A01=Peter H. Merkl
Author_Peter H. Merkl
Category=JBSC
Category=JPR
Category=NHD
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eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
History (General)
Product details
- ISBN 9780857453471
- Weight: 544g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 17 May 2012
- Publisher: Berghahn Books
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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At the center of this investigation is the great modernization effort of a West German state, Bavaria, in the 1970s and 1980s, by means of a reform of the smaller units of local government. The reforms were meant to abolish all autonomous local governments serving populations of fewer than 3000, thereby reducing the number of local governments in Bavaria from more than 7,000 to less than 2,000. Based on interviews, surveys, and statistical research, this study chronicles fifteen communities and their challenges, developments, and social changes from post-1945 up to the present.While this book explores the decline of the iconic village community, it also reveals the survival of medieval towns in a contemporary world, and despite the modern desire for comprehensive and well-integrated services, there remains a seemingly perennial appeal of small town and village life.
Peter H. Merkl is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has published extensively on comparative and German government and politics, in particular the origin of the West German Republic and a series of five-year volumes on German politics named The Federal Republic of Germany at 40, 45, and 50. (He edited the first three but the series continues).
