Lothar kettenacker biography of albert king

Lothar Kettenacker.

Lothar kettenacker biography of albert king: Albert's project of a match between

Germany Since Those of us who have taught courses in European history since the Second World War have had cause to bemoan the lack of affordable, accessible texts, so naturally Lothar Kettenacker's new history of Germany since raises expectations and hopes. At first glance this seems a comprehensive, affordable book, priced at about fifteen dollars, complete with excellent maps, lots of tables and statistics, a detailed chronology and an attractive cover.

While Germany Since contains a considerable amount of useful information, my own feeling is that for the most part Kettenacker has missed an opportunity to write a truly significant book. Part of the problem concerns the author's approach: this book is high politics, and high politics with a vengeance. Most of Kettenacker's discussion of what has happened politically in Germany over the past half century is restricted to the deliberations of a handful of those at the very top.

The first five chapters of the book, dealing with Allied occupation, the split between the two republics, foreign policy, economics and the constitutional framework, all follow this line. It is not necessarily a wrong approach especially given the spectacular political apathy amongst Germans in the West after , but readers might wish that the author had done something to make historical figures such as Konrad Adenauer or Helmut Schmidt come to life.

We learn, for example, that Adenauer was actually an avuncular sort of chap who had a wry sense of humour, but there are no anecdotes or stories that might animate this portrait. Kettenacker also focuses overwhelmingly on events, such as they were, in the Federal Republic, and this may have been the wrong choice. Oddly, the one spot in the first half of the book where Kettenacker's prose really comes to life can be found on pages fifty to fifty-two, during a discussion of the East German uprising of July