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The Berlin Wall was a key site of contestation between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic in their Cold War struggle over political legitimacy. On both sides, the Wall became a tool in intense publicity battles aimed at building legitimacy and collective identity at home, and undermining them in the other Germany. The public perceptions and politicized uses of the barrier evolved through stages that reflected the relative fortunes of the two German states, moving gradually from extensive East-West parallels in the early 1960s toward a growing divergence by the 1970s and 1980s, which became increasingly indicative of East Germany's weakness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on extensive field research that the author has conducted in eastern Germany since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, this essay discusses the history of communist education in East Germany and its relevance for Western education today. Among the topics addressed are the differences between “propaganda” and “enlightenment” according to communist ideology, the structure of the East German system of education and extracurriculars, how that system fostered “textbook Reds,” and how its curricular materials portrayed the USA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

a new world was born after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It meant the end of the XXth century, of the geography based on the division of the planet in three different worlds, and of the soviet monolithic model. After that the processes of establishment of economic blocs were expanded. A new center of gravity of capitalist system began to be considered as the evidence of a new hegemonic cycle (an Asian one, led by China). But dilemmas and risks are not smaller if compared to the past which can be deduced by the fall of the twin towers of the World Trade Center and the attack on the Pentagon, in 2001, the proliferation of terrorist networks, the latent nuclear threat, and systemic economic crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]