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kshannahan26's review against another edition
Too much jumping around of new characters to feel immersed in their lives and stories. Hard to understand their world
lycanjamie's review
5.0
I would say I have read and researched widely on East Germany, including writing an academic essay based on art and counterculture within, so I am always interested to read new accounts of the former country.
I was hesitant of the book while reading at first, maybe throughout the first 50-100 pages or so which detail the formation of East Germany and describes a lot of information regarding the Soviet Union, which I felt to be heavy-handed and less competent than the rest of the book.
The main body of the work I thought was good, and although not exactly new (especially within recent years where Western popular research and writing on the DDR seems to be relaxing from the idea of it only being a 'Stasi-state hellhole'), it is interesting to read.
As it covers the entire lifespan of the country, it is more of a general overview on many different factors of regular and political life, which perhaps explains why I found a lot of different paths left unexplored or unmentioned such as the rise in Nazi youth as counterculture, writing circles, East-West relations within the public, etc.
Hoyer also describes a lot of information through introducing stories from East Germans, which we have already seen done within Born in the GDR by Hester Vaizey published in 2014. Some people seem to be critical of this technique but I think it's a good way of contextualising information to a wider audience.
I think this book is best for someone who is unfamiliar with East Germany history, perhaps while also being accompanied by a reliable book that describes more on the workings of the State Security as to get a more balanced overview of the DDR, which is much more complex than simply being either a socialist paradise or stifling police state.
I was hesitant of the book while reading at first, maybe throughout the first 50-100 pages or so which detail the formation of East Germany and describes a lot of information regarding the Soviet Union, which I felt to be heavy-handed and less competent than the rest of the book.
The main body of the work I thought was good, and although not exactly new (especially within recent years where Western popular research and writing on the DDR seems to be relaxing from the idea of it only being a 'Stasi-state hellhole'), it is interesting to read.
As it covers the entire lifespan of the country, it is more of a general overview on many different factors of regular and political life, which perhaps explains why I found a lot of different paths left unexplored or unmentioned such as the rise in Nazi youth as counterculture, writing circles, East-West relations within the public, etc.
Hoyer also describes a lot of information through introducing stories from East Germans, which we have already seen done within Born in the GDR by Hester Vaizey published in 2014. Some people seem to be critical of this technique but I think it's a good way of contextualising information to a wider audience.
I think this book is best for someone who is unfamiliar with East Germany history, perhaps while also being accompanied by a reliable book that describes more on the workings of the State Security as to get a more balanced overview of the DDR, which is much more complex than simply being either a socialist paradise or stifling police state.