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Losing Heaven: Religion in Germany since 1945

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Losing Heaven

Religion in Germany since 1945

Thomas Großbölting
Translated from the German by Alex Skinner

356 pages, bibliog., index

ISBN  978-1-78533-278-4 $145.00/£107.00 / Hb / Published (October 2016)

eISBN 978-1-78533-279-1 eBook

https://doi.org/10.3167/9781785332784


View CartYour country: - edit Request a Review or Examination Copy (in Digital Format)Recommend to your LibraryAvailable in GOBI®

Reviews

“…a highly successful account of modern and contemporary religious developments… The fact that this book has been widely reviewed in Germany’s secular press and has now been made available in English translation speaks to its persuasive power. This wonderfully reflective work serves as a mirror of our present religious moment.” • Central European History

“In his lively and analytically rich analysis of postwar German society, Thomas Großbölting traces the postwar decline of organized Christianity and the parallel growth of pluralism in Germany’s religious topography… If the outline of this narrative sounds familiar to students of modern German religion, Großbölting brings it to life in a fresh, nuanced way, interweaving theological, sociological, and political dynamics to underscore the consequence of this societal revolution.” • American Historical Review

“[The author’s] all-encompassing approach is impressive and thoroughly convincing…The study offers an outstanding, compelling account of how the German religious landscape has changed since 1945.” • German Politics and Society

“The first comprehensive history of religion in Germany after 1945.” • Süddeutsche Zeitung

“Thomas Großbölting’s differentiated, tightly argued, and wide-ranging study succeeds in its task to write the first history of religion in Germany and to meet the challenge of integrating very different and more narrowly focused research. It sets the standard for every other work in this field.” • RPI

Description

As the birthplace of the Reformation, Germany has been the site of some of the most significant moments in the history of European Christianity. Today, however, its religious landscape is one that would scarcely be recognizable to earlier generations. This groundbreaking survey of German postwar religious life depicts a profoundly changed society: congregations shrink, private piety is on the wane, and public life has almost entirely shed its Christian character, yet there remains a booming market for syncretistic and individualistic forms of “popular religion.” Losing Heaven insightfully recounts these dramatic shifts and explains their consequences for German religious communities and the polity as a whole.

Thomas Großbölting is a Professor of History at the University of Münster. His scholarship focuses on social, industrial, and religious history, as reflected in his doctoral thesis on the East German middle class and subsequent work on industrial exhibitions and trade fairs. He is currently researching religious change in postwar Germany and remembrance of the GDR after German unification.

Subject: History: 20th Century to PresentAnthropology of Religion
Area: Germany


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