The contributors of this volume seek to answer such questions as: 'How did the Germans overcome 'Germanic Ideology', or did they?' 'Why is there no libertarianism in Germany?' 'What do German conservatives wish to conserve?'. Emphasizing shared patterns of thought, the contributors trace the contours of political thought in a divided nation with a difficult past, and ion the shadow of the culture and political values of the United States.

"Today, there is no shortage of serious academic studies of German intellectual, cultural, and political life leading up to the Second World War. There has been, however, a strange silence in the anglophone world about Germany's post-war development and, consequently, there is great ignorance about the ways in which Germany has changed. This volume is an excellent introduction to the political thought and culture of post-war Germany and provides necessary background for understanding what role that important country might play in European and world politics."

• Mark Lilla, Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago

"The editor has assembled a fine collection of essays that succeeds impressively on two levels: It explores the re-emergence of engaged political discourse in a country recovering from the systematic abuse of political thinking, and it advances our understanding of modern ideologies as complex, subtle and flexible fields of meaning."

• Michael Freeden, Mansfield College, Oxford University

"Jan-Werner Mueller is in the top flight of a small number of scholars who have brought to bear the perspectives of the 'new intellectual history' upon the analysis of postwar Germany. German Ideologies since 1945 assembles a distinguished group of historians who are all firmly committed to putting intellectual discourses and debates into the larger socio-political landscape of the Federal Republic since the defeat of Nazism. Whileleftist political thought, Critical Theory, and the impact of the radical 1960s and 1970s are illuminatingly covered by internationally known authors, the contributions on the evolution of post-Nazi conservatism fill a particularly large gap in our knowledge of technocratic and New Right ideologies and make this a truly outstanding collection both in terms of its comprehensiveness and its intellectual cohesion."

• V. R. Berghahn, Seth Low Professor of History, Columbia University

Autorentext
JAN-WERNER MÜLLER is a Fellow in the Department of Political Science at All Souls College, University of Oxford.

Inhalt
Introduction: Putting German Political Thought in Context; J.W.Müller PART 1: THE TRANSFORMATION OF GERMAN POLITICAL THOUGHT IN THE POST-WAR PERIOD Restoring the German Spirit: Humanism and Guilt in Post-War Germany; A.Rabinbach Normative Westernization?: The Impact of Remigres on the Formation of Political Thought in Post-War Germany; A.Söllner Habermas's Reconstruction of West German Law and the Sozialstaat Controversy; J.P.McCormick The Westernization of the Political Thought of the West German Labour Movement; J.Angster PART 2: CRITICAL THEORY AND THE LEGACIES OF 1968 Post-War Ideologies and the Body Politics of 1968; D.Herzog 1968 as Event, Milieu and Ideology; J.W.Müller PART 3: GERMAN CONSERVATISM: FROM TECHNOCRATIC CONSERVATISM TO THE NEW RIGHT From the Conservative Revolution to Technocratic Conservatism; D.van Laak German Neo-Conservatism, c.1968 to 1985: Hermann Lübbe and Others; J.Muller From National Identity to National Interest: The Rise (and Fall) of Germany's New Right; J.W.Müller PART 4: GERMAN REPUBLICANISM AND THE POLITICS OF RECOGNITION A Tolerant Republic; R.Forst The Many Faces of the Republic; W.A.Barbieri