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3.53 AVERAGE
3.53 AVERAGE
informative
fast-paced
informative
reflective
medium-paced
I enjoyed reading this immensely. It's a brisk introduction to the history of Germany and Hawes makes a good case that there have always been two Germanies. A western looking, liberal one and an Eastern looking, illiberal one - which he calls East Elbia. And it is this East Elbia that has been the problem part since 'unification' in 1870 (and before.)
WARNING - this may be a half-arsed understanding of Hawes's approach.
Interestingly, he suggests that the decision by the British to give the Rhineland to Prussia in 1814 is basically a terrible error from which most of the catastrophes of the 20th century spiral out. I have always said that if you're talking about a problematic parts of the world you'll often find British fingerprints all over it, e.g. Pakistan/India, Palestine/Israel (and the Middle East in general) and the artificial borders of Africa. Now I can add Germany to that list.
I'd say though that if you're learning about modern Germany - either at school or not - then read this book before you get to the period you're studying as it gives a really solid context to what follows.
WARNING - this may be a half-arsed understanding of Hawes's approach.
Interestingly, he suggests that the decision by the British to give the Rhineland to Prussia in 1814 is basically a terrible error from which most of the catastrophes of the 20th century spiral out. I have always said that if you're talking about a problematic parts of the world you'll often find British fingerprints all over it, e.g. Pakistan/India, Palestine/Israel (and the Middle East in general) and the artificial borders of Africa. Now I can add Germany to that list.
I'd say though that if you're learning about modern Germany - either at school or not - then read this book before you get to the period you're studying as it gives a really solid context to what follows.
informative
reflective
fast-paced
informative
fast-paced
informative
medium-paced
The author seemed very biased towards a "Western" and Catholic view, esentially blaming everything going wrong on "East Elbia" as he calls the Eastern part of Germany throughout the book. This bias was also very aparrant in his word choice and interpretations of shown maps. I think the difference between correlation and causation wasn't very clear to the author.
The book raised some interesting points and made good observations - but stating that there would have been no Führer without "East Elbia" seems far fetched to me. An interesting read, but very frustating in the end, because East Germany seems to be the scape goat for everything to the author and the Prussians are at fault - while the hard working, money making South-West Germany pays for everything. Someone listened to some grumpy old men in West Germany, I guess. This ignores the fact that Prussian monarchs (the Hohenzollern) originated from Schwaben (located in Baden-Württemberg in South-West Germany) and that these "East Elbian" Germans had originally come from the West, pushing back the Slavs.
The line of thinking is extremly simplfied and could potentially be dangerous, because one could come to the conclusion that the "brown east" can't be saved anyway. So why not abandon it.. (Which is essentially the fear the afd feeds on in East Germany.)
The book raised some interesting points and made good observations - but stating that there would have been no Führer without "East Elbia" seems far fetched to me. An interesting read, but very frustating in the end, because East Germany seems to be the scape goat for everything to the author and the Prussians are at fault - while the hard working, money making South-West Germany pays for everything. Someone listened to some grumpy old men in West Germany, I guess. This ignores the fact that Prussian monarchs (the Hohenzollern) originated from Schwaben (located in Baden-Württemberg in South-West Germany) and that these "East Elbian" Germans had originally come from the West, pushing back the Slavs.
The line of thinking is extremly simplfied and could potentially be dangerous, because one could come to the conclusion that the "brown east" can't be saved anyway. So why not abandon it.. (Which is essentially the fear the afd feeds on in East Germany.)
Not my sort of book, but interesting thesis.
The author's thesis is that the eastern parts of Germany are culturally different to the rest of Germany, and were responsible for starting (and losing) both world wars. Essentially - the parts of Germany that the Romans never occupied (and were outside the Holy Roman Empire) are the ones that caused all the problems.
The history in the book is superficial - a lot of ground covered in very few pages, very little detail, and only point supporting the thesis get a mention. As history, it's not much good.
I don't know enough about Germany to have a good idea whether or not the thesis is correct. I'm sure it would be offensive to a lot of people and that the people who disagree with the thesis could bring up a lot of facts against the thesis that were omitted here.
The author's thesis is that the eastern parts of Germany are culturally different to the rest of Germany, and were responsible for starting (and losing) both world wars. Essentially - the parts of Germany that the Romans never occupied (and were outside the Holy Roman Empire) are the ones that caused all the problems.
The history in the book is superficial - a lot of ground covered in very few pages, very little detail, and only point supporting the thesis get a mention. As history, it's not much good.
I don't know enough about Germany to have a good idea whether or not the thesis is correct. I'm sure it would be offensive to a lot of people and that the people who disagree with the thesis could bring up a lot of facts against the thesis that were omitted here.
This book is useful to understand the formation of Germany from the colonization by the Romans until the present day, as well as the recent events. History was a hard subject for me at school and I couldn’t absorb much of it, specially topics related to politics. For this purpose, the book was informative and easy to understand.
The author does assume previous knowledge and doesn’t go into details about certain topics, but I still could follow the main ideas and learn a lot from this book.
It doesn’t go very deep into present day dynamics, focusing more on the division between west and east.
The author does assume previous knowledge and doesn’t go into details about certain topics, but I still could follow the main ideas and learn a lot from this book.
It doesn’t go very deep into present day dynamics, focusing more on the division between west and east.
hopeful
informative
medium-paced
informative
medium-paced