Culture from the Slums explores the history of punk rock in East and West Germany during the 1970s and 1980s. These decades witnessed an explosion of alternative culture across divided Germany, and punk was a critical constituent of this movement. For young Germans at the time, punk appealed to those gravitating towards cultural experimentation rooted in notions of authenticity-endeavors considered to be more 'real' and 'genuine.' Adopting musical subculture from abroad and rearticulating the genre locally, punk gave individuals uncomfortable with their societies the opportunity to create alternative worlds. Examining how youths mobilized music to build alternative communities and identities during the Cold War, Culture from the Slums details how punk became the site of historical change during this era: in the West, concerning national identity, commercialism, and politicization; while in the East, over repression, resistance, and collaboration. But on either side of the Iron Curtain, punks' struggles for individuality and independence forced their societies to come to terms with their political, social, and aesthetic challenges, confrontations which pluralized both states, a surprising similarity connecting democratic, capitalist West Germany with socialist, authoritarian East Germany. In this manner, Culture from the Slums suggests that the ideas, practices, and communities which youths called into being transformed both German societies along more diverse and ultimately democratic lines. Using a wealth of previously untapped archival documentation, this study reorients German and European history during this period by integrating alternative culture and music subculture into broader narratives of postwar inquiry and explains how punk rock shaped divided Germany in the 1970s and 1980s.

"The author has compiled a very extensive source base in federal, state, regional and city archives, in radio and church archives as well as in archives on the GDR opposition and in the Berlin Archiv der Jugendkulturen...the most comprehensive, source supported English language analysis of the history of German punk so far and can thus be recommended to interested readers with no prior thematic knowledge." - Florian Völker, Rezensions journal sehepunkte

"Culture from the Slums makes an engaged and engaging contribution to a growing body of work on the ways youth and musical subcultures reflect and shape social/political trends, national and self-identities, and race, class, and gender relations." - Joe Perry, Georgia State University, German Studies Review

"This decidedly historical argumentative study lays the foundation for a cultural and contemporary history of the 1980s that takes youth cultural developments and media pop phenomena seriously as integral parts." - Karl Siebengartner, H-Soz-Kult von

"This monograph is a magnificent feat of research that everyone interested in the history of the FRG and GDR should read." - Aimar Ventsel, University of Tartu, Estonia

"With Culture from the Slums Hayton has provided a rich interpretation of German punk, one that will surely prove to be an invaluable resource not only for scholars of German punk but also for those interested in the history of divided Germany and in the relationship between subcultures and historical change more broadly." - Jake P. Smith, Colorado College

"Jeff Hayton's invaluable book takes us into the partly shared but largely distinct worlds of East and West German punks and shows us how they set to work changing them." - Seth Howes, A Journal of Germanic Studies

"Worth reading for scholars of east/central European punk and popular culture and anyone interested in comparing culture and society under state socialism and capitalism." - Raymond Patton, Slavic Review

"The book is lively and readable." - Stephen Brockmann, Monatshefte, Vol. 115, No. 4

"Culture from the Slums captures both interconnections and disjunctions between East and West, both cross-border movement and immobility. One can only hope that it inspires more studies of divided Germany from the margins." - Kyrill Kunakhovich, American Historical Review