Macht im Umbruch: Deutschlands Rolle in Europa und die Herausforderungen des 21. Jahrhunderts

by Herfried Münkler

Wir alle spüren, dass Deutschland eine Macht im Umbruch ist, ein Land, das tiefgreifende Veränderungen erfährt. Was bedeutet der Wandel der Welt für das Selbstverständnis Deutschlands, vor welchen Herausforderungen stehen wir, und was müssen die Deutschen jetzt tun, um nicht abgehängt zu werden, sondern aktiv gestalten zu können, innen- wie außenpolitisch?

Herfried Münkler kreist die neuralgischen Punkte der deutschen Politik ein und entwirft hellsichtig eine Strategie für das künftige Agieren. Die Frage nach der neuen Rolle Deutschlands wird wesentlich davon abhängen, ob es dem größten Land in der Mitte Europas gelingt, seine ökonomische, politische und kulturelle Macht so einzusetzen, dass ein Auseinanderfallen Europas verhindert werden kann. Hierfür sind nicht nur grundlegende Reformen dringend nötig, Deutschland und die EU müssen sich auch als widerstandsfähig gegen Russland, selbstbewusst im Umgang mit China und, falls es nötig werden sollte, als unabhängig von den USA erweisen.

Eine tiefschürfende, richtungsweisende Analyse, die zeigt, wie Deutschlands Rolle neu gedacht werden kann und muss, wenn Europa sich im 21. Jahrhundert im Spiel der großen Mächte behaupten möchte.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction

389 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 11, 2025

About the author

Herfried Münkler is a German political scientist. He is a Professor of Political Theory at Humboldt University in Berlin. Münkler is a regular commentator on global affairs in the German-language media and author of numerous books on the history of political ideas (German: Ideengeschichte), on state-building and on the theory of war, such as "Machiavelli" (1982), "Gewalt und Ordnung" (1992), "The New Wars" (orig. 2002) and "Empires: The Logic of World Domination from Ancient Rome to the United States" (orig. 2005). In 2009 Münkler was awarded the Leipzig Book Fair Prize in the category "Non-fiction" for Die Deutschen und ihre Mythen (engl. "the Germans and their myths").

Reviews

[Michael Prager · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uff.... okay, this is not an easy book in several ways. I consider myself fairly well educated and politically interested (at least at an average level). And yet, there are words used in this book for which I had to look up their meaning; there are paragraphs in this book that I ended up reading 3 times before I had some notion of what they were trying to explain to me; and - maybe most importantly - it is not a book that instills a whole lot of optimism and hope (to quote the final sentence of the book here without being too much of a spoiler (in my own translation to English): "There are huge challenges and massive tasks heading towards German politics and it is anything but certain that it will be able to meet these challenges." Yeah, right... we kind of knew that, didn't we!?!

Now, that is not to say the book is all doom and gloom. Far from it! I found it highly intriguing how it opened up some of my narrow-minded geopolitical thinking and understanding. It is very current in many topics, but it also throws in some decent history lessons for good measure, which I enjoyed reading a lot.

The main themes revolve around the development of the interactions between the three superpowers—the USA, Russia, and China—over the centuries and decades, the structure and role of the EU, and, in particular, Germany's current and possibly designated role in it. There are some key thoughts about what may have to change versus the status quo in order to still play a meaningful role in an ever-evolving future.

Maybe I was missing a bit more diversity in those thought concepts. Some became a little repetitive throughout the book. But I was intrigued most by the one about how it is anything but "normal" that the EU - and Germany in particular - would always "automatically" lean towards "the West", when even in relatively recent history, we were just as well linked to "the East" in many ways and may end up doing so again - likely at the expense of giving up democracy for autocracy though. A bit of a terrifying thought, but after reading this book, not as unlikely or inconceivable as it was in my mind before...

P.S.: One figure in the book just had me laugh out loud (even though it is actually rather sad):
The "duties" and "rights" of a country being a member of the EU are indeed very well documented. Apparently, they currently amount to a total of around 85.000 (!!) pages. Bureaucracy indeed... :(

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eingehende Analyse dessen was gerade in der Welt und in Deutschland passiert. Viel zum Nachdenken. Zum richtigen Nachvollziehen aller Analysen und Argumente müsste ich es eigentlich nochmal lesen, vor allem das erste Kapitel zum Populismus und Theorien der Demokratie!

[KaLie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brillante Analyse der Handlungsoptionen Deutschlands und Europas in einer sich rasant wandelnden Welt. Eine erhellende Lektüre, spannend wie ein Krimi.

[S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solides Grundlagenbuch für ein breites Publikum