Customer Reviews

German Intellectuals and the Nazi Past

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This book does some very good, careful work examining the dominant currents of thought that have shaped the politics of the post-World War 2 West Germany and, in a less detailed fashion, the unified republic that followed. A. Dirk Moses's account of those currents in the 50s, 60s, and 70s is particularly persuasive, and I very much appreciate the finely-wrought analysis he does of the major thinkers of this era on all sides of the debates, as well as the major issues. But reading what felt more like a sketch of the 80s, 90s, and the first few years of this century at this particularly confusing, worrisome moment (the end of 2011), it becomes obvious that we will need a few more decades until a comparable treatment of German intellectual history from, say, the Historikerstreit forwards can be written.