Postcolonial Germany: Memories of Empire in a Decolonized Nation (Oxford Historical Monographs) - Hardcover

Schilling, Britta

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198703465 ISBN 13: 9780198703464

Verlag: OUP Oxford, 2014

Über diesen Titel

Críticas:

Britta Schilling has produced a highly readable and informative study, which is at once breathtaking in scope and swift in style, especially for a doctoral thesis. Effortlessly, she takes the reader through almost a century of German history and memory production without succumbing to superficiality or truisms. Instead, she carefully evaluates the evidence at her disposal and provides a fresh approach to historical memory studies by focusing on material culture and the complicated interplay of public and private memory. Her combination of historical scholarship with insights from anthropology and cultural studies ... deserves great merit. (Fabian Krautwald, H-Soz-u-Kult)

Her [Schilling's] in-depth study is a most valuable contribution to the development of the vital field of the memory of German colonialism and will doubtless trigger further research. (Dr Monika Albrecht, Reviews in History)

Schilling's book reflects scholars' growing interest in Germany's colonial history. The book is clear and concise in its argument and includes interesting illustrations such as German advertisements and family photos of everyday life in the colonies. It is ideal for the professional historian, student or anyone with an interest in colonial history and memory. It draws on original source material and provides the reader with stimulating and persuasive analysis. (Rachel O'Sullivan, History)

an important and timely study ... It has the great merit of reminding many readers, or perhaps even informing them for the first time, that Germany had a colonial past and that its legacy lives on in many different forms and material shapes, even if contemporary decision-makers would often like to ignore this fact. (Marie Muschalek, Bulletin: German Historical Institute)

an excellent study ... Historians of twentieth-century Germany, as well as International Relations scholars focusing on Germany's relationship with the wider world, will find much to reflect on in this book. Britta Schilling's work will, one hopes, mark the beginning of a wider reassessment of the historical legacy of Germany's colonial adventure as well as its relationship with countries which were once intended to be stepping-stones to a global empire. (Alexander Clarkson, English Historical Review)

Schilling's work will appeal to scholars interested in the evolution of memory studies as well as those focusing on how the colonial question was answered in Europe after the age of empire. It is easy, when thinking about how to integrate this scholarship into one's teaching, to imagine lectures about the Cold War being enriched by her insights into the public relations maneuvers of the German states as they sought to win the affections of former colonies. (Jared Poley, American Historical Review)

Reseña del editor:

At the end of the First World War, Germany appeared to have lost everything: the lives of millions of soldiers and civilians, control over borderland territories, and, above all, a sense of national self-worth in the international political arena. But it also lost almost three million square kilometres of land overseas in the form of colonies and concessions in Africa, China, and the Pacific. Allied powers declared Germany unfit to rule over overseas populations, and it was forcibly decolonized. It thus became the first 'postcolonial' European nation that had participated in the 'new imperialism' of the modern era.

The end of colonialism was the beginning of a memory culture that has been remarkably long-lived and dynamic. Postcolonial Germany traces the evolution of the collective memory of German colonialism, stretching from the loss of the colonies across the eras of National Socialism, national division, and the Cold War to the present day. It shows to what extent this memory was intimately bound to objects of material culture in the former colonial metropole, such as tropical fruit sold at colonial balls, state gifts handed to the former colonies at independence, and ethnological items kept as family heirlooms.

The study draws on a wide range of sources, including popular literature, oral history, and previously unexplored archival holdings. It marks an important shift in historical methodology, considering the significance of both material culture and private memories in constructing accounts of the past. Above all, it raises important questions about the public responsibilities of postcolonial nations and governments in Europe and their relationship to the private legacies of colonialism.

Über diese Auflage

• Verlag: OUP Oxford
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0198703465
• ISBN 13: 9780198703464
• Einband: Tapa dura
• Anzahl der Seiten: 274