The GDR Goes Global

An exploration of the GDR’s local and global relationships, ranging from international policy and diplomacy, to culture, science, and security.

This open access book explores the German Democratic Republic’s local and global relationships. It considers the extent and nature of relationships both established and attempted by the German Democratic Republic (GDR) within the fields of national security and power projection, labour relations, medicine, science, and health, visual media and aesthetics, and philosophy and culture.

The GDR Goes Global shows that the GDR, while often viewed as a vivid symbol of the physical and ideological post-war division of Europe, was far from an insular state. The book shines a light on the GDR’s shared culture and myriad relationships with West Germany, as well as its efforts to seek global recognition and international leverage with socialist and non-socialist countries alike.

Bringing together established and emerging scholars from diverse disciplines and regions in both East and West Europe, this volume offers rich interdisciplinary discourse that fosters a nuanced and multifaceted understanding of the GDR’s international networks, partnerships, rivalries, and exchanges.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the European Research Council.