As much as any other nation, Germany has long been understood in terms of totalizing narratives. For Anglo-American observers in particular, the legacies of two world wars still powerfully define twentieth-century German history, whether through the lens of Nazi-era militarism and racial hatred or the nations emergence as a model postwar industrial democracy. This volume transcends such common categories, bringing together transatlantic studies that are unburdened by the ideological and methodological constraints of previous generations of scholarship. From American perceptions of the Kaiserreich to the challenges posed by a multicultural Europe, it argues forand exemplifiesan approach to German Studies that is nuanced, self-reflective, and holistic.

Harald Wenzel is Professor of Sociology at the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies of the Freie Universität Berlin. His research focuses on sociological theory, the sociology of mass media, religion, and catastrophes. Publications includeDie Abenteuer der Kommunikation: Echtzeitmassenmedien und der Handlungsraum der Hochmoderne andGeorge Herbert Mead zur Einführung.

Preface
Karin Goihl

Introduction
Konrad Jarausch and Harald Wenzel

PART I: RESPONSES TO MODERNITY

Chapter 1. A Modern Reich? American Perceptions of Wilhelmine Germany, 1890-1914
Scott H. Krause

Chapter 2. The Dual Training System: The Southwests Contributions to German Economic Development
Hal Hansen

Chapter 3. The German Forest as an Emblem of Germanys Ambivalent Modernity
Jeffrey K. Wilson

Chapter 4. Health as a Public Good: The Positive Legacies ofVolksgesundheit
Annette F. Timm

PART II: DEMOCRATIC TRANSFORMATION

Chapter 5. Antifascist Heroes and Nazi Victims: Myth-making and Political Reorientation in Berlin, 1945-1947
Clara M. Oberle

Chapter 6. The Pen is Mightier Than the Sword?: Student Newspapers and Democracy in Postwar West Germany
Brian M. Puaca

Chapter 7. Human Rights, Pluralism and the Democratization of Post-War Germany
Ned Richardson-Little

Chapter 8. African Students and Racial Ambivalence in the GDR during the 1960s
Sara Pugach

PART III: SEARCHING FOR A NEW MODEL

Chapter 9. The German Model in Renewable Energy Development
Carol Hager

Chapter 10. Germanys Approach to the Financial Crisis: A Product of Ordo-Liberalism?
Mark K. Cassell

Chapter 11. Dreams of Divided Berlin: Postmigrant Perspectives on German Nationhood inDie Schwäne vom Schlachthof
Jeffrey Jurgens

PART IV: GLOBAL IMPLICATIONS

Chapter 12. Inventing the German Film as Foreign Film: The Origins of a Fraught Transatlantic Exchange
Sara F. Hall

Chapter 13. Atlantic Transfers of Critical Theory: Alexander Kluge and the U.S. in Fiction
Matthew D. Miller

Chapter 14. Nation and Memory: Redemptive and Reflective Cosmopolitanism in Contemporary Germany
Michael Meng

Bibliography
Index