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Books > History > European history
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Sustainable Utopias - The Art and Politics of Hope in Germany (Hardcover)
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Sustainable Utopias - The Art and Politics of Hope in Germany (Hardcover)
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To reclaim a sense of hope for the future, German activists in the
late twentieth century engaged ordinary citizens in innovative
projects that resisted alienation and disenfranchisement. By most
accounts, the twentieth century was not kind to utopian thought.
The violence of two world wars, Cold War anxieties, and a
widespread sense of crisis after the 1973 global oil shock appeared
to doom dreams of a better world. The eventual victory of
capitalism and, seemingly, liberal democracy relieved some fears
but exchanged them for complacency and cynicism. Not, however, in
West Germany. Jennifer Allen showcases grassroots activism of the
1980s and 1990s that envisioned a radically different society based
on community-centered politics-a society in which the
democratization of culture and power ameliorated alienation and
resisted the impotence of end-of-history narratives. Berlin's
History Workshop liberated research from university confines by
providing opportunities for ordinary people to write and debate the
story of the nation. The Green Party made the politics of direct
democracy central to its program. Artists changed the way people
viewed and acted in public spaces by installing objects in
unexpected environments, including the Stolpersteine: paving
stones, embedded in residential sidewalks, bearing the names of
Nazi victims. These activists went beyond just trafficking in
ideas. They forged new infrastructures, spaces, and behaviors that
gave everyday people real agency in their communities. Undergirding
this activism was the environmentalist concept of sustainability,
which demanded that any alternative to existing society be both
enduring and adaptable. A rigorous but inspiring tale of hope in
action, Sustainable Utopias makes the case that it is still worth
believing in human creativity and the labor of citizenship.
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