"The most complete treatment of East German education that has appeared in English, yet most of the book does not touch upon schools or schooling. Rodden's work evokes the dilemas of everyday totalitarianism with unusual poignancy, and it is to be warmly recommended to all those wanting to probe the deeper currents of social reality in the 'former East Germany.'"--Central European History

"A wealth of interesting stories about the process of unification as experienced by individual Germans and about Rodden's personal grappling with the merits and disadvantages of socialism and capitalism."--H-Net

"This vividly written, often idiosyncratic, even polemical education history offers a colorful prism through which to view East Germany in the cold war and subsequent German reunification."--History: Reviews of New Books

"This book has a confident feel and brims with new information and intelligent insight. This sophisticated portrait of the GDR will be important in debates about East Germany, both in and outside Germany."--John Connelly, University of California, Berkeley

"This is not a history of education in the usual sense. It evinces a rich understanding of the history of Marxism and does a superb job of weaving the various strands of shifting Marxist ideological positions and European historical events into a chronological narrative focused upon educational issues. This book is also exceptionally readable, written in a rich, sometimes brilliant prose style that honors the stories of the people whom Rodden met."--Sterling Fishman, University of Wisconsin, Madison

"Repainting the Little Red Schoolhouse is the first complete narrative, in any language, that traces the full history of the GDR's attempt to create a new Marxist nation by means of educational reform. This eminently absorbing study should appeal to readers interested in education, cultural politics, the history of the Cold War and Marxism, and contemporary German and European politics."--Walter Sokel, University of Virginia

"I have never read a book by a foreign author that displays such a profound, deep understanding of the history of the former GDR, along with such a detailed knowledge and command of the ideological tendencies and guidelines of Soviet and East German policy. This book furnishes keen insight into the nature of communism and the historical processes that ultimately resulted in the overthrow of this system."--Wolfgang Strauss, University of Jena

"There is nothing at all like this work, in approach or quality, on the topic of German education-despite the flood of books on Germany past and present."--Christian Soe, California State University at Long Beach

"A tremendous opus that traces eastern Germany's history for four decades under an authoritarian regime through its transformation process into a roughly democratic society. This work also constitutes a valuable contribution to our understanding of the functioning of dictatorship as well as to the general processes of social change."--Karl-Heinz Fuessl, Humboldt University, Berlin

"John Rodden has written a marvelous book...[A]n unconventional and occasionally idiosyncratic study on comparative education and on the social psychology of re-education."--Comparative Education Review