Germania: A Personal History of Germans Ancient and Modern

Simon Winder is obsessed with Germany; its cuisine, its architecture, its fairytale landscape. He is equally passionate about the region’s history, its folklore, its monarchs, and its changing borders. Winder describes Germany’s past afresh, taking in the story from the shaggy world of the ancient forests right through to the Nazis’ catastrophic rise in the 1930s, in an accessible and startlingly vivid account of a tortured but also brilliant country. Germania is a very personal guide to the Germany that Simon Winder loves. With a delightfully dry, self-deprecating wit, he explains the origins of his crazed love affair with a country which has, at different times, revealed the best and the worst aspects of Europe’s culture. This is a rollicking account, replete with enlightening digressions, anecdotes, and memories. Often eccentric, always entertaining, Winder is an enthusiastic guide to the hidden wonders of Germany.