A Mighty Fortress : A New History of the German People 100 Bc to the 21st Century - Hardcover

Steven E. Ozment

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1862077592 ISBN 13: 9781862077591

Publisher: Granta Books, 2005

Synopsis

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 and Hitler, the country's leading figures have always tried to become more than ordinary mortals. In fact, Germans living centuries apart have shared in different ways a common defining experience: a convergence of external provocation and wounded pride, and an 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.

About this title

About the Author:

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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Granta Books
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1862077592
• ISBN 13: 9781862077591
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 384