Atlantic Communications examines the historical development of communications technology and its impact on German-American relations from the 17th to the 20th century. Chronologically organized, the book is divided into five parts, each scrutinizing one or two central themes connected to the specific time period and technology involved. The book starts with speech as a dominant medium of the 17th and 18th centuries, when cultural brokers played a significant role in producing and spreading knowledge about America. During the 19th century, the technological competition between the old and the new world became a driving force for the history of transatlantic relations. This competition developed new dimensions with the invention of the telegraph and the emergence of news agencies. Information became commercialized. technologically possible. Print media, daily journals and especially weekly magazines became the medium of a critical style of journalism. The Muckrakers, representatives of a political and intellectual elite, criticized the social and cultural consequences of technological progress, thereby highlighting the negative effects of modernization. During the 1920s and 1930s, radio developed as a new mass medium, the first one to be used widely for political purposes. Not only did Josef Goebbels recognize the political possibilities of reaching the people directly via radio, Franklin Roosevelt used the radio as well to transmit his political messages in the form of fireside chats. to communicate the past, especially the historical experience of the Holocaust. Specific cultures of memory developed in both America and Germany. The demand to tackle the psychological and social problems stemming from the experiences during the Third Reich, advocated especially by the student movement, was most successfully taken up by the media. The television miniseries Holocaust had a far more profound impact on the public than efforts taken by school teachers, history professors or the institutions for political education who were officially in charge of Vergangenheitsbewaltigung.

"Historians and Nature" considers five cutting-edge questions facing environmental historians today. How can we historicize nature? Is nature a historical actor? How have human beings interacted with nature and what patterns have emerged? How do we understand the ecology of urban spaces? What is the history of environmental diplomacy? Focusing on the United States and Germany, the book takes a comparative approach in examining environmental history. The authors draw on a range of interdisciplinary perspectives, including history, cultural studies, human geography, biology and ecology. Case studies include Native Americans and their relationship to the environment, the California Gold Rush and the Coal Fields of the Ruhr Basin in the nineteenth century, the controversial building of dikes in seventeenth-century Germany, cleaning up modern cities, and the Greenpeace movement and the development of international environmental activism in the 1970s.

." . . a fine volume . . . that is theoretically/methodologically challenging and impressively scholarly . . . What impresses . . . is the delicate balance between sophisticated interdisciplinary approaches to the problem of 'enemy images' and the abundance of fascinating case studies . . . The most important periods in American history are covered by and large." Gnter Bischof, Eisenhower Center, University of New Orleans Ragnhild Fiebig-von Hase, University of Tbingen and Lecturer in American History at the University of Cologne. Ursula Lehmkuhl, Assistant Professor for International Relations at the University of Bochum.

Das Buch ist nach dem Vorbild amerikanischer Textbooks konzipiert, ein Genre, das auf dem deutschen Buchermarkt nach wie vor viel zu selten angeboten wird. Vorgestellt werden empirisch-analytische Theorien "mittlerer Reichweite" als Originaltexte. Eine theoriegeschichtliche Kontextualisierung, Erschliessungsfragen und Literaturhinweise erganzen die Primarquellen."

Experts from Canada, Germany and the United States discussed the most pressing and perhaps most controversial aspects of the trilateral and the respective bilateral relationship with a special focus on Canada, the "peaceable kingdom." This metaphor, describes Canada's foreign policy identity as a middle power promoting the concepts of collective security and peace-keeping: Should and can Canada fulfill a new role as mediator between the United States and Europe within NATO? How do current developments in European integration (ESDP) affect Canada and transatlantic security relations? What is the impact of September 11, 2001 on Ottawa's and Berlin's relations to the United States?

Das erste Jahrzehnt nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg stellt eine Phase dar, in der die Sonderbeziehungen zwischen Grossbritannien und den USA in vielerlei Hinsicht vor neuen Herausforderungen und Belastungsproben standen. Die Studie untersucht die facettenreiche "special relationship" in der Hochphase des Kalten Krieges und fragt danach, inwieweit die USA in der Asien- und Fernostpolitik in der Lage waren, die Ziele und Positionen der eigenen Gobalplanung gegenuber den konkurrierenden britischen Interessen durchzusetzen. Es zeigt sich, dass der Machtverlust, den Grossbritannien in wirtschaftlicher und militarischer Hinsicht durch den Zweiten Weltkrieg erlitten hatte, nicht mit einem Einflussverlust in der internationalen Politik gleichgesetzt werden darf."