Alum author returns to celebrate publication of new book

Paul Hockenos, Skidmore Class of 1985, will visit the campus to share his new book, Joschka Fischer and the Making of the Berlin Republic: An Alternative History of Postwar Germany (Oxford University Press, 2007), on Monday, Feb. 4.

His schedule includes book signing at the Skidmore Shop from 4 to 5 p.m., and a presentation and book signing at 7 p.m. in Emerson Auditorium, Palamountain Hall. The Department of Government and the International Affairs Program are hosting the event, which is open to all.

Over the course of his long and controversial career, Joschka Fischer evolved from an archetypal 1960s radical?a firebrand street activist?into a shrewd political insider, operating at the heights of German politics. In the 1980s he was one of the first elected Greens and went on to become Germany?s foreign minister from 1998 to 2005. His famous challenge to Donald Rumsfeld?s case for invading Iraq??Excuse me, I am not convinced??won him worldwide recognition, and the Bush administration's contempt.

The book is both a lively biography of Fischer and a gripping history ?from below? of postwar Germany. Hockenos guides readers through the flashpoints of the late ?60s and ?70s, from the student protests and the terrorism of the Baader-Meinhof group to the evolution of Europe?s premier Green party, and brings readers to the present in the united Germany. He shows how the grassroots movements that became the German Greens challenged and changed the republic?s status quo, making postwar Germany more democratic, liberal, and worldly along the way. Despite the ideological twists and turns of Fischer and his peers, the lessons of the Holocaust and the Nazi terror remained their constant coordinates. Hockenos traces that political journey, providing readers with unique insight into the impact that these movements and the Greens have had on Germany.

The book has garnered positive reviews in several well-known periodicals. In addition, experts and scholars have praised the work, including New York University Professor Mary Nolan, who said, ?This is an ambitious and original book, deeply researched and lucidly written. It should be on the must-read list for anyone interested in late 20th-century German history and in the history and legacy of the 1968 generation.?

Norman Birnbaum, author of After Progress: American Social Reform and European Socialism in the Twentieth Century, said, ?Paul Hockenos knows Germany very well, and he is not afraid to tackle ambiguity and complexity. His scholarly and eminently readable biography of Joschka Fischer provides a serious alternative to more conventional accounts of major changes in Germany.?

Books are available at the Skidmore Shop now and will be available at both signings on Feb. 4.

Hockenos is a Berlin-based author and political analyst who has written about Europe since 1989. His articles and commentaries have appeared in dozens of periodicals in Europe and North America. His earlier books are Free to Hate: The Rise of the Right in Post-Communist Eastern Europe and Homeland Calling: Exile Patriotism and the Balkan Wars. He is the editor of Internationale Politik-Global Edition, a foreign affairs quarterly published in Germany.

In 2003, Hockenos talked about Homeland Calling in a Scope magazine interview.