James Hawes

The Shortest History of Germany

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READ IN AN AFTERNOON. REMEMBER FOR A LIFETIME.
The West is in full retreat. The Anglo-Saxon powers, great and small, withdraw into fantasies of lost greatness. Populists all over Europe cry out that immigration and globalisation are the work of a nefarious System, run by unseen masters with no national loyalties. From the Kremlin, Tsar Vladimir watches his Great Game line up, while the Baltic and Vizegrad states shiver — and everyone looks to Berlin. But are the Germans really us, or them? This question has haunted Europe ever since Julius Caesar invented the Germani in 58 BC.
How Roman did Germania ever become? Did the Germans destroy the culture of Rome, or inherit it? When did they first drive east, and did they ever truly rule there? How did Germany become, for centuries, a power-vacuum at the heart of Europe? How was Prussia born? Did Bismarck unify Germany or conquer it? Where are the roots of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich? Why did it lose? By what miracle did a better Germany arise from the rubble? Is Germany now the last Western bastion of industrial prosperity and rational politics? Or are the EU and the Euro merely window-dressing for a new German hegemony?
This fresh, illuminating and concise new history makes sense of Europe's most admired and feared country. It's time for the real story of Germany.
This book is currently unavailable
316 printed pages
Copyright owner
Bookwire
Original publication
2017
Publication year
2017
Have you already read it? How did you like it?
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Impressions

  • Vyacheslav Varenitsynshared an impression5 years ago
    👍Worth reading
    💡Learnt A Lot
    🎯Worthwhile

    I live in Kaliningrad. This the eastern point of Russia and ex-capital of East Prussia. In school we had very poor information about history of Königsberg and even less about history of Germany (for obvious reason).

    This book opened my eyes to much things in German history. It was really fast adventure through German-life period, which I find very interesting and amazing. Now I know, how the Germany still stand on it’s legs as great country, which lead all of the Europe.

    9/10

  • rivohshared an impression5 years ago

    hc

  • Michael Holmshared an impression4 years ago
    👍Worth reading
    💡Learnt A Lot
    🎯Worthwhile
    🚀Unputdownable

Quotes

  • Yana Manukhinahas quoted6 years ago
    In 1745, all England trembled with fear as the Highland Scots invaded. No one thought them romantic. But once they’d been smashed at Culloden, the British Army almost immediately began using them as shock-troops, and the English public fell in love with tales of their unspoiled, natural bravado.
  • Denys Kuznietsovhas quoted6 years ago
    The state of Germany at the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 is difficult to describe except in biblical terms. Syria today might give us some idea. At least a third of the entire population seems to have perished, more in some areas. In 1631, Magdeburg on the Elbe, Otto the Great’s most-favoured city, had over 20,000 inhabitants; by 1649, it was 450, the rest having been mostly slaughtered in the streets. Even today, when German children sing their version of ‘Ladybird, Ladybird, Fly Away Home’, it’s not a house that’s on fire, but Pomerania.
  • Ian Copplehas quoted5 years ago
    The Great Slav Revolt of 983 AD is as central to Slavic history as 9 AD is to German history. It was the event which guaranteed cultural survival. Just as the Romans lost everything beyond the Rhine in 9 AD, the Germans were thrown clean back across the Elbe in 983 AD

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