After the Fall of the Wall: Life Courses in the Transformation of East Germany (Studies in Social Inequality) - Hardcover

"At the beginning of the 1990s many people thought that the economic problems of East Germany would soon be a thing of the past, that Germany would quickly be unified in economic terms. It turned out that the process of economic integration has been much more difficult than expected. This book analyzes the unusual turbulences and unexpected continuities in the transformation of life courses under conditions of sudden system change. It will be a milestone in life course research." -- Hans-Peter Blossfeld, Otto-Friedrich-Universitat, Bamberg * Germany * "One of the first, most comprehensive assessments in the English language of how two different systems and institutions have shaped the lives of East Germans and how East Germans have dealt with the transition to the new Federal Republic of Germany... Their findings should finally lay to rest the notion of the unmotivated East German and suggest rather the dominant role of massive economic restructuring and work-related position in understanding how East Germans have fared through transition." -- H-Net Reviews "After the Fall of the Wall provides a masterful account of how institutional transformation has affected the life chances of the citizens of the former East Germany...The contributions in this volume document, with impressive detail, the extent of disruption in the East German economy after reunification."-American Journal of Sociology

Through careful examination of the lives of East Germans in the decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall, this book details how a very sudden and very radical system change alters the interweaving of individual agency with institutions and social structures in shaping life-course trajectories.