Germany: Memories of a Nation

800 years in 500 plus pages on each of which you will, unless you are a scholar of Germany, find something you did not know before. Nothing is left out, and even the painful parts of history are dealt with sensitivity and insight. A page turner, I read it straight through in a couple of days—something unusual for me. I will ponder it awhile, and then reread it again.The graphics, which I studied on an iPad, are beautifully done.

To say that I loved this book would be an understatement. As a student of German and Austrian history, I have read many of the books that the author used for this book but the author synthesizes that information in such a way that he makes it seem even more interesting than it is. Perhaps that is because of the visuals included in the book. Excellent photographic reproductions of art and architecture and books are produced here that allow one to visualize German history. The author's beautiful prose adds to the appeal of the book as well. In short, this is a superb book to read if one wants to understand the paths of German history.MacGregor uses art and architecture to narrate the history of Germany. The photos in this book are truly sublime. In thematic sections divided into chapters, the author takes the reader on a journey into the many Germanies' past. Yes, more than one Germany because until 1871, there was no one German nation. We now think of Prussia as Germany but that is not the only Germany. This was also the area of Saxony and the Hanseatic League and of the Holy Roman Empire and a host of micro German states.The book is mostly written in in chronological order though there are jumps from the present to the past and back to the present again. Beginning with a geographical placement of Germany, the author then moves on to the idea of Germany, its history, its arts and sciences, its Fall, and ends with it's present.This is one of the best histories of Germany you will ever read. I cannot recommend it more. It's a book that you will finish and wish to reread it again because that's how good it is.

When "Germany" arrived, I was taken aback by its girth, but the captivating images and accessible text instantly pushed it to the top of my long reading list.What does it mean to be German? I thought this would have a straight-forward answer until MacGregor explained (with the help of wonderful maps) the patchwork of principalities and city-states that were melded into Germany less than 150 years ago. I consider myself "German-American," but most Germans came to the U.S. before Germany was actually a country. I didn't realize that Germany is as much an "imagined community" (Benedict Anderson) as the Southeast Asian nations created by Europe in the 1800s. Of course the German identity that emerged after 1871 was shattered by two devastating wars.Instead of being the German sequel to "A History of the World in 100 Objects," MacGregor explores German identity, focusing on the key buildings/monuments, objects and quintessential artists. Even though MacGregor cannot go into great detail about individual examples, I still learned new information about even the most familiar objects. My first car was a VW Bug, but I didn't know the first ones were made by the British.

A personal history of Germany in thirty (30) short, focused, stimulating chapters, replete with copious photographs (black and white and stunning color photos and maps). Far more than the well known twelve years between 1933 and 1945, this is the Germany of Charlemagne, Luther, Goethe, the contemporaries, Gutenberg and Durer, the symbolism of the Iron Cross, Bismarck, the Bauhaus (Klee, Gropius, Kandinsky, etc.), the rubble women (“Trummerfrauen”), the art of Kathe Kollwitz, the return of the Jews, and “Germany’s subtle, shifting, obsessional engagement with its past.”

Not exactly what I was looking for, but still a good read. If your looking for a university textbook style history book of Germany this is not it. This would be an excellent read for a cultural anthropologist because I feel it delves more into the cultural development of the modern country we have today than a hardline history of it. Most of the book to me seems to covers the past three centuries well but doesn't go into much detail to earlier history. But as I said before if your a student of German studies this is a must read because it takes an excellent look at the modern state we have today and how it developed out of all of the political and global conflict that was centered around Germany the past century.

Scientist by training and not a history buff, I haven’t read many history books, but this one still stands out. With a smartphone in hand, everybody can check historical facts in a moment and can read the history as a sequence of historical events from many free websites like Wikipedia. Why do we need to read any history books at all?Well, this is where this book comes to its place. Instead of a chronological narrative, it presents the history of Germany from the perspectives of several distinct and very insightful cross sections of German society. German people and German culture suddenly are so much a 3-D, life-like figure almost touchable in front of your eyes.I worked from a German company in the U.S. for many year and many my colleagues over the years are German-Americans. I drive a German car and travelled to Germany once. This book helps me finally put my finger on what distinguishes German vs. other Europeans.Another good surprise. When I first received the book, I noticed its superb quality: the paper much thicker, binding very tight and pictures beautifully reproduced. Then I see it’s a book printed in Germany. So the book itself is a manifestation of what a German product is supposed to be - well made with quality materials and excellent craftsmanship (though Japanese cars are still better engineered and much more reliable).

A sculptor in lime wood by the name of Tilman Riemenschneider carved something exquisite in Germany around 1490. It was called 'The Four Evangelists', and among the four it is St Luke that captures the spirit of Neil MacGregor's approach to the history of a nation. With typical modesty, he puts an expert on to the case of Riemenschneider, Julien Chapuis, who remarks that in these blocks of lime wood 'we recognise our hopes, our weaknesses, our aspirations, what makes us human and also what helps us to become better.' And this is what MacGregor does, all the time, articulating the sensibilities of a village, town, country or continent through a sculptured gesture or a posture, a hand cart or Meissen vase, a Pomeranian amber tankard or, in the finest chapter of them all, the Hovering Angel of Ernst Barlach. The point is made that the 'sum of individual suffering is always particular', and this is always the writer's starting point. When he is dealing with Berlin's capacity to reinvent itself as it rebuilds, the plangent voices of persecuted artists in exile are the first to be heard. MacGregor takes us back to Barlach's 'Erinnerung und innere Schau', (recollection and inner reflection) to show how these voices represent, importantly, Germany's capacity to stand still and ruminate, often in painful attitudes of contrition, sometimes in proud attitudes of self-congratulation.Reflecting on the broiling turbulence of the country's Nazi past and the stunned incredulity that followed it, Chapter 28 begins with the stark fact that 'by 1945, Germany had murdered eleven million people in Europe'. Germany itself is reduced to rubble by Allied bombing and, from the cataclysm of its own failure as a nation comes, with sturdy, unwavering stoicism, the Trümmerfrauen, the rubble women, clearing away the debris in 1949 from the bombed Scherl publishing house in Berlin. This is one of the most telling images in the book for me, suggestive of the power and capacity of women to restore the shattered hopes and homes of a war-torn generation. They are the voices that both lament, as in the extraordinary woodcuts of Kathë Kollwitz, or sing out to the future in the spirit of universal citizenry and world peace. That is where MacGregor's book, and his own profoundly human spirit, want us to go. I wonder what masterpiece he will find to embody that dream. Perhaps the past can tell.

As a German born British Citizen this book has given me an insight of what made Germany into a centre of industry, thinking, innovation, and progress. What it does not do is give a reason for why this Nation, with so much potential for good, turned in on itself and destroyed millions of people in a systematic way, and plunged the world into two catastrophic confliects. However, to know what drives this country, in the geographic centre of Europe, and its people, this book is a good start. The analysis and examples given are interesting, thoughtful, and well researched. I have given a copy to each of my four children, and it has helped me to, perhaps not revise, but at least to appreciate my own background and history better. I am grateful to Dr Neil MacGregor for his excellent book.

If you don't like squinting at small font type or you don't like pictures that disappear down the spine of the book, then the paperback edition is probably not for you, but if price is the deciding factor, then you get a lot of reading for your money. It's an interesting book, that tries to juggle German history with literature, art and architecture and is probably strongest (most interesting, most daring) on individual art pieces. It seems to be written to address a British reader who would otherwise equate Germany with Nazis and doesn't know much else about its cultural history. The book has no referencing, not even for quotations, but is probably overall the more serious end of popular-accessible. It is quite heavy on history, and its a fairly bog-standard history at that, but what will stay in your mind are some of the art and artefacts introduced. The selection of maps, monuments, objects and art is consistently interesting.

Very informative and exciting, even for a German national which I am. Choice of objects excellent as well as very good presentation. Number of maps helpful, illustrations very good.I only hope that many British people will read this fascinating book so that there will be more in depth knowledge and understanding of the German history in this country which has been so painfully lacking for all too long.There is an interest in this book in Germany, too.,

I found this book really gripping, and it gave me a new insight into German history. Neil MacGregor looks at memories in Grrmany, choosing those that seemed most potent to him,. Sometimes these are of recent history, such as the memories of a Tummerfrau, a rubble woman, one of many women who cleared the rubble from the streets of bombed cities such as Dresden. Some chapters look at things made in Germany, ranging from Gutenberg 's printing press, to sausages, both affected by the way Germany until the nineteenth century was split into a multitude of small states, so thst if a book wss banned in one state, it could just be printed somewhere else., and local traditions and types of food could flourish. All the chapters were fascinating, and often very moving, such as the one on Barlach's angel, a statue commemorating the dead in the First World War, condemned by the Nazis , but saved by brave friends of the artist. It was loaned to the British museum as a symbol of reconciliation as part of the 2014 exhibition this book was based on. A great read.