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This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (May 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this message) This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Western studies" Germany – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (May 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this message) This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please help improve this article by introducing citations to additional sources. Find sources: "Western studies" Germany – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (May 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Western studies or western research (German: Westforschung) in Germany traditionally refers to area studies concerned with the countries and areas on Germany's western and southwestern borders, including France (particularly its eastern and northern parts), the Benelux countries and Switzerland, as well as the westernmost "border areas" within Germany, i.e. areas near the Dutch, Belgian, Luxembourgish, French and Swiss borders. The concept of western studies arose during the First World War, and like other forms of area studies, it was often motivated by geostrategic considerations. The traditional concept of western studies was largely abandoned with the onset of the Cold War, West Germany's western alignment and the western European integration process. It has largely been succeeded by the broader field of European studies.

In the communist world, including for example the Soviet Union, the German Democratic Republic and the People's Republic of Poland, "western studies" remained popular until the fall of communism, but encompassed studies of the western or "capitalist" world more broadly, including all of western Europe according to the Cold War definition of the term and North America. The western equivalent was Soviet and Communist studies.

References

1. Patricia Oster & Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink Hgg: Am Wendepunkt. Deutschland und Frankreich um 1945. Zur Dynamik eines 'transnationalen' kulturellen Feldes / Dynamiques d'un champ culturel 'transnational' – L'Allemagne et la France vers 1945. Transcript, Bielefeld 2008, ISBN 9783899426687. (Frankreich-Forum. Jahrbuch des Frankreichzentrums. o. Nr.)

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