Abstract
This chapter addresses the “surprise” that 1989–1991 presented for the author himself and a wide range of social actors, and the challenges for the transformation of curricula and educational programmes in the unified German academic institutions. Apart from the evaluating the surprise factor and replying to the question what was new and what was old from a historical distance, Kocka assesses the role of history and political science in the “German unification crisis”. In addition, the chapter illuminates the most important shifts and boundaries in historiographical thought in the light of historical breaks and discusses the limits to prognosis for historians in any exceptional event.
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Kocka, J. (2017). 1989/91 as a Caesura in the Study of History: A Personal Retrospective. In: Burchardt, M., Kirn, G. (eds) Beyond Neoliberalism. Approaches to Social Inequality and Difference. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45590-7_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45590-7_15
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