Modern Germany

There are many reasons to be fascinated by Germany: forests, architecture and fairy tales, not to mention its history and inhabitants’ penchant for very peculiar food. Our distant and often maligned cousin, this is a place in which innumerable strange characters have held power, in which a chaotic jigsaw of borders have moved about seemingly at random, and which at the dark heart of the 20th century fell into the hands of truly terrible forces. And now Simon Winder is here to tell us everything else there is to know about this mesmerizing, tortured and endlessly fascinating country.

From a master of popular history, the lively, immersive story of the race to seize Berlin in the aftermath of World War II as it’s never been told before.

An American descendant of its wealthy German-Jewish owners tells the human story of a house near Berlin, revealing its Nazi occupation and use as a child-care center,and the building of the Berlin Wall 50 feet from the front door.

Es sieht nicht alles schlimm aus in den achtziger Jahren. Aber vieles. Es ist das Jahrzehnt der explodierenden Dauerwellen und Pornoschnauzbärte, der aufgepumpten Schulterpolsterjacketts und schrillen Herumprotzerei; in den Achtzigern werden die Yuppies zu Vorreitern einer neuen Egoistenkultur. Doch gleichzeitig herrscht die Angst vor der Apokalypse, vor dem Atomtod und der Umweltzerstörung; die Menschen sehnen sich nach Utopien und Zukunft, nach neuer Gemeinschaft und Wärme.