Bowling For Communism

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Bowling for Communism

Author : Andrew Demshuk
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Page : 272 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 2020-10-15
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781501751684

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Bowling for Communism by Andrew Demshuk Pdf

Bowling for Communism illuminates how civic life functioned in Leipzig, East Germany's second-largest city, on the eve of the 1989 revolution by exploring acts of "urban ingenuity" amid catastrophic urban decay. Andrew Demshuk profiles the creative activism of local communist officials who, with the help of scores of volunteers, constructed a palatial bowling alley without Berlin's knowledge or approval. In a city mired in disrepair, civic pride overcame resentment against a regime loathed for corruption, Stasi spies, and the Berlin Wall. Reconstructing such episodes through interviews and obscure archival materials, Demshuk shows how the public sphere functioned in Leipzig before the fall of communism. Hardly detached or inept, local officials worked around centralized failings to build a more humane city. And hardly disengaged, residents turned to black-market construction to patch up their surroundings. Because such "urban ingenuity" was premised on weakness in the centralized regime, the dystopian cityscape evolved from being merely a quotidian grievance to the backdrop for revolution. If, by their actions, officials were demonstrating that the regime was irrelevant, and if, in their own experiences, locals only attained basic repairs outside official channels, why should anyone have mourned the system when it was overthrown?

Three Cities After Hitler

Author : Andrew Demshuk
Publisher : University of Pittsburgh Press
Page : 590 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 2021-09-21
Category : History
ISBN : 9780822988571

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Three Cities After Hitler by Andrew Demshuk Pdf

Winner, 2023 SAH Alice Davis Hitchcock Book Award Three Cities after Hitler compares how three prewar German cities shared decades of postwar development under three competing post-Nazi regimes: Frankfurt in capitalist West Germany, Leipzig in communist East Germany, and Wrocław (formerly Breslau) in communist Poland. Each city was rebuilt according to two intertwined modern trends. First, certain local edifices were chosen to be resurrected as “sacred sites” to redeem the national story after Nazism. Second, these tokens of a reimagined past were staged against the hegemony of modernist architecture and planning, which wiped out much of whatever was left of the urban landscape that had survived the war. All three cities thus emerged with simplified architectural narratives, whose historically layered complexities only survived in fragments where this twofold “redemptive reconstruction” after Nazism had proven less vigorous, sometimes because local citizens took action to save and appropriate them. Transcending both the Iron Curtain and freshly homogenized nation-states, three cities under three rival regimes shared a surprisingly common history before, during, and after Hitler—in terms of both top-down planning policies and residents’ spontaneous efforts to make home out of their city as its shape shifted around them.

The Oxford Handbook of German Politics

Author : Klaus Larres,Holger Moroff,Ruth Wittlinger
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 721 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2022-07-19
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780198817307

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The Oxford Handbook of German Politics by Klaus Larres,Holger Moroff,Ruth Wittlinger Pdf

Few countries have caused or experienced more calamities in the 20th century than Germany. The country emerged from the Cold War as a newly united and sovereign state, eventually becoming Europe's indispensable partner for all major domestic and foreign policy initiatives. This handbook provides a comprehensive overview of some of the major issues of German domestic politics, economics, foreign policy, and culture by leading experts in their respective fields. This book serves primarily as a reference work on Germany for scholars and an interested public, but through this broader lens it also provides a magnifying glass of global developments which are challenging and transforming the modern state. The growing importance of Germany as a political actor and economic partner makes this endeavor all the more timely and pertinent from a German, European, and global perspective.

What Remains?

Author : Joyce Marie Mushaben
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 561 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2023-03-11
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9783031188886

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What Remains? by Joyce Marie Mushaben Pdf

This book tells the story of the German Democratic Republic from “the inside out,” using the lens of generational change to deconstruct an intriguing array of social identities that had little to do with the “official GDR” version authoritarian rulers regularly sought to impose on their citizens. The author compares the “identities” of five societal subgroups (GDR writers and intellectuals; pastors and dissidents; women; youth; and working-class men), exploring the policies defining their lives and status before/during/after the 1989 Wende, as well as the diverging “exit, voice and loyalty” dilemmas encountered by each. The “dialectical” components treated in this work center on the extent to which eastern identities were lost, found and reconfigured across three generations, from 1949 to 1989, from 1990 to 2005, then up to 2020. It explores how the existence of a separate East German state and the socialization processes imposed on each subculture has not only complicated the search for national unity since 1990 but also -- perhaps more controversially—invoked new challenges directly related to ongoing East-West structural disparities since unification and the treatment of eastern Germans by often more privileged western Germans.

The Red Atlantis

Author : J. Hoberman
Publisher : Temple University Press
Page : 338 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 1998
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 1566397677

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The Red Atlantis by J. Hoberman Pdf

For most of the twentieth century, American and European intellectual life was defined by its fascination with a particular utopian vision. Both the artistic and political vanguards were spellbound by the Communist promise of a new human era—so much so that its political terrors were rationalized as a form of applied evolution and its collapse hailed as the end of history.The Red Atlantisargues that Communism produced a complex culture with a dialectical relation to both modernism and itself. Offering examples ranging from the Stalinist show trial to Franz Kafka's posthumous career as a dissident writer And The work of filmmakers, painters, and writers, which can be understood only as criticism of existing socialism made from within,The Red Atlantissuggests that Communism was an aesthetic project—perhapstheaesthetic project of the twentieth century. Author note:J. Hoberman, staff writer for theVillage Voice, writes on film and culture for theVoice, theVoice Literary Supplement,Artforum, and other publications. His books includeBridge of Light: Yiddish Film Between Two Worlds(Temple, 1995) andVulgar Modernism: Writing on Movies and Other Media(Temple, 1991), which was nominated For The National Book Critics Circle award in criticism. He is an Adjunct Professor of Cinema at the Cooper Union.

Anti-Communism and Popular Culture in Mid-Century America

Author : Cyndy Hendershot
Publisher : McFarland
Page : 184 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2015-10-03
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780786483693

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Anti-Communism and Popular Culture in Mid-Century America by Cyndy Hendershot Pdf

Not long after the Allied victories in Europe and Japan, America's attention turned from world war to cold war. The perceived threat of communism had a definite and significant impact on all levels of American popular culture, from government propaganda films like Red Nightmare in Time magazine to Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle. This work examines representations of anti-communist sentiment in American popular culture from the early fifties through the mid-sixties. The discussion covers television programs, films, novels, journalism, maps, memoirs, and other works that presented anti-communist ideology to millions of Americans and influenced their thinking about these controversial issues. It also points out the different strands of anti-communist rhetoric, such as liberal and countersubversive ones, that dominated popular culture in different media, and tells a much more complicated story about producers' and consumers' ideas about communism through close study of the cultural artifacts of the Cold War. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

The Lost German East

Author : Andrew Demshuk
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 325 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2012-04-30
Category : History
ISBN : 9781107020733

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The Lost German East by Andrew Demshuk Pdf

After 1945, Germany was inundated with ethnic German refugees expelled from Eastern Europe. Andrew Demshuk explores why they integrated into West German society.

Communism's Public Sphere

Author : Kyrill Kunakhovich
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Page : 354 pages
File Size : 40,9 Mb
Release : 2023-01-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9781501767067

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Communism's Public Sphere by Kyrill Kunakhovich Pdf

Communism's Public Sphere explores the political role of cultural spaces in the Eastern Bloc. Under communist regimes that banned free speech, political discussions shifted to spaces of art: theaters, galleries, concert halls, and youth clubs. Kyrill Kunakhovich shows how these venues turned into sites of dialogue and contestation. While officials used them to spread the communist message, artists and audiences often flouted state policy and championed alternative visions. Cultural spaces therefore came to function as a public sphere, or a rare outlet for discussing public affairs. Focusing on Kraków in Poland and Leipzig in East Germany, Communism's Public Sphere sheds new light on state-society interactions in the Eastern Bloc. In place of the familiar trope of domination and resistance, it highlights unexpected symbioses like state-sponsored rock and roll, socialist consumerism, and sanctioned dissent. By examining nearly five decades of communist rule, from the Red Army's arrival in Poland in 1944 to German reunification in 1990, Kunakhovich argues that cultural spaces played a pivotal mediating role. They helped reform and stabilize East European communism but also gave cover to the protest movements that ultimately brought it down.

Nihilist Communism

Author : Dupont (Monsieur.)
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 276 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2009
Category : Communism
ISBN : OCLC:719995258

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Nihilist Communism by Dupont (Monsieur.) Pdf

Originally self-published in 2003, now edited and designed by Ardent Press, still one of the most hard-nosed books to call the left to account -- with scathing, thoughtful rebuttals to those who continue to believe that the revolution is just a matter of consciousness-raising and recruitment, or that identity politics has anything to do with Marxist thought. Many will reject the materialism inherent in this analysis, but we appreciate the logical consistency (and the occasional brilliance of writing) of Monsieur Dupont; so refreshing in a world in which people withdraw to muddle-headedness in incoherent attempts to fit all topics into some kind of grab bag, attempts seemingly designed to avoid offense rather than to follow ideas through to their logical (or even illogical) conclusions. Unlike so many people who either reject theory all together (rather, who obscure the theory that they work from), or who embrace theory and ignore the ways reality doesn't fit their ideas, Msr Dupont reflected on their experience (and that of others) and changed their theory to suit their lives. We need more people who are willing to be unpopular, who work an idea until it groans, who reflect on real life experiences and then acknowledge the ways in which prevailing theory doesn't make sense, and who are then capable of challenging prevailing theory to be more coherent, more realistic, and more useful. species being could be considered a companion text to Nihilist Communism, or vice versa: reading them together has been helpful for some. Nihilist Communism refers more to specific political occurrences, and species being fleshes out some of the more esoteric ideas.

Communists and Community

Author : Ryan S. Pettengill
Publisher : Temple University Press
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 2020-05-29
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1439919046

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Communists and Community by Ryan S. Pettengill Pdf

Communists and Community seeks to reframe the traditional chronology of the Communist Party in the United States as a means to better understand the change that occurred in community activism in the mid-twentieth century. Ryan Pettengill argues that Popular Front activism continued to flourish throughout the war years and into the postwar period. In Detroit, where there was a critical mass of heavy industry, Communist Party activists mobilized support for civil rights and affordable housing, brought attention to police brutality, sought protection for the foreign-born, and led a movement for world peace. Communists and Community demonstrates that the Communist Party created a social space where activists became effective advocates for the socioeconomic betterment of a multiracial work force. Pettengill uses Detroit as a case study to examine how communist activists and their sympathizers maintained a community to enhance the quality of life for the city’s working class. He investigates the long-term effects of organized labor’s decision to force communists out of the unions and abandon community-based activism. Communists and Community recounts how leftists helped workers, people of color, and other under-represented groups became part of the mainstream citizenry in America.

The Romance of American Communism

Author : Vivian Gornick
Publisher : Verso Books
Page : 289 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 2020-04-07
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781788735506

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The Romance of American Communism by Vivian Gornick Pdf

Writer and critic Vivian Gornick’s long-unavailable classic exploring how Left politics gave depth and meaning to American life “Before I knew that I was Jewish or a girl I knew that I was a member of the working class.” So begins Vivian Gornick’s exploration of how the world of socialists, communists, and progressives in the 1940s and 1950s created a rich, diverse world where ordinary men and women felt their lives connected to a larger human project. Now back in print after its initial publication in 1977 and with a new introduction by the author, The Romance of American Communism is a landmark work of new journalism, profiling American Communist Party members and fellow travelers as they joined the Party, lived within its orbit, and left in disillusionment and disappointment as Stalin’s crimes became public.

The Private Life of Chairman Mao

Author : Li Zhi-Sui
Publisher : Random House
Page : 736 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 2011-06-22
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780307791399

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The Private Life of Chairman Mao by Li Zhi-Sui Pdf

“The most revealing book ever published on Mao, perhaps on any dictator in history.”—Professor Andrew J. Nathan, Columbia University From 1954 until Mao Zedong's death twenty-two years later, Dr. Li Zhisui was the Chinese ruler's personal physician, which put him in daily—and increasingly intimate—contact with Mao and his inner circle. in The Private Life of Chairman Mao, Dr. Li vividly reconstructs his extraordinary experience at the center of Mao's decadent imperial court. Dr. Li clarifies numerous long-standing puzzles, such as the true nature of Mao's feelings toward the United States and the Soviet Union. He describes Mao's deliberate rudeness toward Khrushchev and reveals the actual catalyst of Nixon's historic visit. Here are also surprising details of Mao's personal depravity (we see him dependent on barbiturates and refusing to wash, dress, or brush his teeth) and the sexual politics of his court. To millions of Chinese, Mao was more god than man, but for Dr. Li, he was all too human. Dr. Li's intimate account of this lecherous, paranoid tyrant, callously indifferent to the suffering of his people, will forever alter our view of Chairman Mao and of China under his rule. Praise for The Private Life of Chairman Mao “From now one no one will be able to pretend to understand Chairman Mao's place in history without reference to this revealing account.”—Professor Lucian Pye, Massachusetts Institute of Technology “Dr. Li does for Mao what the physician Lord Moran's memoir did for Winston Churchill—turns him into a human being. Here is Mao unveiled: eccentric, demanding, suspicious, unregretful, lascivious, and unfailingly fascinating. Our view of Mao will never be the same again.”—Ross Terrill, author of China in Our Time “An extraordinarily intimate portrait of Mao. [Dr. Li] portrays [Mao's imperial court] as a place of boundless decadence, licentiousness, selfishness, relentless toadying and cutthroat political intrigue.”—Richard Bernstein, The New York Times “One of the most provocative books on Mao to appear since the publication of Edgar Snow's Red Star Over China.”—Paul G. Pickowicz, The Wall Street Journal

Yellow Star, Red Star

Author : Jelena Subotić
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Page : 264 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2019-12-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9781501742415

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Yellow Star, Red Star by Jelena Subotić Pdf

Yellow Star, Red Star asks why Holocaust memory continues to be so deeply troubled—ignored, appropriated, and obfuscated—throughout Eastern Europe, even though it was in those lands that most of the extermination campaign occurred. As part of accession to the European Union, Jelena Subotić shows, East European states were required to adopt, participate in, and contribute to the established Western narrative of the Holocaust. This requirement created anxiety and resentment in post-communist states: Holocaust memory replaced communist terror as the dominant narrative in Eastern Europe, focusing instead on predominantly Jewish suffering in World War II. Influencing the European Union's own memory politics and legislation in the process, post-communist states have attempted to reconcile these two memories by pursuing new strategies of Holocaust remembrance. The memory, symbols, and imagery of the Holocaust have been appropriated to represent crimes of communism. Yellow Star, Red Star presents in-depth accounts of Holocaust remembrance practices in Serbia, Croatia, and Lithuania, and extends the discussion to other East European states. The book demonstrates how countries of the region used Holocaust remembrance as a political strategy to resolve their contemporary "ontological insecurities"—insecurities about their identities, about their international status, and about their relationships with other international actors. As Subotić concludes, Holocaust memory in Eastern Europe has never been about the Holocaust or about the desire to remember the past, whether during communism or in its aftermath. Rather, it has been about managing national identities in a precarious and uncertain world.

The Naked Communist:Cold War Modernism and the Politics of Popular Culture

Author : Roland Vegso
Publisher : Fordham Univ Press
Page : 257 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 2013
Category : History
ISBN : 9780823245567

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The Naked Communist:Cold War Modernism and the Politics of Popular Culture by Roland Vegso Pdf

The Naked Communist argues that the political ideologies of modernity were fundamentally determined by four basic figures: the world, the enemy, the secret, and the catastrophe. While the "world" names the totality that functioned as the ultimate horizon of modern political imagination, the three other figures define the necessary limits of this totality by reflecting on the limits of representation. The book highlights the enduring presence of these figures in the modern imagination through detailed analysis of a concrete historical example: American anti-Communist politics of the 1950s. Its primary objective is to describe the internal mechanisms of what we could call an anti-Communist "aesthetic ideology." The book thus traces the way anti-Communist popular culture emerged in the discourse of Cold War liberalism as a political symptom of modernism. Based on a discursive analysis of American anti-Communist politics, the book presents parallel readings of modernism and popular fiction from the 1950s (nuclear holocaust novels, spy novels, and popular political novels) in order to show that, despite the radical separation of the two cultural fields, they both participated in a common ideological program.

Rules for Radicals

Author : Saul Alinsky
Publisher : Vintage
Page : 226 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 2010-06-30
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780307756893

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Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky Pdf

“This country's leading hell-raiser" (The Nation) shares his impassioned counsel to young radicals on how to effect constructive social change and know “the difference between being a realistic radical and being a rhetorical one.” First published in 1971 and written in the midst of radical political developments whose direction Alinsky was one of the first to question, this volume exhibits his style at its best. Like Thomas Paine before him, Alinsky was able to combine, both in his person and his writing, the intensity of political engagement with an absolute insistence on rational political discourse and adherence to the American democratic tradition.