Advanced Search
Print - Close Window
www.greenwood.com/catalog/C7566.aspx
All Greenwood Products
Rotten Foundations The Conceptual Basis of the Marxist-Leninist Regimes of East Germany and Other Countries of the Soviet Bloc
Book Code: C7566
ISBN: 0-275-97566-5
ISBN-13: 978-0-275-97566-1
256 pages
Praeger Publishers
Publication: 11/30/2002
List Price: $98.95 (UK Sterling Price: £57.95)
Availability: In Stock
Media Type: Hardcover
Also Available: Ebook
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects: Reviews:
  • Rotten Foundations contributes to the sparse Western literature in English about the GDR....Recommended. Graduate and research collections.
    —Choice
    September 2003
  • [S]perlich sheds new light here on complex and contentious issues within the confines of a remarkably compact volume, greatly improving our understanding of the origins, decline, and disintegration of communist systems. He also demonstrates the courage to wrestle with the timeless questions of the relationship between religious and utopian impulses, the pursuit of power, and the difficulty of gratifying the great variety of contradictory needs and aspirations human beings harbor.
    —Modern Age
    Winter/Spring 2004
  • Endorsement From George W. Breslauer
    University of California, Berkeley:
    Professor Sperlich has written a lucid and comprehensive critique of the theoretical and methodological core of Marxist-Leninist philosophy, as practiced in the USSR and Eastern Europe.
Description: Sperlich examines the ideological foundations of the socialist regime of the former German Democratic Republic. He provides a detailed analysis of the nature of the GDR's legitimating ideology and of the reasons why the ideology ultimately failed to legitimate the regime. The study uses primary source documents extensively as well as the little existing secondary literature. This is part of Sperlich's larger project dealing with the government, society, economy, political participation, and administration of the law and the system of courts of the GDR. This definitive treatment of the GDR provides the background essential to an understanding of all communist systems of the twentieth century. As such, it is vital reading for scholars, students, and other researchers seeking to understand the rise and ultimate collapse of communist systems and, in particular, the decline of the German Democratic Republic.
Table of Contents:
  • Introduction
  • Roots and Developments
  • Science or Anti-Science
  • Utopia and Religion
  • Theory and Practice
  • The Issue of Totalitarianism
  • Summary
  • Bibliography
  • Index
LC Card Number: 2002022429
LCC Class: HX280
Dewey Class: 335
PDF Catalogs:
All rights reserved. Copyright © 1999-2008 Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
88 Post Road West, Westport CT 06881, (203) 226-3571