The Free University of Berlin; A Political History

Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1988. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. very good. 25 cm. xiv, [2], 507, [5] pages. Illustrations. Abbreviations. Notes. Sources. Index. In 2010, The University of Alabama System Board of Trustees appointed University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) faculty member James F. Tent, Ph.D, professor and university scholar emeritus at its April 8 meeting. Tent, who retired Dec. 31, 2009, is a renowned expert in modern German history, military history and the Cold War. He has written eight books and monographs, including Mission on the Rhine: Reeducation and Denazification in American-Occupied Germany, The Free University of Berlin: A Political History and In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Nazi Persecution of Jewish-Christian Germans. He has been a consultant to the British Broadcasting Corporation and the North German Broadcasting Network on documentary films and a commentator for the Cable News Network and the History Channel. In 2009, Tent received the Education Award from the Alabama-Germany Partnership. Tent received his doctorate in history from the University of Wisconsin and joined the UAB faculty in 1974. He was appointed professor and University Scholar in 1990 and was chair of the Department of History from 2002 to 2008. The Free University of Berlin holds the sometimes painful distinction of being the world's most political educational institution. In the last forty years, it has been, more often than not, at the sharp end of East-West political confrontation. The Free University of Berlin (often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a research university in Berlin, Germany. One of Germany's most distinguished universities, it is known for its research into the humanities, and social sciences, as well as into the natural and life sciences. The Free University was founded in West Berlin in 1948 with American support during the early Cold War period as a de facto western continuation of the Frederick William University, which was in East Berlin and faced strong communist repression; its name refers to West Berlin's status as part of the Western Free World, in contrast to the communist-controlled university in East Berlin. The Free University of Berlin is one of eleven German elite universities in the German Universities Excellence Initiative. In 2008, in a joint effort, The Free University of Berlin, along with the Hertie School of Governance, and WZB Social Science Research Center Berlin, created the Berlin Graduate School for Transnational Studies.