Overview

A groundbreaking history of the people at the centre of Europe, from the Second World War to today In 1945, Germany lay in ruins, morally and materially. The German people stood condemned by history, responsible for a horrifying genocide and a war of extermination. But by 2015 Germany looked to many to be the moral voice of Europe, welcoming almost one million refugees. At the same time, it pursued a controversially rigid fiscal discipline and made energy deals with a dictator. Many people have asked how Germany descended into the darkness of the Nazis, but this book asks another vital question- how, and how far, have the Germans since reinvented themselves? Trentmann tells the dramatic story of the Germans from the middle of the Second World War, through the Cold War and the division into East and West, to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunited nation's search for a place in the world. Their journey is marked by extraordinary moral struggles- guilt, shame and limited amends; wealth versus welfare; tolerance versus racism; compassion and complicity. Through a range of voices - German soldiers and German Jews; environmentalists and coal miners; families and churches; volunteers, migrants and populists - Trentmann paints a remarkable and surprising portrait over 80 years of the conflicted people at the centre of Europe.

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9780141985848

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Reviews

Outstanding ... A meticulous and well-judged account of Germany from 1942 to today [that] shows how it transformed itself from pariah nation to leader of a continent -- Simon Heffer * Daily Telegraph, Best Books of the Year * An impressive account of how Germany built a new identity for itself after the barbaric Nazi years ... terrifically insightful ... This book runs to 838 pages, but barely a word is wasted. Trentmann is a skilful and unflashy storyteller with flickers of gentle irony. Echoing Tolstoy’s theory of history as the “sum of human wills”, he aims to stitch the scraps of everyday experience into a quilt of grand narrative. This results in a good deal of richness, colour and subtlety -- Oliver Moody * The Times * Compelling ... vivid ... fresh ... one of the most impressive studies I have read of German guilt and shame ... an eloquent and original account of the last eighty years of the country’s history -- David Blackbourn * Literary Review * Absorbing... Frank Trentmann's approach is novel [and] his Germans leap vividly off the page, both as archetypes and as complex, multi-layered individuals... an excellent book -- Brendan Simms * New Statesman * Superb -- Stuart Jeffries * Spectator * In Out of the Darkness Trentmann does something different and extraordinary. He has composed an account of recent Germany that is not primarily political or economic or social, but moral.. [His] moral history is enormous, but never heavy-going: he is a gifted and intelligent writer -- Neal Ascherson * London Review of Books * Excellent ... Trentmann's study marshals an immense amount of evidence in response to a single basic question: how did Germans reassert themselves as morally oriented human beings? -- Ben Hutchinson * Times Literary Supplement * A fascinating, rich and fluid narrative * Der Spiegel, Books of the Year * A panorama of German mentalities since 1942 * Die Zeit, Best Books January 2024 * Monumental ... a remarkable book ... original and unique insights into the lived history of the Germans ... succeeds like no other history to combine the width and depth of human voices with an overarching narrative ... stimulating, immensely rich and very readable -- Frank Biess * Sueddeutsche Zeitung * A milestone in historical writing -- Michael Hesse * Frankfurter Rundschau * Impressive ... shows how German history can be told in a new way -- Wolf Lepenies * Die Welt * Trentmann adds another layer to the history of events: the accompanying self-reflection among the Germans, with all their contradictions, their conflicts, their insights and errors. This is original, enlightening and entertaining. We find ourselves in these pages and are amazed! -- Gustav Seibt * Süddeutsche Zeitung * A must read! * taz Futur Zwei, Best Books Winter 2023 * A lively portrait of German mentalities * Handelsblatt * A great panorama * Hamburger Abendblatt * I could not put the book down. The way Frank Trentmann writes history is wonderful -- Von Bernhard Schlink

Outstanding ... A meticulous and well-judged account of Germany from 1942 to today [that] shows how it transformed itself from pariah nation to leader of a continent -- Simon Heffer * Daily Telegraph, Best Books of the Year * An impressive account of how Germany built a new identity for itself after the barbaric Nazi years ... terrifically insightful ... This book runs to 838 pages, but barely a word is wasted. Trentmann is a skilful and unflashy storyteller with flickers of gentle irony. Echoing Tolstoy’s theory of history as the “sum of human wills”, he aims to stitch the scraps of everyday experience into a quilt of grand narrative. This results in a good deal of richness, colour and subtlety -- Oliver Moody * The Times * Compelling ... vivid ... fresh ... one of the most impressive studies I have read of German guilt and shame ... an eloquent and original account of the last eighty years of the country’s history -- David Blackbourn * Literary Review * Absorbing... Frank Trentmann's approach is novel [and] his Germans leap vividly off the page, both as archetypes and as complex, multi-layered individuals... an excellent book -- Brendan Simms * New Statesman * Superb -- Stuart Jeffries * Spectator * In Out of the Darkness Trentmann does something different and extraordinary. He has composed an account of recent Germany that is not primarily political or economic or social, but moral.. [His] moral history is enormous, but never heavy-going: he is a gifted and intelligent writer -- Neal Ascherson * London Review of Books * Excellent ... Trentmann's study marshals an immense amount of evidence in response to a single basic question: how did Germans reassert themselves as morally oriented human beings? -- Ben Hutchinson * Times Literary Supplement * A fascinating, rich and fluid narrative * Der Spiegel, Books of the Year * A panorama of German mentalities since 1942 * Die Zeit, Best Books January 2024 * Monumental ... a remarkable book ... original and unique insights into the lived history of the Germans ... succeeds like no other history to combine the width and depth of human voices with an overarching narrative ... stimulating, immensely rich and very readable -- Frank Biess * Sueddeutsche Zeitung * A milestone in historical writing -- Michael Hesse * Frankfurter Rundschau * Impressive ... shows how German history can be told in a new way -- Wolf Lepenies * Die Welt * Trentmann adds another layer to the history of events: the accompanying self-reflection among the Germans, with all their contradictions, their conflicts, their insights and errors. This is original, enlightening and entertaining. We find ourselves in these pages and are amazed! -- Gustav Seibt * Süddeutsche Zeitung * A must read! * taz Futur Zwei, Best Books Winter 2023 * A lively portrait of German mentalities * Handelsblatt * A great panorama * Hamburger Abendblatt *

Author Information

Frank Trentmann is Professor of History at Birkbeck, University of London, and at the University of Helsinki. He is the author of Empire of Things and Free Trade Nation, was a Moore Scholar at Caltech and has been awarded the Whitfield Prize, the Austrian Science Book Prize, the Humboldt Prize for Research and the 2023 Bochum Historians' Prize. He grew up in Hamburg and lives in London.

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