Anatomy of a Dictatorship: Inside the GDR, 1949-1989 - Softcover

Fulbrook, Mary

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0198207204 ISBN 13: 9780198207207

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1998

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 Stasi, party, and mass organizations, and analyzes 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.

About this title

About the Author:

Mary Fulbrook is Professor of German History at University College, London.

Review:

"This is one of the best-written and most accessible books on the GDR."--German Studies Review

"Readers are richly compensated by the creative insights Fulbrook teases out in her comparative analysis of the exercise of power, popular acquiescence, and opposition in the different phases of the regime. This sophisticated, elegantly written book deserves the widest audience from specialists to general readers."--HISTORY

"...Fulbrook's broadly interpretative approach demonstrates real sophistication in analyzing patterns of domination, complicity, and dissent over the four decades of the GDR's existence as a separate German state."--Political Science Quarterly

"[Fullbrook's] study is a welcome addition to the growing body of literature on the former GDR, especially since it is among the first books written in English that make use of new archival sources. Her account is noteworthy as much for its balanced judgment as for its secure grounding in primary and secondary sources...[A] highly valuable book."--American Political Science Review

"Mary Fulbrook provides an excellent introduction into a difficult subject for general readers as well as Anglo-American students. Her source-based synthesis helps to correct many misconceptions and raises suggestive questions about GDR history that show the development of the other Germany in a new, and more interesting light."--Central European History

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0198207204
• ISBN 13: 9780198207207
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320