ANATOMY OF A DICTATORSHIP by Mary Fulbrook ( 9780198207207 ) - Books & Audio Books at Pickabook.co.uk

Item Details

Title:

ANATOMY OF A DICTATORSHIP
INSIDE THE GDR 1949-1989

By:

Mary Fulbrook

Format:

Paperback

List price:

£88.00

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£77.00

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12.5% off

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£11.00

ISBN 10:

0198207204

ISBN 13:

9780198207207

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Publisher:

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Pub. date:

11 December, 1997

Pages:

324

Description:

For forty years the Communist dictatorship of East Germany appeared virtually impregnable. Few would have predicted its complete collapse in 1989 and the breathtakingly rapid reunification of the two Germanies in 1990. Mary Fulbrook's absorbing study of the structures of power and patterns of political culture in the GDR sheds light on both the unusual stability of the regime and its dramatic ending.

Synopsis:

Founded on the ruins of Hitler's defeated Third Reich, and lacking any intrinsic legitimacy, the German Democratic Republic nevertheless became the most stable and successful state in the Soviet bloc. Yet in the 'gentle revolution' of 1989 it collapsed with startling speed. How can this extraordinary story of political stability followed by sudden implosion be explained? With the opening of the East German archives, it is at last possible to look inside the apparently impregnable dictatorship. Mary Fulbrook provides a compelling interpretation of structures of power and patterns of popular opinion within the GDR. This absorbing study explores the ways in which the tentacles of the all-pervading state captured East German society in the grip of the Stasi, party, and mass organizations, and analyses the emergence in the 1980s of oppositional cultures under the ambivalent shelter of a Protestant Church which had come to terms with the communist state. In combining careful archival research with broader theoretical and historical interpretation, Anatomy of a Dictatorship makes a major contribution to debates on recent German history and the character of contemporary Germany.

Publication:

Imprint:

Oxford University Press

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