Culture Smart! provides essential information on attitudes, beliefs and behavior in different countries, ensuring that you arrive at your destination... aware of basic manners, common courtesies, and sensitive issues. These concise guides tell you what to expect, how to behave, and how to establish a rapport with your hosts. This inside knowledge will enable you to steer clear of embarrassing gaffes and mistakes, feel confident in unfamiliar situations, and develop trust, friendships, and successful business relationships.Culture Smart! offers illuminating insights into the culture and society of a particular country. It will help you to turn your visit-whether on business or for pleasure-into a memorable and enriching experience. Contents include* customs, values, and traditions* historical, religious, and political background* life at home* leisure, social, and cultural life* eating and drinking* do's, don'ts, and taboos* business practices* communication, spoken and unspoken"Culture Smart has come to the rescue of hapless travellers." Sunday Times Travel"... the perfect introduction to the weird, wonderful and downright odd quirks and customs of various countries." Global Travel"...full of fascinating-as well as common-sense-tips to help you avoid embarrassing faux pas." Observer"...as useful as they are entertaining." Easyjet Magazine"...offer glimpses into the psyche of a faraway world." New York Times

This is a revised edition of "The Two Germanies since 1945", which discussed the partitioning of Germany after World War II and the evolution of East... and West Germany. The revised text covers unification - the exodus of East Germans to the Federal Republic, the breaching of the Berlin Wall and the overthrow of the Communist regime - in two new chapters and with additional illustrations.

With a careful blend of concision and rich detail, Sam A. Mustafa's readable and lively text traces German history from Roman times to the present,... placing particular emphasis on the past three centuries. Balanced and clearly written, the book guides readers expertly through the complex tangle of Germany's past. Mustafa provides a judicious mix of narrative history and historiography, tracing the influential individuals and broad social currents, myths and legends, and political and cultural elements that have shaped the country. In addition, the book is unique in bringing the story fully to the present with a chapter on the past twenty years that explores the nation's reunification and its struggles with history and memory.Generously illustrated with photos, artwork, and maps, the book also includes text boxes to allow readers to pause and consider key concepts in greater detail. Each chapter offers a list of further suggested readings, with a mixture of classic and recent scholarship, to provide a range of coverage of important issues.All those with an interest in Germany will find Germany in the Modern World an engaging and rewarding read. It is an ideal text for a college course or for anyone with a general interest in the history of Europe's largest nationality.

How does migration change a nation? Germany in Transit is the first sourcebook to illuminate the country's transition into a multiethnic society--from... the arrival of the first guest workers in the mid-1950s to the most recent reforms in immigration and citizenship law. The book charts the highly contentious debates about migrant labor, human rights, multiculturalism, and globalization that have unfolded in Germany over the past fifty years--debates that resonate far beyond national borders.This cultural history in documents offers a rich archive for the comparative study of modern Germany against the backdrop of European integration, transnational migration, and the fall of the Berlin Wall.Divided into eleven thematic chapters, Germany in Transit includes 200 original texts in English translation, as well as a historical introduction, chronology, glossary, bibliography, and filmography.

"This book, a translation of Irokawa's 1969 classic Meiji no Bunka, is best described as an analysis of popular political consciousness in the Meiji... period and its corruption by the Emperor System. . . . the translation is lucid and seamless, a remarkable achievement given the number of contributors who worked on it."--L. L. Cornell, Pacific Affairs "A fascinating account of aspects of Japanese culture between 1868 and the early twentieth century. . . . Irokawa Daikichi is an indefatigable researcher, and the fruits of his own and others' labors on back roads and in old storehouses are amply represented here. Moreover, he has discovered materials untouched since the Meiji period, and he is able to interpret them in fresh, provocative ways. He makes excellent use of poetry, letters, diaries, and songs to probe the mentality of peasants and rustic intellectuals, and he interprets his findings in a way that challenges major post-World War II trends in historiography."--J. Victor Koschmann, Journal of Asian Studies

Assuming no prior knowledge, David G. Williamson provides a clear and engaging introduction to the history of Germany from the creation of the German... Confederation to the first decade of a reunified Germany. Visual evidence, maps and documents make key information easy to grasp, and the core text is supplemented by a glossary, bibliography and key event boxes.

Defeat and unconditional surrender were the foundations on which postwar Germany was built. The overall impact, however, was not apathy, but a mentality... which was down to earth, pragmatic, and forward-looking. Crucial structures survived which contributed to West Germany's phenomenal recovery, while the East was forced to submit to a ruthless Soviet leadership. Kettenacker's book offers a fascinating survey of the fortunes and features of East and West Germany--how the two states drifted apart; the differences between their economies, politics, and cultures; and the problems and events surrounding their recent unification.

Beginning with the day of Nazi Germany's surrender, this book traces the main political, social and economic developments in occupied Germany, in both... German states right up to 1990, and in reunited Germany. A whole chapter is devoted to the unification of the country in 1989-90, while the final chapter is the first comprehensive short survey in English of post-unification Germany, covering the period up to the Iraq crisis in 2003.

Over the course of the twentieth century, Germans have venerated and maintained a variety of historical buildings—from medieval fortresses and... cathedrals to urban districts and nineteenth-century working-class housing. But the practice of historic preservation has sometimes proven controversial, as different groups of Germans have sought to use historical architecture to represent competing versions of their nation's history.Transient Pasts is the first book to examine the role that the historic preservation movement has played in German cultural history and memory from the end of the nineteenth century to the early 1970s.Focusing on key public debates over historic preservation, Rudy Koshar charts a trajectory of cultural politics in which historical architecture both facilitated and limited Germans' efforts to identify as a nation. He demonstrates that historical buildings and monuments have served as enduring symbols of national history in a country scarred by the traumas of two world wars, Nazism, the Holocaust, and political division. His findings challenge both the widely accepted argument that Germans have constantly repressed their past and the contention that Germany's intense public engagement with history since reunification is unprecedented.

"While attempts to come to terms with past catastrophe . . . can help prevent its recurrence, they may also provide arguments for . . . actions against... the real or imagined perpetrators of previous disasters. The confrontation with . . . catastrophe can help us understand the roots and nature of this century's destructive urges, as well as humanity's extraordinary recuperative capacities; but it can also legitimize the perpetuation of violence and aggression."-from the IntroductionOmer Bartov, a leading scholar of the Wehrmacht and the Holocaust, provides a critical analysis of various recent ways to understand the genocidal policies of the Nazi regime and the reconstruction of German and Jewish identities in the wake of World War II. Germany's War and the Holocaust both deepens our understanding of a crucial period in history and serves as an invaluable introduction to the vast body of literature in the field of Holocaust studies.Drawing on his background as a military historian to probe the nature of German warfare, Bartov considers the postwar myth of army resistance to Hitler and investigates the image of Blitzkrieg as a means to glorify war, debilitate the enemy, and hide the realities of mass destruction. The author also addresses several new analyses of the roots and nature of Nazi extermination policies, including revisionist views of the concentration camps. Finally, Bartov examines some paradigmatic interpretations of the Nazi period and its aftermath: the changing American, European, and Israeli discourses on the Holocaust; Victor Klemperer's view of Nazi Germany from within; and Germany's perception of its own victimhood.

Vivid, succinct, and highly accessible, Heinrich Winkler's magisterial history of modern Germany offers the history of a nation and its people through... two turbulent centuries. It is the story of a country that, while always culturally identified with the West, long resisted the political trajectories of its neighbors.This first volume (of two) begins with the origins and consequences of the medieval myth of the "Reich," which was to experience a fateful renaissance in the twentieth century, and ends with the collapse of the first German democracy. Winkler offers a brilliant synthesis of complex events and illuminates them with fresh insights. He analyses the decisions that shaped the country's triumphs and catastrophes, interweaving high politics with telling vignettes about the German people and their own self-perception.With a second volume that takes the story up to reunification in 1990, Germany: The Long Road West will be welcomed by scholars, students, and anyone wishing to understand this most complex and contradictory of countries.

Vivid, succinct, and highly accessible, Heinrich Winkler's magisterial history of modern Germany offers the history of a nation and its people through... two turbulent centuries. It is the story of a country that, while always culturally identified with the West, long resisted the political trajectories of its neighbors. This second and final volume begins at the collapse of the first German democracy and ends with the joining of East and West Germany in the reunification of 1990. Winkler offers a brilliant synthesis of complex events and illuminates them with fresh insights. He analyzes the decisions that shaped the country's triumphs and catastrophes, interweaving high politics with telling vignettes about the German people.These two volumes are suitable for scholars, students, and anyone wishing to explore the complex, contradictory past of this facinating land.

Did you know that more Germans have immigrated to the United States than any other ethnic group?While German culture is rich in its own traditions and... history, Americans still tend to see German culture as similar to their own until they experience it firsthand. In his book, Germany: Unraveling an Enigma, Greg Nees seeks to highlight the background and customs of this fascinating group of people.As it turns out, Germans spend a great amount of time discussing their puzzling heritage and culture; in fact, discussing and debating almost anything is one of their favorite pastimes, and with Germany, Americans can begin to understand and unravel German culture as well. The book includes a review of modern German history, major German cultural themes and their relationship to German communication patterns, and it also looks to the future, piecing together a picture of twenty-first century Germany.Germany: Unraveling an Enigma will be welcomed by anyone interested in Germany or German culture. It can be especially valuable for students, managers, and others living in Germany, along with anyone else wishing to understand the dynamics of cross-cultural interaction between Germans and Americans.Germany: Unraveling an Enigma is a concise guide for any teacher who needs a course outline to teach topics in German culture in order to prepare students for a study abroad program or an internship in Germany.-Kerstin Somerholter, University of Texas at Austin, Die Unterrichtspraxis ReviewContentsTo the ReaderAcknowledgments1 Introduction2 Who Are the Germans?3 Major German Cultural Themes4 German Communication Patterns5 The German Social Market Economy6 Building Better Business Relationships7 Wertewandel: Creation of a New German Identity?Appendix: Statistical Comparison of Germany and the United StatesGlossary of German TermsReferences and Further ReadingsIndex