Müller, Jan-Werner 1970-

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MÜLLER, Jan-Werner 1970-

PERSONAL: Born 1970.

ADDRESSES: Offıce—St. Antony's College, Oxford University, 70 Woodstock Rd., Oxford OX2 6JF, England.

CAREER: Author and educator. St. Antony's College, Oxford, Oxford, England, research fellow in modern European thought.

WRITINGS:

Another Country: German Intellectuals, Unification, and National Identity, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 2000.

(Editor) Memory and Power in Post-War Europe:Studies in the Presence of the Past, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2002.

(Editor) German Ideologies since 1945: Studies in thePolitical Thought and Culture of the Bonn Republic, Remarque Institute (New York, NY), 2003.

A Dangerous Mind: Carl Schmitt in Post-War European Thought, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 2003.

SIDELIGHTS: Author and educator Jan-Werner Müller serves as a research fellow in modern European thought at the European Studies Centre of St. Antony's College, Oxford. His research interests focus on history of political thought, nationalism, and European integration. He has authored and edited several volumes addressing European—particularly German—nationalism following World War II.

Another Country: German Intellectuals, Unification, and National Identity is a compilation of essays and articles centering on the divide in political opinions regarding the 1990 reunification of Germany. More than a decade after the joining of the eastern and western halves of the country, there is still heavy debate regarding the wisdom of the decision. Müller examines the opposition to the unification by such individuals as Günter Grass, while also exploring other opinions. A. Dirk Moses, in a review for German Politics and Society, remarked that the book was "neither a comprehensive intellectual history of a generation, nor a conventional piece of political science," and went on to state that it "disappoints with its failure to offer a theory of the Federal Republic's 'coming to terms' with the Nazi past in relation to the extension and consolidation of its liberal democracy." In a more favorable assessment, a contributor to the Virginia Quarterly Review felt that "this ambitious book will provide food for thought for anyone concerned with the history of democracy in German since World War Two."

With Memory and Power in Post-War Europe: Studies in the Presence of the Past Müller addresses the question of how power and memory affect each another in the political arena. The book is divided into twelve chapters that deal with various European nations and the choices they made following World War II. Nachman Ben-Yehuda, in a review for the American Journal of Sociology, remarked that "overall, this is an interesting, high-quality, challenging, and indispensable book. Reading it provides a genuine positively reinforcing intellectual adventure and a formidable learning experience. It is an impressive attempt to study how power, politics, and history affected the ways in which Europeans remember or forget a nonconsensual and problematic past."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Journal of Sociology, November, 2003, Nachman Ben-Yehuda, review of Memory andPower in Post-War Europe: Studies in the Presence of the Past, pp. 756-758.

German Politics and Society, summer, 2001, A. Dirk Moses, review of Another Country: German Intellectuals, Unification, and National Identity, p. 119.

Library Journal, February 1, 2001, James Tasato Mellone, review of Another Country, p. 112.

Virginia Quarterly Review, spring, 2001, review of Another Country, p. 58.

Wall Street Journal, October 3, 2000, Mark Lilla, "A Nation Unites, and Its Intellectuals Divide," review of Another Country, p. A24.