Germany's Foreign Policy of Reconciliation: From Enmity to Amity [Hardcover]

Since World War II, Germany has confronted its own history to earn acceptance in the family of nations. Lily Gardner Feldman draws on the literature of religion, philosophy, social psychology, law and political science, and history to understand Germany's foreign policy with its moral and pragmatic motivations and to develop the concept of international reconciliation. Germany's Foreign Policy of Reconciliation traces Germany's path from enmity to amity by focusing on the behavior of individual leaders, governments, and non-governmental actors. The book demonstrates that, at least in the cases of France, Israel, Poland, and Czechoslovakia/the Czech Republic, Germany has gone far beyond banishing war with its former enemies; it has institutionalized active friendship. The German experience is now a model of its own, offering lessons for other cases of international reconciliation. Gardner Feldman concludes with an initial application of German reconciliation insights to the other principal postWorld War II pariah, as Japan expands its relations with China and South Korea.Lily Gardner Feldman is Harry & Helen Gray Senior Fellow in Residence and director of the Society, Culture, and Politics Program at the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

Readers may ask why the topic of reconciliation is not accorded greater attention within international relations. Feldman examines German postwar foreign policy and correctly identifies reconciliation as its guiding principle. Examining Germany's evolving postwar relations with Israel, France, Poland, and the Czech Republic, the author brings a distinctly historical perspective to a question that she nevertheless couches in political terms, namely, what factors have been key to Germany's approach. The book weaves together four factorshow history is leveraged, the role of national leaders, the centrality of government and non-government institutions, and finally the overall internatiol3œ