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

(Paperback)

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Award-winning historian, Steven Ozment gives us the fullest portrait possible of the German nation, holding a mirror up to an entire civilization - one that has been alternately Western Europe's most successful and most perilous. 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, Bismarck, and Hitler, the country's leading figures have always tried to become more than what ordinary mortals could be. In fact, Germans living centuries apart have shared in different ways a common defining experience that is unique to their culture: a convergence of external provocation and wounded pride, and an unusual ability to exercise great power in response to both. Ozment brilliantly captures the soul of a nation that is at once ordered and chaotic, disciplined and obsessive, proud and uncertain.

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.