This book addresses key issues in the historical struggle for civil rights, political rights, and social rights in the United States and Germany from the late nineteenth century to the present. The essays address issues such as the struggle for the rights of women and minorities (including African Americans, Jews, and Asians), National Socialism and the dismantling of civil rights, and the emergence of the concept of social rights. What becomes clear are the unique features that distinguish German from American history and that these differences have been created by both social movements and...

This collection addresses, in a comprehensive and critical fashion, fundamental issues in the history of medicine in modern Germany and considers the nature of modern German government and society in relation to Western social, political, and economic development. The central focus is on the professionalization of modern medicine and the medicalization of modern society. The problem of Nazi Germany is a recurring theme. Other topics include: hospitals in early nineteenth century society, Social Darwinism, state-run health insurance, eugenics, social control, Nazi experimentation, and the...

After many years of neglect and misplaced criticism by contemporary activists, historians and the media, Berg restores the NAACP to its rightful place at the heart of the civil rights movement. Where others have dismissed the NAACP s goals and methods as half-hearted, ineffective and irrelevant, Berg challenges the legalistic and bureaucratic image of the NAACP and reveals a resourceful, dynamic, and politically astute organization that did much to open up the electoral process to greater black participation.Readers interested in the African American freedom struggle will find a nuanced and...

Focusing on the NAACP's campaign for voting rights, Manfred Berg challenges the legalistic and bureaucratic image of the NAACP and reveals a resourceful, dynamic, and politically astute organization that did much to open up the electoral process to greater black participation."

Manfred Berg behandelt konzise und kompetent die "klassischen" Themen der US-Geschichte: Kulturkontakt und Konflikt mit den Ureinwohnern, die Westexpansion, die Sklaverei, Rassenbeziehungen und ethnische Vielfalt, die Einwanderung, den religiosen Pluralismus, die Grundung und Entwicklung der foderalen Republik, die Ausbildung der Demokratie, die Entwicklung der modernen Industrie- und Konsumgesellschaft sowie den Aufstieg zur globalen Supermacht.

The study of lynching in US history has become a well-developed area of scholarship. However, scholars have rarely included comparative or transnational perspectives when studying the American case, although lynching and communal punishment have occurred in most societies throughout history.

This book makes a valuable contribution to recent debates on redress for historical injustices by offering case studies from nine countries on five continents. The contributors examine the problems of material restitution, criminal justice, apologies, recognition, memory, and reconciliation in national contexts as well as in comparative perspective. Among the topics discussed are the claims for reparations for slavery in the United States, West German restitution for the Holocaust, the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the efforts to prosecute the perpetrators of the Khmer...

The U.S. South is a distinctive political and cultural force-not only in the eyes of Americans, but also in the estimation of many Europeans. The region played a distinctive role as a major agricultural center and the source of much of the wealth in early America, but it has also served as a catalyst for the nation's only civil war, and later, as a battleground in violent civil rights conflicts. Once considered isolated and benighted by the international community, the South has recently evoked considerable interest among popular audiences and academic observers on both sides of the Atlantic....

The study of lynching in US history has become a well-developed area of scholarship. However, scholars have rarely included comparative or transnational perspectives when studying the American case, although lynching and communal punishment have occurred in most societies throughout history.