Review
Zelikow and Rice have drawn on thousands of still-classified documents in the American archives. But their industry has not stopped there: to tell the Soviet and German sides of the story, they consulted the East German and Russian archives and interviewed a host of European leaders. The quality of their writing and the depth of their research ensure that their exemplary study will serve as the starting point for all future work on German foreign policy after the Cold War. (Jacob Heilbrunn New York Times Book Review)
[A]s a work of diplomatic history it is nothing short of monumental. By virtue of having been active participants in the innermost circle of American decision making...the authors offer us a gem of a study in two related ways. First they draw on a bevy of primary documents from U.S., Russian, and German sources that have hitherto eluded everybody else and which, alas, will remain, at least in part, elusive to mere mortals for years, maybe even decades. Second, to the authors' great credit, they have succeeded in harnessing the richness of their detailed data to write a veritable page-turner. Anyone interested in recent politics...will find reading this book a truly rewarding experience...Simply put, this book offers an insider's look at the innermost workings of the top elites of the United States, the Soviet Union, West Germany, East Germany, Britain, and France in the forging of a united Germany...Rather than a book of political science, one should see the Zelikow/Rice study as a fascinating play whose outcome one knows yet whose players one gets to meet only through the details of this study. (Andrei S. Markovits International Relations)
For the first time, the inside story--what the policymakers thought and did behind the scenes--is recounted by two participants, using interviews and secret documents...[The book] conveys the sweeping changes devised by a handful of leaders and their aides as they sought to capitalize on a rare, momentary acceleration of history. It also captures the candid exchanges among leaders about long-range fundamentals in Europe." (Joseph Fitchett International Herald Tribune)
The book is a rich quarry for contemporary historians...[The] accomplishment [of German reunification could not] have found more astute chroniclers than Zelikow and Rice...Germany Unified and Europe Transformed will for many years remain the definitive treatise on German reunification and on a brilliant chapter in the annals of American statecraft. Indeed, it will--or at least should--be read as a standard textbook. (Josef Joffe Foreign Affairs)
[This] book is remarkable indeed, and very exciting...This superb piece of contemporary historiography will be indispensable to all students of Germany's unification, and powerfully assists our understanding of how the Cold War ended and the `New Europe' of the 1990s came into being. (Roger Morgan International Affairs)
This is a remarkable book for a number of reasons. The first is because Philip Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice take a complex story--the peaceful reunification of Germany within the Western alliance--and turn it into a suspenseful, engaging, and illuminating account of successful statecraft...This book will long stand as the definitive account of a diplomatic success story. (Thomas Alan Schwartz American Historical Review)
An important behind-the-scenes account of how East Germany was folded into West Germany at breakneck speed--an event that precipitated the demise of the Soviet Union. The authors, both of whom served on the National Security Council in the Bush White House, persuasively argue that, far from being a passive bystander, the Bush Administration was actively involved in stage-managing the dénouement of the Cold War. They also argue that the historic opening of the Berlin Wall, in November 1989, was actually the result of a bureaucratic error. (New Yorker)
The book is full of fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpses and anecdotes that bring to life the tremendous problems and the personalities, many of whom are now part of history, involved in those momentous months of intense negotiations...[Zelikow and Rice] have produced a detailed yet highly readable and informative work that no student of international politics should miss. (John Taylor Political Studies)
Can nations learn from history? If so, why in [the case of German unification] and not in others? How could German unity be achieved at all, given a long-established (but rarely expressed) conviction among the influential that it could make 'everything' break down?...Those seeking answers to these questions have a new study to turn to, in many ways the best so far, written by Philip Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice on the unification of Germany and the various bilateral and multilateral negotiations that surrounded it...The authors were members of the National Security Council in the Bush administration, and thus participated directly in the decision-making process and diplomatic events surrounding German unification. Equally important, the book is based on the US government's 'official history'--traditionally composed after important negotiations--with its privileged access to all records of conversations, telegrams and Central Intelligence Agency documents. Zelikow wrote that history and was allowed to use it as the basis for this study, which he co-wrote after both he and Rice had interviewed many of the major actors involved and consulted governmental archives not only of the defunct German Democratic Republic but also of the Soviet Union, to which they were given access...The study is written in the best traditions of historical sociology. It analyzes negotiations and examines the motivations of governments, the role of individuals, and the internal economic, political and social situations. Overall, it provides fascinating reading and a welcome respite from the increasingly dull products of contemporary political science scholasticism in the US and Europe. (Karl Kaiser Survival)
A work of scholarship...written with the conviction and excitement which derive from direct involvement in the events described...Not the least illuminating aspect of Germany Unified is the light it throws on the respective contributions of politicians and of officials, in the US, Germany and elsewhere, to the drama...[E]ssential reading for anyone concerned with the conduct of foreign policy today...It is gratifying that events of this magnitude should have elicited a record of this quality. Read it. (Michael Alexander Royal United Services Institute Journal)
[I]t is the book's 'insideness', the extent to which the authors were not merely observers but participants in the negotiations, which gives it its value. The book is rich with quotations as well as anecdotal evidence. (Hugo Miller Historical Journal)
A valuable, highly readable contribution to the literature on German reunification. (Choice)
A remarkably complete history of the reunification of East and West Germany...The book is very well written and exhaustively researched. It may well become the standard account of a landmark event of 20th-century European history (Virginia Quarterly Review)
Point after point the two authors list, at every step supporting their assertions and interpretations with documents and interview material...The two show two kinds of insights into the events of the eleven months between the fall of the Wall and the conclusion of the '2+4' Treaty: First Zelikow and Rice succeed in pulling off, what most as a rule portray superficially or through colorful personality publications about the international dimension of German unity, a work of undeniably long, continuing value. Thereby they do not just settle for the saying, 'documents don't lie,' but always try again and again to cross-check their study of the documents and hard-won knowledge from their experience with interviews of the actors in the international negotiations. Second, Zelikow and Rice show clearly that accurate historical writing cannot just be done on the basis of memoirs...and newspaper articles. (Peter M. Wagner Die Welt)
In one of the most extraordinary accounts of contemporary diplomatic history, Zelikow and Rice, both on the National Security Council staff during the events they describe, use normally inaccessible records and interviews with many of the players to describe the unification of Germany, itself one of the most remarkable events of the postwar world...In its scope, insight, and suspense, this account sets a standard for the genre. (Kirkus Reviews)
This book is an exhaustive investigation into the delicate diplomatic maneuvering that led to the creation of a unified Germany in 1989-1990. The authors studied American, German, and Soviet documents and interviewed many key figures in the decision-making arena. The result is a detailed and fascinating account of behind-the-scenes discussions and deliberations. (Library Journal)
The study by Zelikow and Rice is a remarkable achievement. Both authors served on the National Security Council under President Bush and were active in shaping American policy in 1989 and 1990. They had unlimited access to all relevant State Department and White House documents. They also used, albeit to a far lesser extent, former East German and Soviet archival material while conducting numerous interviews with a variety of leading participants. As a result, the motives of non-American actors cannot be reconstructed with quite the same certainty as those of the Bush administration. Despite this qualification, Zelikow's and Rice's study is far superior to all previous work on the diplomacy of German reunification. Thanks to their early access to the documents, they are some twenty-five years ahead of the normal timetable for diplomatic histories, and their story is well-written and compelling throughout. (Thomas Maulucci H-German Book Review)
About the Author
Philip D. Zelikow is White Burkett Miller Professor of History at the University of Virginia.
Condoleezza Rice is Provost and Professor of Political Science, Stanford University.
