Death and the Making of West Berlin, 1948-1961

This essay traces shifts in attitudes towards death, practicesof burial, and rituals of mourning in West Berlin from the 1948currency reform to the 1961 construction of the Berlin Wall.It shows that West Berliners in the years immediately followingthe Second World War maintained an arduous devotion to theirdead—particularly the war dead. Yet as the war becamea less immediate experience over the course of the 1950s, broadcultural shifts took shape, including a renewed sense of optimismand an emerging feeling that the suffering associated with thewar could be and was being redeemed. Meanwhile, a cult of thedead long venerated as part of the very foundation of Germanculture gradually became ‘less German’ and ‘moreWestern’ over that same period. In this way, it also becamea means of distinguishing West Berlin from its Communist neighbourto the East. By focusing on shifts in perceptions and practicessurrounding death, the essay reveals part of the process bywhich moral and ethical values were reconstructed after Nazism,and how the racist collectivism of the Third Reich graduallygave way to the broadly individualist, democratic-socialisthumanism that would form the basis of an expressly West Germanpolitics and society.     

PROSPECTS FOR SOVIET GAS EXPORTS: OPPORTUNITIES AND CONSTRAINTS

This paper assesses the prospects for Soviet gas exports to Western Europe, analyzing both supply (domestic) factors, such as gas production, consumption, and transportation, and demand (foreign) factors such as gas demand and market share. This is done using a network allocation model of the Soviet gas pipeline network (for 1985, 1990, and 1995) and a country-by-country analysis of the gas market in Western Europe. In general, the outlook for increased gas exports to Western Europe, at least to the turn of the century, is rather bleak. This is mainly due to a relatively slower rate of growth of gas demand in Western Europe than projected earlier, coupled with overcontracting of gas supplies, because the USSR has enormous gas reserves, ample production, and no major pipeline bottlenecks restricting export volumes. Its huge pipeline construction program allows both domestic consumption and exports to be comfortably accommodated     

Book Reviews

Baer, Kenneth S. Reinventing Democrats: The Politics of Liberalism from Reagan to Clinton. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2000. Pp. xi, 361. $29.95, hardbound.

Canon, David T. Race, Redistricting, and Representation: The Unintended Consequences of Black Majority Districts. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. Pp.'xiv, 324. $50.00, hardbound; $18.00, paper.

Crabb, Cecil V., Glenn J. Antizzo, and Leila E. Sarieddine. Congress and the Foreign Policy Process: Modes of Legislative Behavior. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000. Pp. xi, 247. $39.95, hardbound; $24.95, softbound.

Goldstein, Kenneth M. Interest Groups, Lobbying, and Participation in America. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pp xii, 158. $49.95, hardbound; $16.95, softbound.

Gronke, Paul. The Electorate, the Campaign, and the Office: A Unified Approach to Senate and House Elections. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000. Pp. xiv, 202. $39.50, hardbound.

Jones, Charles O. Clinton and Congress: Risk, Restoration, and Reelection. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999. Pp. xvi, 221. $26.95, hardbound.

Landy, Marc, and Sidney M. Milkis. Presidential Greatness. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2000. Pp. 288. $34.95, hardbound.

Morris, Irwin L. Congress, the President, and the Federal Reserve: The Politics of American Monetary Policy-Making. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000. Pp. vii, 165. $39.50, hardbound.

Palazzolo, Daniel J. Done Deal: The Politics of the 1997 Budget Agreement. New York: Chatham House Publishers, 1999. Pp. xii, 244. $24.95, softbound.

Uslaner, Eric M. The Movers and the Shirkers: Representatives and Ideologues in the Senate. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999. Pp. xii, 234. $44.50, hardbound.     

Medieval phases of settlement at Benabbio castle,Apennine mountains,Italy: evidence from Ground Penetrating Radar survey

The lack of written sources for many of the medieval castles in the northern Apennines (Italy) makes it difficult to completely establish the most ancient historical phases of these settlements. The church of San Michele belongs to an abandoned fortified settlement of the Castle of Benabbio, in the mountains surrounding Lucca. Thanks to an epigraph still visible on the façade, the church foundation is dated back to AD 1218. However, several archaeological findings at the settlement seem to suggest stages of encastlement that are older than the church foundation.