Repainting the Little Red Schoolhouse

This is the first-ever English-language study of GDR education and the first book, in any language, to trace the complete history of Eastern German education from 1945 through the 1990s. It relates in full the GDR's attempt to create a new Marxist nation by means of educational reform. The book goes beyond previous investigations of the subject to include topics outside the scope of education per se; Rodden looks not only at the changing institution of education but also at what the Germans call Bildung--the formation of character and the cultivation of body and spirit. The book's sociological reach likewise extends to questions of nation-building, as Rodden carries his historical narrative up to the present environment of post-unification Germany.