A Mighty Fortress: A New History Of The German People 100 Bc To The 21st Century

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Taking us from the tribes of the Roman Empire and the medieval dynasties to the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification, Ozment shows that the Germans are a people who desire national unity yet have kept themselves from it by aligning with autocratic territorial governments and regional cultures. From Luther, Kant, Goethe and Beethoven, to Marx, Einstein and Hitler, the country's leading figures have always tried to become more than ordinary mortals. Ozment brilliantly captures the soul of a nation that is at once ordered and chaotic, disciplined and obsessive, proud and uncertain.

Reviews

"'One cannot but admire the ingenuity with which the author leaps from period to period, tracing continuities across the centuries' Christopher Clark, Sunday Telegraph 'Ozment gives one of the most prolific accounts of the German nation to date... It provides an original and detailed, yet provocative assessment of German history and entire civilisation' The Big Issue 'Where Ozment really excels is in his analysis of German cultural and intellectual movements' The Sunday Times 'This book is a minor masterpiece of compression, intelligent selection and lucid analysis... It provides an outstanding introduction to the history of Western Europe's least understood people' The Spectator"

Author Bio

Steven Ozment is McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History at Harvard University and the author of The Burgermeister's Daughter, Flesh and Spirit, Ancestors and The Age of Reform. He lives in Newbury, Massachusetts.