Description
Book SynopsisWith
Germany in the World, award-winning historian David Blackbourn radically revises conventional narratives of German history, demonstrating the existence of a distinctly German presence in the world centuries before its unification—and revealing a national identity far more complicated than previously imagined. Blackbourn traces Germany’s evolution from the loosely bound Holy Roman Empire of 1500 to a sprawling colonial power to a twenty-first-century beacon of democracy. Viewed through a global lens, familiar landmarks of German history—the Reformation, the Revolution of 1848, the Nazi regime—are transformed, while others are unearthed and explored, as Blackbourn reveals Germany’s leading role in creating modern universities and its sinister involvement in slave-trade economies. A global history for a global age, Germany in the World is a bold and original account that upends the idea that a nation’s history should be written as though it took place entirely within that nation’s borders.
Trade Review"[A] rich and full-throated book"" -- Neal Ascherson - The Observer
"[An] all-embracing history of Germany's relationship with the outside world... readers of this book will never see Germany in quite the same way again. " -- The Economist
"In this detailed and original study, David Blackbourn argues that Germany's influence stretches around the world and has done so since long before there was a unified German geopolitical entity. " -- The New European
