1945" is uniquely valuable among the general historical accounts of the Holocaust because it presents numerous documents and eye-witness accounts. This makes the story emotionally accessible and "real", but it also makes for a very upsetting reading. Anyone seriously interested in the subject should buy this book. ... Read more

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This book develops the concept of the corporatist catch-all party to explain how the German Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has responded to changing demands from women over the past forty years. Otto Kirchheimer's classic study argues that when catch-all parties reach out to new constituencies, they are forced to decrease the involvement of membership to facilitate doctrinal flexibility. In a corporatist catch-all party, however, societal interests are represented within the party organization and policy making is the result of internal party negotiation. Through an investigation of CDU policy making in the issue areas of abortion policy, work-family policy, and participation policy, this book demonstrates that sometimes the CDU mobilizes rather than disempowers membership. An important lesson of this study is that a political party need not sacrifice internal democracy and ignore its members in order to succeed at the polls. ... Read more