Description:
Textbook Reds is a work in the sociology of education, and literary sociology and history. Rodden shows that the deepest roots of German Democratic Republic society were indeed located in the institution that molded the youth of its citizens.
Brief description: John Rodden is Adjunct Professor in Speech Communication at the University of Texas. His books include Repainting the Little Red Schoolhouse: A History of Eastern German Education, 1945-1995 (2002) and Performing the Literary Interview: How Writers Craft Their Public Selves (2001).
Review Quotes:
"The scope of this book goes beyond previous investigations of the subject, both in the sense of its comprehensive inclusiveness of topics beyond education in narrowly conceived terms, and in its extension of the historical narrative to post-GDR life. Never before have the intricate interactions among educational programs, ideological motivations, and the exigencies of practical politics in the GDR been demonstrated so thoroughly and with such rich documentation. Rodden's illumination of the interconnections among educational programming, social engineering, and political power make this study a significant contribution not just to German studies, but to the sociology of nation-building as well. But this work does not merely demonstrate the centrality of education to Marxist nation-building, it also shows the reasons and conditions leading to the successive failures and ultimate undoing of this communist project.
One of the most appealing features of Textbook Reds is Rodden's lively, witty, and forceful writing style. This style is thoroughly compatible with the book's sound scholarship, because it serves to highlight his basic themes by giving dramatic power to various anecdotes, personal encounters, and historical scenes. Most engaging is Rodden's very personal viewpoint in his portraits of the East Germans that he interviewed. His vignettes show vividly the fateful determination of German lives by history, and the poignant, sometimes humorous tone brings his nuanced yet sympathetic American perspective into the foreground, often mitigating the gloom and endowing the tragedy with promise and hope."
--Walter Sokel, University of Virginia