You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.

informative fast-paced
dark tense medium-paced

WTF?? Der sich durchziehende Hass gegenüber Ostdeutschland ist genau einer der Gründe dafür, wieso viele Ostdeusche die AfD wählen, denn sie fühlen sich vernachlässigt und nicht akzeptiert. Dieses Buch ist die Manifestation der westlichen Arroganz - alleine der Fakt, dass der Autor Ostdeutschland konsequent als Ostelbien bezeichnet, als ob Deutschlands Grenzen sich durch natürliche Gegebenheiten klar zeigen.
informative reflective fast-paced

An interesting read with an absolutely fascinating conclusion.

This was an excellent book. I picked it up in an airport bookshop during a nine hour layover and devoured it immediately. It's well-written and engaging, historical without being dry and dense. I'm recently moved to Germany for a temporary job, and it got me much more in touch with the country that's taken me in beyond what was cursorily touched on in American history classes. I loaned the book to my host mother and she's devouring it too, so it's one of those books I can see myself sharing again and again.

sarahlabu's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH

not interesting enough, biased
challenging dark informative reflective tense medium-paced
informative fast-paced
challenging informative reflective fast-paced
dark informative tense fast-paced
dark informative slow-paced

Luise Weiss recommended this book as part of her regular “What I’m Reading” feature on her Substack blog, and as I was a history major, have German ethnic heritage in my family and I’ve been learning to speak German, I decided to read it. This is not the same German history that I learned about in my European history classes. Hawes focuses on the two Germanys—west and east—which were not just a post-World War II creation, but have been a factor since the days of Charlemagne. I would recommend that you not read about the Nazis and Hitler before sleeping, but other than that, this was a very readable and fascinating book.

This is part of a series of “Shortest History” books, and I am interested to check out some of the others.