Constructing Heimat in post-war Germany

Finding the abstract concept Heimat to be much stronger than the English home, Wickham (German, U. of Texas-San Antonio) examines the semantic structure of the term and the conscious attempts to manipulate that structure by writers in West Germany and adjacent regions during a quarter century of social and political flux. He then uses that semantic analysis to explore how poets writing in dialect and singer-songwriters worked with the components to construct revised conceptions of Heimat from the economic recovery of Germany after World War II to the beginning of the end of the Cold War. The text is double spaced. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)