Launching the Grand Coalition

by Langenbacher, Eric

• ISBN13: 9781845452834
• ISBN10: 1845452836
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-12-30
• Publisher: Berghahn Books

Summary

Although the early history of progressive education is often associated with John Dewey in America, the author argues convincingly that the pedagogues in the elementary schools in the big cities of Imperial Germany were in the avant garde of this movement on the European Continent. Far more than a history of ideas, this study provides the first comprehensive analysis of the culture wars over the schools in Germany in the 1920s. Going up to the Nazi seizure of power, the author's narrative sheds new light on the courageous defense of the republican state by the progressive educators in the 1930s and the relationship between the traditionalists'opposition to school reform and the attraction of certain sections of the teaching profession to the Nazi movement. Marjorie Lambertiis Charles A. Dana Professor of History at Middlebury College. Her publications include State, Society, and the Elementary School in Imperial Germany.

Table of Contents

Introduction : the drama of 2005 and the future of German politics	p. 1
The tipping point : the 2005 election and the deconsolidation of the German party system?	p. 13
The extraordinary Bundestag election of 2005 : the interplay of long-term trends and short-term factors	p. 29
The grand coalition : precedents and prospects	p. 49
From high hopes to on-going defeat : the new extreme right's political mobilization and its national electoral failure in Germany	p. 69
Angela Merkel : what does it mean to run as a woman?	p. 95
Merkel's EU policy : "Kohl's Madchen" or interest-driven politics?	p. 110
The change in government and transatlantic relations	p. 121
Honecker's revenge : the enduring legacy of German unification in the 2005 election	p. 136
From the outside in : Angela Merkel and the CDU	p. 150
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