The Unmasterable Past: History, Holocaust, and German National Identity, With a New Preface / Edition 1

by Charles S. Maier

Overview

Bringing his book up to date with reflections since its first publication a decade ago, Charles S. Maier writes that the historians’ controversy gave Germany a chance to air the issues immediately before unification and, in effect, the controversy substituted for the constitutional debate that a united Germany never got around to holding. The premises of national community, whether formulated in terms of legal culture, inherited collective responsibilities, or patriotic habits of the heart, had already been subjects for vigorous discussion.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674929777
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	03/30/1998
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Charles S. Maier is Leverett Saltonstall Research Professor of History at Harvard University. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the Council on Foreign Relations, he has written a number of award-winning books, including Recasting Bourgeois Europe, The Unmasterable Past, Dissolution: The Crisis of Communism and the End of East Germany, and Once Within Borders.

Table of Contents

Preface, 1997

Preface to the Original Edition

Introduction

The Stakes of the Controversy

Habermas among the Historians

A Holocaust like the Others? Problems of Comparative History

German History as Case History

A Usable Past? Museums, Memory, and Identity

Epilogue: Whose Holocaust? Whose History?

Notes

Index

Editorial Reviews

Maier has written what is the best book available on the tangled and acrimonious debate among the German historians. It is incisive in its analysis of the arguments on all sides of the debate and admirably objective in its assessment of them.

New York Review of Books - Gordon Craig

A major piece of intellectual history, rich in both methodological and philosophical insights… It is the most compelling examination of the writing about the Holocaust that I have encountered.

Thomas Childers

A thorough and sensitive reflection on the ‘historians’ conflict’ about the character and significance of Nazism that erupted in West Germany in 1986… [Maier contributes] to the understanding of how Germans are still trying to integrate the Third Reich into a vision of a democratic future, and into a cohesive national identity for Germany.

New Republic - Leon Botstein

A full depiction of the continuing controversy within the Federal German Republic about the nation’s murderous past and haunted present… For the very large segment of the American public that does not read German, the book is a discreet Baedeker to very unfamiliar—and often ugly—territory.

The Nation - Norman Birnbaum

A major piece of intellectual history, rich in both methodological and philosophical insights... It is the most compelling examination of the writing about the Holocaust that I have encountered.--Thomas Childers, University of Pennsylvania

A thorough and sensitive reflection on the 'historians' conflict' about the character and significance of Nazism that erupted in West Germany in 1986... [Maier contributes] to the understanding of how Germans are still trying to integrate the Third Reich into a vision of a democratic future, and into a cohesive national identity for Germany.--Leon Botstein "New Republic"

A full depiction of the continuing controversy within the Federal German Republic about the nation's murderous past and haunted present... For the very large segment of the American public that does not read German, the book is a discreet Baedeker to very unfamiliar--and often ugly--territory.--Norman Birnbaum "The Nation"

Maier has written what is the best book available on the tangled and acrimonious debate among the German historians. It is incisive in its analysis of the arguments on all sides of the debate and admirably objective in its assessment of them.--Gordon Craig "New York Review of Books"

From the Publisher

A thorough and sensitive reflection on the 'historians' conflict' about the character and significance of Nazism that erupted in West Germany in 1986...[Maier contributes] to the understanding of how Germans are still trying to integrate the Third Reich into a vision of a democratic future, and into a cohesive national identity for Germany.

The New Republic - Leon Botstein

A thorough and sensitive reflection on the 'historians' conflict' about the character and significance of Nazism that erupted in West Germany in 1986...[Maier contributes] to the understanding of how Germans are still trying to integrate the Third Reich into a vision of a democratic future, and into a cohesive national identity for Germany.
— Leon Botstein

The New Republic

Maier has written what is the best book available on the tangled and acrimonious debate among the German historians. It is incisive in its analysis of the arguments on all sides of the debate and admirably objective in its assessment of them.
— Gordon Craig

New York Review of Books

A full depiction of the continuing controversy within the Federal German Republic about the nation's murderous past and haunted present...For the very large segment of the American public that does not read German, the book is a discreet Baedeker to very unfamiliar—and often ugly—territory.
— Norman Birnbaum

The Nation