Intellectuals, Socialism, and Dissent: The East German Opposition and Its Legacy

by John C. Torpey

Overview

Intellectuals, Socialism, and Dissent was first published in 1995. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

Once the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the people of East Germany had little use for the dissident intellectuals who had helped bring it down. Intellectuals, Socialism, and Dissent offers a penetrating look into the circumstances of this fall from grace, unique among the former Communist states.

John Torpey traces the dissident intellectuals' fate to the peculiar situation of the East German regime, which sought to build "socialism in a quarter of a country" on the anti-fascist foundations of Communist opposition to Nazism. He shows how the regime's unusual history and subnational status helped sustain the East German intelligentsia's conviction that socialism could be reformed and humane-that there was a "third way" between Soviet-style socialism and the capitalism that took root in West Germany. How the pursuit of this third way both supported and undermined the regime, and both galvanized and alienated the East German people, becomes clear in Torpey's nuanced analysis. His book makes a powerful contribution to our understanding of the politics of intellectuals during one of the most painful chapters in modern German history.

John C. Torpey is currently a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780816625673
Publisher:	University of Minnesota Press
Publication date:	08/23/1995
Series:	Contradictions of Modernity , #4
Edition description:	Minnesota Archive Editions
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.75(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

John Torpey is Professor of Sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center. He is the author or editor of several books, including Making Whole What has Been Smashed: On Reparations Politics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006); Old Europe, New Europe, Core Europe: Transatlantic Relations after the Iraq War (edited with Daniel Levy and Max Pensky; London and New York: Verso, 2005); Politics and the Past: On Repairing Historical Injustices (ed.), Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003; Documenting Individual Identity: The Development of State Practices in the Modern World (co-edited with Jane Caplan), Princeton University Press, 2001; and The Invention of the Passport: Surveillance, Citizenship, and the State, Cambridge University Press, 2000. His interests lie broadly in the area of comparative historical sociology and his current research focuses on the problem of “American exceptionalism.”

Editorial Reviews

Examines the intellectuals of East Germany who dissented from the ruling Communist Party during the 1980s by calling for a democratic and reformed socialism rather than liberal capitalism; and investigates why, despite their major contribution to ending communist rule, public support for their position evaporated at the mere possibility of reunification. Discounts the model of slick western politicians and business leaders deluding the people, and finds that the public supported the reformers as long as they were the only viable alternative, but never shared their political goals. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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