Germania: In Wayward Pursuit of the Germans and Their History

Clever and informative.

The author makes the history of Germany, as viewed also from personal travel, extremely interesting.The book is very descriptive and often I reach for google to see pictures of towns, landscapes, cages that held the condemned, boring or not so boring musea, and artwork. Often the author manages to sweep the conversation back to the Nazi era, partially seeing the onset of some of the Nazi strains with that era as an almost logical conclusion. In my mind the book should have had plenty of pictures, and some good references and footnotes. Otherwise: highly recommended.

A Brilliant Trip! Thank you Mr Winder for a wonderful journey from the Romans through the middle ages until 1933. Your book exemplifies how many facets humans contain. It is savvy and fascinating and very funny. Your depth and perspective lent me such a refreshed look at Europe and for that I am grateful. I will review it again soon to list all the fun tips, places, and advice you so freely offer as a result of your canny curiosity and thorough research. What a find!

Man oh man, this is a hard book to review. I like the concept, an informal history of the IDEA of Germany, the people, not the state, but the author goes off on unnecessary sidetracks that are, well, boring. Three pages on oddball museums from the age of Alexander Humboldt could be interesting but aren't.Having said that, I feel that I've learned a lot about Germania in a general kind of way that has been helpful. A writer with a better grasp of audience could have hit a home run with this. Recommended it you're willing to wade through pages of boring personal experience to get to the author's sometimes fascinating insights. His take on why German men after Bismark were so rotund is priceless, but skip the sections on his own personal experiences; he doesn't tie them to any engaging theme or overall picture of the country.Still waiting for a book LIKE this one.

As a person who reads a bunch of history, it's ultimately the books that don't remain too serious about their subject matter, while still representing it in a factual way, that stand out. On this count, Simon Winder is at the top of my non-fiction-author heap at the moment, having pulled off a book that's so expansive (covering much of the German speaking world, for around two millennia), so detailed in it way (by Winder's only description, the place we think of as 'Germany' was until about 150 years ago an agglomeration of hundreds of tiny principalities), and so unbelievably funny (on more than one occasion while reading in bed I laughed so hard that I woke up my wife, much to my regret...) that I flew through it almost too fast. It's a rare beast of a non-fiction, history-ish book that you wish, upon finishing it, that you had another 500 pages or so to go. Well, here it is! I'll bottom line it: if you have even the slightest interest in Germany or things German, or European history, grab this right now. You won't regret it. (Oh, and I should note: if you're looking for a dry listing of historical events, in order, by region, with outcomes of battles and population charts for cities of the Hanseatic League, look elsewhere. Perhaps you'd be better served by some manner of college level textbook?)

I asked for and received this book for Christmas a few years ago. I was under the impression at that time that it was a light hearted look at things German. I could not have been more wrong. As an American I have only been there six times, not nearly as often as the author who must be looking for other body parts to count upon having long ago used all his fingers and toes. This just seems to be a cranky Englishman who has nothing better to do then find fault with everything German.The author spends over 400 pages finding fault with everything German in Germany and Austria. Most passages begin with some sort of positive reference regarding a town or forest, a castle, something or some place, and then the balance of the narrative is spent tearing it down or pointing out how futile and pathetic it all seems to the author. One of his pet topics is bashing old family castles and the German nobility that went with them. He seems to relish pointing out that Schloss XYZ-burg was the family home of the Duke of XYZ and the only thing he ever accomplished was to get killed/lose a war/have 16 illegitimate children – take your pick. I guess our English author has never been to ABC-shire in Jolly Old England where you will find the Manor House of the 11th Baronet of ABC-shire whose claim to fame is a hall of pictures of ancestors who fought for the Roundheads/Cavaliers/had 16 illegitimate children. While chastising Germany for the plethora of nobles it once had he forgets England is still filled with all sorts of nobles from Sir So-and-So of Something-shire to Prince Charles. Unlike Germany, the UK still has a branch of government devoted to nobles – the House of Lords. So let’s not forget: “Those who live in glass houses…“ The book seems to be written by an English Germanophobe specifically for Germanophobes. So, if you would like to spend your time reading 440 some pages of a bashing of Germany this is the book for you.One last caveat: he has a book called Danubia which I also got that Christmas. I fully expect it will be loaded up with complaints about every country along the Danube.

Grounded in solid research and yet solidly amusing, the author meanders through Germanic history with ease and insight. It is fun to educate yourself and yet not take yourself too seriously and Simon Winder accomplishes just that. I do wish he had waded a little deeper into the impact of Nazism, but I suppose his decision not too was valid enough (it makes him sad and mars his image of the German people).