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Book Review
| Deutschland und die USA in der Internationalen Geschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts: Festschrift für Detlef Junker (Germany and the USA in 20th-century international history: Festschrift for Detlef Junker). Ed. by Manfred Berg and Philipp Gassert. (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2004. 598 pp. €54.00, ISBN 3-515-08454-1.) In German.
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| A characteristic example of that distinctively German phenomenon of the academic festschrift, a collection of essays assembled by colleagues and pupils honoring a distinguished scholar on his or her sixty-fifth birthday, this volume displays all the usual drawbacks of the genre. It contains twenty-nine largely monographic essays, distributed beneath four thematic heads and averaging out at nineteen pages each. Representing various generations and teaching on either side of the Atlantic (although all but four contributors are German), the authors write from an array of standpoints. Most contribute a rather narrowly focused "occasional" piece, either spun off from their main work or pulled out of a drawer. The result is a suitably hefty and well-deserved monument to the honoree's career. But while individual essays will find their way into an appropriate, specialized bibliography, the book itself will be left gathering dust on the library shelves. |
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