Book excerpt: Germany Divided remains one of the most thought-provoking and comprehensive interpretations of the forty-year relationship between East and West Germany and of the problems of contemporary German unity. In this politically controversial and analytically sophisticated account, A. James McAdams dissects the complex process by which East and West German leaders moved over the years from first pursuing the ideal of German unity, to accepting what they believed to be the inescapable reality of division, and then, finally, to meeting the challenges of an unanticipated reunification. This new edition contains an epilogue in which McAdams considers some of the political and economic problems faced by eastern and western Germans as they entered their fourth year of living together.