American Institute for Contemporary German Studies

This essay examines three levels of challenges the new U.S. President Joe Biden must confront: those in the global arena, those that are pertinent for transatlantic relations and those which relate specifically to German-American relations. Plotting steps in all three arenas will require coordination with partners and engagement with competitors. That triangle requires understanding how the three levels overlap, where they can complement each other and where they will require finding common ground.

The focus of this volume is broad, both historically and topically.Berlin and Vienna, modernity and postmodernity, the twentieth centuryand two incisive Wenden of a tumultuous millennium offer anopportunity to examine central issues in the relationship amongEuropean culture, history, and politics. Cities provide a rich locationto examine expressions of creativity, growth, and change over thecourse of one hundred years. As a transit point of entry and exit, thecity becomes a site for exchange and cross-fertilization of peoples,ideas, and commodities. Cities are nodes in a network whose spokesextend beyond their metropolitan borders and bring intellectual andphysical nourishment to surrounding areas. This European centurywill be known for its great cities and the production of culturalobjects that spread around the globe. Less dramatically, neverthelesssignificant for the transfer of knowledge, academic figures will alsobe remembered for the dissemination of these intellectual traditionsto generations of students who were fortunate to cross their paths.Hinrich C. Seeba, professor of German at the University of California,Berkeley, from 1967 to the present, is one such person.