Political Scientist’s New Book Reveals Crucial Role of Peaceful Activism in Fall of Berlin Wall
Seattle, WA (PRWEB) November 04, 2014 -- The massive and forbidding Berlin Wall, topped with razor-sharp barbed wire and patrolled by soldiers with guns and attack dogs, stood for decades as a symbol of communism and the Cold War-division of Germany. In the late 1980s a small group of activists mobilized the East German movement for democratic reforms, bringing changes that would reverberate throughout East Germany and the world. This new book uncovers their inspiring story. Focusing on one pivotal year –1989 – in one city – Leipzig, East Germany, Patricia Smith details how these determined, small-scale protests grew to massive demonstrations that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall.
On the surface, Leipzig, a heavily polluted city of 500,000 people some 100 miles south of Berlin, seemed an unlikely place for a political revolution to begin. In “Revolution Revisited: Behind the Scenes in East Germany, 1989,” Smith reveals how just a handful of protesters peacefully demonstrating for change led to hundreds, thousands and finally hundreds of thousands of people marching through central Leipzig every Monday night calling for freedom and democratic reforms. Before the year ended, these peaceful protests had spread throughout East Germany. The courage of the Leipzig activists, who sought fair elections, free assembly and a free press, has gone largely unheralded – until now. “Revolution Revisited,” published on the 25th anniversary of the revolutions of 1989 and the fall of the Berlin Wall, offers a fascinating, in-depth look at the motivations, actions and strategies of the nonviolent protesters who sparked a revolution that would end the Cold War.
Author Patricia Smith first traveled to East Germany in 1964, shortly after the Berlin Wall was built. She has returned to the region almost every year since 1986, conducting interviews with participants and witnesses and gathering research materials and photographs that infuse her book with life and authenticity.
Smith has a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Washington in Seattle and has taught political science and international relations at UW and at Romanian universities. As the recipient of an International Research and Exchanges Board Fellowship, she spent 1991-92 in Berlin affiliated with Humboldt University. Smith, who lives in the Seattle area, has published “After the Wall: Eastern Germany since 1989” and papers and articles on subjects ranging from political opposition in East Germany to economic and political reunification to German foreign policy.
For additional information, please visit http://www.patriciasmithauthor.com
Revolution Revisited: Behind the Scenes in East Germany, 1989
Patricia Smith
Dog Ear Publishing
ISBN: 978-1-4575-3252-8
384 pages
$21.95 US
Available at Ingram, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and fine bookstores everywhere.
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