A Concise History of Germany

A Concise History of Germany provides a clear and informative guide to the twists and turns of German history from the early Middle Ages to the present day. The multi-faceted, problematic history of the German lands has provoked a wide range of debates and differences of interpretations. Dr. Fulbrook provides a crisp synthesis of a vast array of historical material, and explores the interrelationships among social, political and cultural factors in the light of scholarly controversies. German history is renowned for its peculiarities and paradoxes. The land of Luther, Bach and Goethe is also the land of Hitler and the Holocaust. The ''land in the center of Europe'' played a pivotal role in the European balance of power, yet never found a satisfactory identity or even stable boundaries. For centuries, the loose framework of the ''Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation,'' dominated by the Austrian Habsburgs, permitted a myriad of social and political forms and cultural traditions. With late, rapid industrialization and unification of a Prussian-dominated ''small'' Germany, domestic tensions contributed to the unleashing of two world wars in the twentieth century. In the later twentieth century, the status of a divided Germany has echoed, refracted, and has had implications for wider developments and divisions across the world. Only in recent days has the breaching of the Berlin Wall pointed the way to a new beginning in East-West relations, an episode which forms a telling climax to Dr. Fulbrook's guide to a 2000-year history. Mary Fulbrook received her Ph.D. from Harvard in 1979 and is the author of Piety and Politics: Religion and the Rise of Absolutism in England, W^D''urttemberg and Prussia (CUP, 1983). She is currently a lecturer in German History at University College, London.