A decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the GDR and the end of the Cold War, Germany has begun to cope with the political, economic, social and nationalistic challenges unification has posed to its institutions and way of life in both the western and eastern part of the once divided nation. The books' eleven authors, all experts in their field, analyse the way united Germany has tackled the many unforeseen problems and highlighted the gradually emerging short- and long-term patterns in Germany's slow adjustment to the new realities. The country has not only become more populous and territorially bigger, but also burdened with much underestimated problems, particularly economic and social ones. The emergence of a new economic, political and perhaps military superstate as feared by many in 1990 has not