Customer Reviews

Unchained Eagle: Germany after the Wall

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This is one of the best books I have encountered in some time when it comes to explaining what has happened in Germany since unification. The author avoids polemics and writes with the kind of fluidity and clarity that one expects from a long-time journalist. I am especially interested in the east and how it has succeeded in integrating (or non-integrating) with the west. In this regard, the authors discussion in chapter 10 and 12 of how the Ossis (and Wessis) have reacted to Germany's unification is excellent. He explains the economic problems with a clarity that I have seldom seen by specialists writing on what can be one of the most tedious subjects around. Heneghan's discussion of the Euro as it impacted on Germany is also outstanding. Again, in a few words, he explains a very complicated subject from the German perspective. All in all, this book is a welcome addition to anyone's library. It could be used in the classroom, but more importantly it provides an incisive introduction to the nature of German politics during the last ten years. My only complaint is that he didn't say more about the east. But this is an unfair criticism, one I hate as a writer -- "Why didn't you write a different book." My only reason for saying this that his insights to the East are so good and so to the point, that I would have liked more on the subject. In any case, any one who claims to be a specialist or an expert on Germany must read this book and keep it handy as a reference book. Dale R. Herspring Professor of Political Science Kansas State University

In pure journalistic style, Tom Heneghan has put together a thoroughly readable and insightful account of the events leading towards, and then away from the moment of German Reunification. For the lay person, which I claim to be, it will open eyes and minds. The resolution of these issues, with all the political intrigue surrounding them, is frankly, the stuff of a thriller, not a history book or political commentary. Heneghan does a great job of sticking to the facts: economic, political, etc., yet one comes away with an appreciation for how these facts fit together into the larger picture. It is the work of a skilled craftsman. I think the book also is an important one for Germany. Although it respectfully addresses the issues of Nazism, the Holocaust and the totalitarian past of the country, it most successfully points the reader towards seeing Germany as a "normal" country. This is an important issue for all Germans, and for a new generation with little first-hand knowledge of the saddest period in human history. One can now point to the Reunification process as a time when Germany said yes, openly, strongly, to the world community. It certainly has taken its place responsibly and with dignity. This is a great book, and I highly recommend it to students, teachers and to anyone who wants to see and understand where Germany is headed in the 21st Century. Pat Bianculli New York

In the years and decades ahead, scholars from various disciplines will be writing many heavyweight histories about the huge complexity of issues involved during Germany's reunification process in the last decade of the 20th Century. For those readers who don't want to wait, then Tom Heneghan's book is an outstanding short-cut toward grasping what a turbulent decade this turned out to be, with all the challenges and changes it demanded of German leaders and society as a whole. Heneghan is a first-rate observer. He is concise and accurate in giving the larger picture of the social, economic and political - both internal and foreign - issues during and after reunification. But he also has an eye for the small telling details about how average Germans, east and west, had to scramble to try to understand how their country - and its role in Europe and beyond - was so rapidly changing before their own eyes. One might not agree with every point in Mr. Heneghan's book, but I think that he was right on-target with the underlying theme: that modern Germany has fully grasped the lessons of its recent dark history - Hitler and the Holocaust, the communist dictatorship in the east, the Cold War division - to become, finally, a normal country. In the future, the academics and historians writing about Germany's reunification decade will most likely find themselves referring again and again to Mr. Heneghan's book for pointers.

Tom Heneghan's "UNCHAINED EAGLE" is the first-rate teaching book on contemporary Germany that many of us have been looking for. It is an excellent summary of Germany since unification, well-informed and engagingly written. It is a combination of authoritative writing and accessibility.

This is a riveting story about the dramatic happy ending to the 20th century in the European country that did most to shape it. Taking over as Reuters bureau chief for Germany in 1989, American reporter Tom Heneghan soon became an eye witness to the tearing down of the iron curtain and a well-connected chronicler of the fast paced events that are still shaping Europe and the West. With his eye for relevancy and concise reporting skills, Heneghan provides both scholars and the general public with a fascinating story and a shrewd analysis of Germany's ongoing struggle to find the right place for its past and a prosperous future in harmony with its neighbors. The biggest bump on the road to the future - reunification - rattled the country's snug position as Europe's economic growth engine in a caravan led by French and British political visions and a shotgun-riding US military. The author guides us through these developments with the familiarity of an insider and a balanced view honed through years of living and working in a variety of countries and cultures. He enlivens the story with behind-the-scenes anecdotes of the domestic and international schmoozing and scrapping that surrounded the changes he documents. Astute observations such as the tendency of German and Anglo/American post war baby boomers to draw different lessons from history (intolerance of war vs. intolerance of aggression) help us understand where today's generation of German leaders are coming from.

As a new US administration faces a Europe less in need of the old NATO protective canopy, and a more self-assured Germany asserts itself within that new Europe, the implication for future transatlantic ties should be of interest to more than just foreign policy buffs. Americans who grew up on a steady diet of WW II books and movies will find Heneghan's updated German story gripping as well as enlightening.