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"Bridging the Gap: Personal Stories of a Trans-Atlantic Civil Society Advocate"Stephan Peter’s slim volume is something between a personal album and a political coming-of-age novel. The thirteen “chapters”, interspersed with documents, newspaper cuttings, and personal as well as historical photos, trace Peter’s family history and personal journey from growing up and being educated in the western border area of (West) Germany to his marriage and professional career in the United States. Now a political science professor at a community college and a community activist in the Twin Cities, the stock-taking holds a special meaning for DSA members. Stephan Peter’s encounters and memories focus on social-democratic continuities from his grandparents’ experience in Nazi Germany to his own engagement in the DSA’s International Commission. Along the way we learn about his German hometown’s past, his early activities in the German Social Democratic Party and labor union movement, and his encounter with American Jewish life through marriage and the experience of raising a family in Jewish traditions. The mosaic may seem disorienting at first, with reflections that range from the Franco-Prussian War to World War I to the Spanish Civil War to the Nazi instigated “Kristallnacht” in 1938 to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, but they are anchored by personal and local histories told with plenty of wit and sharp insight. |