The War in Our Backyard

The War in Our Backyard
Author: Margit V. Wunsch Gaarmann
Publisher: Neofelis Verlag
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2015-02-18
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3958080561

The War in Our Backyard is a novel study of the German press' textual and visual coverage of the wars in Bosnia (1992–1995) and Kosovo (1998–1999). Key moments from both wars have been selected and analysed using a broad range of publications reaching from far-right to far-left and including broadsheets, a tabloid and a news magazine. Two sections with parallel chapters form the core of the book: the first part dealing with the war in Bosnia and the second with Kosovo. Each section contains one chapter on the initial phase of the conflict, one chapter on an important atrocity – namely the Srebrenica Massacre in Bosnia and the Račak incident in Kosovo – and, lastly, a chapter each on the international involvement which ended the immediate violence. The book examines how the various events were covered, what sources were used and what insights these examples of the German press conveyed. Special attention has been paid to four key themes, which emerged from the research. Firstly, the changing perceptions of the Serbian President Slobodan Miloševic and the issue of who was to blame for the conflicts; secondly, how various armed forces, including the Yugoslav Peoples' Army and the Kosovo Liberation Army were presented in the German press; thirdly, the persistent presence of the Second World War and the Holocaust in the coverage of the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo and how they shaped the press' interpretation of the violence; and lastly, how Germany's role in the Balkans – both in the realms of diplomacy and military intervention – was evaluated by the national press. Pictures and cartoons accompanying the textual coverage have been included to present a more rounded picture of press coverage.

The Return of the Cold War

The Return of the Cold War
Author: J. L. Black
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2016-04-14
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 131740954X

This book examines the crisis in Ukraine, tracing its development and analysing the factors which lie behind it. It discusses above all how the two sides have engaged in political posturing, accusations, escalating sanctions and further escalating threats, arguing that the ease with which both sides have reverted to a Cold War mentality demonstrates that the Cold War belief systems never really disappeared, and that the hopes raised in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union for a new era in East-West relations were misplaced. The book pays special attention to the often ignored origins of the crisis within Ukraine itself, and the permanent damage caused by the fact that Ukrainians are killing Ukrainians in the eastern parts of the country. It also assesses why Cold War belief systems have re-emerged so easily, and concludes by considering the likely long-term ramifications of the crisis, arguing that the deep-rooted lack of trust makes the possibility of compromise even harder than in the original Cold War.

Germany and the Use of Force

Germany and the Use of Force
Author: Kerry Longhurst
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2004
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780719067082

In this study of German security policy after Iraq, Kerry Longhurst considers the evolution of Germany's peculiar approach to the use of force after the Cold War through the conceptual prism of strategic culture.

Joschka Fischer and the Making of the Berlin Republic

Joschka Fischer and the Making of the Berlin Republic
Author: Paul Hockenos
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2007-12-21
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0190292830

Over the course of his long and controversial career, Joschka Fischer evolved from an archetypal 1960s radical--a firebrand street activist--into a shrewd political insider, operating at the heights of German politics. In the 1980s he was one of the first elected Greens and went on to become Germany's foreign minister from 1998 to 2005. His famous challenge to Donald Rumsfeld's case for invading Iraq--"Excuse me, I am not convinced"--won him worldwide recognition, and the Bush administration's contempt. Here is both a lively biography of Joschka Fischer and a gripping history 'from below'of postwar Germany. Paul Hockenos begins in the ruins of postwar Germany and guides us through the flashpoints of the late sixties and seventies, from the student protests and the terrorism of the Baader-Meinhof group to the evolution of Europe's premier Green party, and brings us up to the present in the united Germany. He shows how the grassroots movements that became the German Greens challenged and changed the republic's status quo, making postwar Germany more democratic, liberal and worldly along the way. Despite the ideological twists and turns of Fischer and his peers, the lessons of the Holocaust and the Nazi terror remained their constant coordinates. Hockenos traces that political journey, providing readers with unique insight into the impact that these movements and the Greens have had on Germany. Informed by hundreds of interviews with key figures and fellow travelers, Joschka Fischer and the Making of the Berlin Republic presents readers with one of the most intriguing personalities on the European scene, and paints a rich picture of the rebellious generation of 1968 that became the political elite of modern Germany.

After Hitler

After Hitler
Author: Konrad Hugo Jarausch
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 394
Release: 2008
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0195374002

After Hitler seeks to explain the breathtaking transformation of the Germans from the defeated National Socialist accomplices and Holocaust perpetrators of 1945 to the civilized, democratic, and prosperous people of today, living in a reunited country that plays a leading role in the integration of Europe.

Germany: 1933-1990

Germany: 1933-1990
Author: Heinrich August Winkler
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
Total Pages: 698
Release: 2006
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199265984

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.

Reluctance in World Politics

Reluctance in World Politics
Author: Sandra Destradi
Publisher: Policy Press
Total Pages: 235
Release: 2023-07-31
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1529230268

Why do international actors, including powerful states, often fail to develop clear foreign policies and instead adopt indecisive, ‘muddling-through’ approaches? This book develops a concept and a theory of reluctance in world politics. Applying it to the study of regional crisis management by leading powers, it finds that reluctance emerges when governments fail to devise clear foreign policy preferences and face competing international pressures. The study of reluctance in world politics sheds new light on some of the most pressing problems of our time, from weak crisis management to cooperation deficits in global governance.

Violence Elsewhere 2

Violence Elsewhere 2
Author: Dr Clare Bielby
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2024-11-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 1640141375

Examines ideas of violence in German culture after 9/11 through the lens of "violence elsewhere" - exploring works and discourses about violence in distant locations or times. Following the Nazi era, the Holocaust, and the Second World War, in postwar Germany thinking or speaking about that extreme violence seemed distinctively difficult - even perhaps, at times, impossible. Yet we can learn about understandings of violence in this period in novel ways by exploring images and constructions in German culture of faraway violence, as shown in the recent volume Violence Elsewhere 1: Imagining Distant Violence in Germany, 1945-2001. As of September 11, 2001, violence came to appear transnationally, spectacularly mobile in new ways. Consequently, Violence Elsewhere 2 explores ideas about "violence elsewhere" in German-language culture since 2001. Here, "elsewhere" can mean not only distant places; it may also be violence perceived as foreign, or in the past. Simultaneously, this work suggests that the idea of 9/11 as a watershed in thinking about violence is more complex than meets the eye. Here, nine essays consider classic literary forms like poetry and prose fiction, from the short story to the intergenerational German family novel to Black feminist speculative fiction. Contributors examine, too, philosophy, performance and multimedia art, political and other forms of public discourse, and film. Topics include, amongst others, the "war on terror," slow environmental violence, the Armenian genocide, portrayals of refugees and migrants, legacies of colonial violence, space travel, and the persistent resonance of the German past. Contributors: Sofía Forchieri, Susanne C. Knittel, Marie Kolkenbrock, Priscilla Layne, Joanne Leal, Francesca Lewis, Frauke Matthes, Lizzie Stewart, Nicola Thomas, and Kathrin Wunderlich. This book is available as Open Access under the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND.

Krieg in den Medien

Krieg in den Medien
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 459
Release: 2016-08-09
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9401202303

Wie Kriege dargestellt werden, hat Einfluss auf die Kriegsführung. Das gilt nicht erst für die elektronischen Waffengänge moderner Zeitrechnung. Mit dem Zweiten Golfkrieg aber, so eine gängige Lesweise, hat sich die Wahrnehmung von Kriegen selbst verändert. Was wird perzipiert, was bleibt außen vor, was geht unter in der Flut an Informationen? Nachrichten über Kriege sind immer ungleich auf Interessenlagen bezogen. In den Blick gerät, was Medien verbreiten. Andere Kriege existieren in der Realität, aber nicht im Bewusstsein von Zeitgenossen weltweit. Fiktionale Verarbeitungen von Kriegen können, anders und intensiver als die Nachricht, die Gewalt reflektieren, sie einordnen, ihr Sinn geben oder sie verwerfen. Sie sind Mittel oder Teil der kriegerischen Strategie und der Propaganda, können aber ebenso gut Gegenentwürfe anbieten zu den Gräueltaten, die sie repräsentieren. Weder Fiktionalität oder Information, noch die Art der medialen Umsetzung stellen, an sich betrachtet, eine Vorentscheidung dar, wie kritisch oder wie affirmativ Kriegshandlungen geschildert oder gedeutet werden. Der vorliegende Band zeigt diese grundsätzliche Ambivalenz in den großen, epochalen Umbrüchen der Mediendispositive und den inter- und transmedialen Wandlungen insgesamt. Er reflektiert sie anhand der Geschichte der Einzelmedien wie Fotografie und Malerei, Hörspiel, Tageszeitung, Essay, Internetforum oder Fernsehnachricht, an der Arbeit von PR-Agenturen oder in der fiktionalen Verarbeitung etwa im Comic. Krieg in den Medien bringt zudem Einzelanalysen und Autorenporträts in den Gattungen Roman, Poetikvorlesung, Spielfilm, Drama oder politisch-philosophische Theorie.