Divided in unity : identity, Germany, and the Berlin police /

Impressively well versed in the major works of social, anthropological, and political theory, Glaeser has written another exploration of the phenomenon that has been at the center of the postreunification debate over national identity in Germany, namely why Willy Brandt's euphoric prediction at the fall of the Berlin Wall, "what belongs together will now grow together," has not come true. Germans found quickly that 40 years of different acculturation had divided nationals in East and West far more deeply than they had expected. Glaeser (sociology, Univ. of Chicago) looks at that issue through interviews with former East and West Berlin police officers, who are now joined in one city police force. Like many who made their life in the East, former East German police officers feel deeply injured because their entire past commitments and careers have been devalued. Glaeser shows special sympathy toward these "victims of unification," generally accepting their tales rather uncritically and tending to blame callous actions by the Western "victors." He casts the story into the highly specialized social science discourse of "identity," "otherness," and related concepts, which enriches the ethnographic discourse but does not greatly add to understanding the plight of former East Germans or the "Wall in the heads" in Germany. Graduate, faculty. D. Prowe; Carleton College