This dissertation analyzed how political foundations, economic matters, and social problems of the United States are portrayed in selected English-language textbooks of East and West German publishers. For West Germany the research was based on nine Ieading stage-adopted textbooks at the upper level. The East Germans allow only one series of English-language textbooks to be used. This series was examined in the study. Discrepancies rather than similarities emerged in the comparison of East and West German textbooks. With references to the West German presentations, the book contents showed a high degree of differentiation in the selections and a critical but unbiased treatment of single aspects. East German contributions, on the contrary, consistently utilized the principle of partiality and bias so as to denounce so-called United States imperalism and to manifest Marxist-Leninist superiority. The western materials portrayed a well-balanced picture of the United States; the standardized East German textbooks divided the American society into a greedy capitalist minority opposing the exploited working class. West German publishers presented graded features of the country, its political foundations, economic problems, and social issues by a myriad of various American self-expressions. East German bookwriters confined their sources to a very few leftists who condemned the established misanthropic bourgeois system. Western schoolbook authors endeavored to portray their image of the United States more objectively through controversial contributions while East German books delineated a decadent ruling class so as to reinforce the call for revolution and takeover by the proletarians. (Author/RM)