A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People

Author - Steven Ozment ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Hardcover Book item from HarperCollins was reviewed on 30-Jul-2008.

Search ISBN:0066209250 offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People Reference Book. Classifications : General World History Subjects Books General Germany Europe History Subjects Books Hardcover Binding (binding) Refinements Books Printed Books Format (feature_browse-bin) Refinements Books . Click the following link to view the cover of A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People.

Related topics: General. World. History. Subjects. Books. General. Germany. Europe. History. Subjects.

1) Hardcover Book A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People by HarperCollins. This book claims to be a history of the german people that does not confuse the very long history of the germans with the brief history of nazi germany, but the author time and again tries to frame incidents and historical eras that take place over a thousand years of history within the prisam of the nazi experience - exactly the ´sin´ the author complains about when discussing other modern histories of germany. In addition, the book has numerous factual errors and skips many important facets of german history. Perhaps the task the author set for himself was too ambitious for such a short work and beyond his abilities as a writer. It also seems that the author has some kind of polical agenda that surfaces in the last chapters of the book - like many germanophiles and prussian apologists he bashes the french/american conception of individual libety as excessive and dangerous and glorifies the state as the protector of an orderly and balanced society against the chaos of liberty. This is the kind of confused thinking that gave us an autocratic and militaristic imperial germany which, after its military and economic collapse, eventually evolved into the totalitarian nazi germany. For someone who claims to be an expert on german history, this author has not learned very much from that history. In any case, this book was a waste of my time and I´m not sure who it could possibly appeal to except for someone who has almost no knowledge of European history in general and does not want to do the hard work required to educate himself.¤

2) Hardcover Book A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People by HarperCollins. I was really disappointed. I expected a carefully researched overview outlining the significant events and how they have impacted on and shaped German history. Instead the author gets lost in too many insignificant details. The only reason I rated this one-star is because there is not any other option. "The Germans," by Gordon Craig, is vastly superior and a very informative work. The research is presented in a lively, interesting, fun to read style.¤

3) Hardcover Book A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People by HarperCollins. 3 stars is too low and 4 is actually too high, but this book is above average so I generously went with 4 stars, given a context of contemporary and accessible writing on Europe.

The scope is overly ambitious for the length, but overall Steven Ozment is successful because of good organization, well chosen areas of focus, an even-handed approach, and solid references. The scope is basically to trace German history from roots to present and dissect what it is to be German. That is what I mean about overly ambitious. Emphasis is placed on continuity of cultural experience, that is, logical connections of events, themes, and behaviors over the long term, versus a more segmented view.

Ozment´s even-handed approach, particularly in the 20th century, clearly follows from requirements of reality and objectivity as opposed to a bias towards either vilifying or exonerating the German people.

This book is not the best one for those brand new to Germany or those who are quite well-versed in German history. Ozment seems to assume that the reader has at least a basic grasp of German evolution and key historical events. At the same type, the book is to short to delve far into any one area. However, this leaves probably the middle 50% or so interested in the subject matter who will appreciate the book.

Some specifics:
-The Roman era thru middle ages is a decent though quite abbreviated rendition of the important events and figures. Since maps are provided of various chronological snapshots of central Europe, I could argue for more of them to more clearly track territorial developments. A strength is Ozment´s identification of experiences that appeared to shape later German decisions and cultural identity. Readability is pretty good - pleasant lack of force fed references to tribal names, places, etc that are immediately familiar only to scholars.
-It is somewhat hard-slogging through some of the middle section where the Reformation is analyzed. Ozment obviously considers Martin Luther to be a key figure and tackles this era in somewhat more detail than others. Perhaps some re-read would be useful, but I found myself working harder than I like to pull out the salient points that are "keepers."
-I think the Bismark and pre-WWI era receive mostly appropriate coverage, but of course the overall brevity limits this. It would have been useful to look further into some the pseudo-anthropology going on internationally at the time, and Germany´s role in that, with particular focus on the colonial scramble for Africa. In addition, Germany was making incredible scientific gains and these are lightly noted.
-WWII, Cold War, and post-Cold War discussions are certainly a strength of the book. Ozment walks a delicate path. There is a lot of inertia in 20th century history writings that starts with Nazi Germany as the ultimate realization of evil and then works backwards to show how this catostraphic conditions was the inevitable end result of German traditions and overall psyche. Ozment debunks this at multiple turns, yet does not push for some kind of revisionist view that the holocaust was just another bad thing in recent history.

What Ozment does well is convey the remarkable nature of German history in the large view, and the relevance and vitality of Germans and Germany in the 21st century. The most valuable insight discussed is the nature of duality in the German identity and the experience-based shift of priority given to security and thus central authority. There is a uniquely German philosophical balance between individual liberty and disciplined adherence to rule of law that is an important contrast to the US and other western societies.¤

4) Hardcover Book A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People by HarperCollins. When confronted with the avowed task of the author - that is, attempting to meet the challenge of Tacitus and tell the history of the German people from the beginning - and the page count of the book - 400 pages, give or take a few depending on your edition - the question that should immediately present itself to the reader is whether or not such a task is plausibly attempted. Brevity is a virtue, or so one is told, but there is little excuse for purporting to tell the 2,000-plus year-long history of the German people and treating of vast swaths of it in a mere handful of pages. Readers looking for detail and depth are advised to look elsewhere.

But Professor Ozment´s book has several redeeming qualities which make the book worth the attention of many. Most notably, the book´s avowed emphasis is to dispel the practice of writing about German history in a style which depicts the rise of National Socialism as a historical inevitability. This is a welcome trait of the book, especially when popular imagination is still wont to unfairly brand Germans with the Nazi label, a label the vast majority of Germans have long since repudiated and continue to repudiate.

There is also an attempt in "A Mighty Fortress" to give us a sense of the German cultural psyche and its development. Diverse references on this point are made to facts such as that Germany sits at the crossroads of Europe and has been subject to foreign involvement for hundreds of years, such as in the Thirty Years´ War; that Germany has long struggled with the issue of regional pride and disunity; that various elements of German culture, such as music deemed culturally German, were derived from foreign (Bohemian) sources, and so the need to discover fundamentally German aspects of culture and music was great; and that Germans, reflecting on their own struggles and those of neighboring nations, have long felt that "Ordnung muss sein," and that such an order, which provides for a sense of security in a dangerous and unstable world, should be sustained, whatever the disadvantages of such an order. This is accurately reflected in Professor Ozment´s discussion of Immanuel Kant´s seemingly paradoxical support for a cosmopolitan political system coupled with his condemnation of revolt against what he considered to be lawfully-established government. Although the book is too short to give a complete treatment of this subject, Professor Ozment succeeds in at least getting some basic ideas about the German mindset across to the reader. Ideally, one hopes that Professor Ozment´s treatment will cause in the reader some curiosity about the matter and incite the reader to pursue the issue more thoroughly elsewhere.

One is introduced, however briefly, to the great personages of German history as well. We meet great kings and emperors, such as Frederick the Great and Charlemagne, and are introduced to their dynasties, such as the Habsburgs and the Hohenzollerns. We also briefly meet great writers, philosophers, theologians, artists, and musicians, most prominent among them Luther, Duerer, Goethe, J.S. Bach, Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche. Professor Ozment gives us a summary treatment of their views, and we do get some sense of their importance for history - not just German, but human history. Again, though, the compressed nature of the book does not lend itself to getting a full appreciation of the importance of any subject the book treats of.

Despite its major shortcoming, the book is engagingly written and would serve well a person unfamiliar with German history. The book is thus recommended for amateur historians and neophytes of the subject seeking something more substantial than a "Cliff´s Notes," or for travelers and businesspeople seeking an overview of German history. Professor Ozment´s book, however, is a popular history of Germany, and should be regarded as such. Readers seeking an in-depth examination of any subject "A Mighty Fortress" treats of will probably find themselves disappointed.¤

5) Hardcover Book A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People by HarperCollins. Ozment´s book is an uneven, but overall useful travel through two millenia of German history. For someone who knows little of German history (like myself), this seems to be a decent place to start. Ozment views Germany from a knowledgeable and sensitive perspective. However as others question, I wonder how successful he is at condensing so much history into 300 pages.

Certainly, the usefulness of a book like this is merely as a survey of a long history. For more detail about a particular event or time period, we will of course need to refer to a more specific text. And as with any history, there is more than one way to view it. I gather from other reviews that many people were frustrated with the frequent focus on culture and thought at the occasional expense of specifics on battles, economics and borders. But Ozment is a social historian (see the subject matter of his other books) often more focused on the microhistory (what life was like in a town) than the macrohistory (drawing of borders). He actually spends most of his time on the macrohistory here. But I welcome reading about the ideas Luther, Dürer, Goethe, Nietsche, etc. as they often tell you as much about what is going on during an era as who won a particularly battle.

However, I did find myself occasionally frustrated with what seemed to be over-edited or over-perfuctory text, where a consequential battle might be won or lost in the course of a couple sentences. Meanwhile, Marx was barely described except as a constant boogeyman stirring up conservative fears of communist revolution. (Ozment´s politics, although never distinctly partisan, seem somewhat conservative as far as I can tell, appearing to side with moderate political reformers and fiscal conservatism and roll his eyes at folks like Gunther Grass.) I would say that even in as few as 20 and as many as 50 pages, Ozment might have made this a much more consistently readable text. And he could have further improved the book with better footnotes; I am always grateful when authors use footnotes as an opportunity to expand further on tangential ideas, rather than just using them to cite references.

Overall though, I did learn a lot and Ozment´s survey was far from rote. The higlights of the book included the sections on Protestant Reformation, Otto Von Bismarck and World War 2. These sections, while far from complete, were as thorough as I could expect and written with a vitality that whet my appetite for further study.¤

6) Hardcover Book A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People by HarperCollins.

The word "German" was being used by the Romans as early as the mid–first century B.C. to describe tribes in the eastern Rhine valley. Nearly two thousand years later, the richness and complexity of German history have faded beneath the long shadow of the country´s darkest hour in World War II. Now award-winning historian Steven Ozment, whom the New Yorker has hailed as "a splendidly readable scholar," gives us the fullest portrait possible in this sweeping, original, and provocative history of the German people, from antiquity to the present, holding a mirror up to an entire civilization -- one that has been alternately Western Europe´s most successful and most perilous.

A Mighty Fortress boldly examines Germany´s tumultuous twentieth century in light of its earliest achievements as a prosperous, civil, and moral society, tracing a line of continuity that began in ancient times and has endured through the ages, despite its enemies and itself. Ozment´s story takes us from the tribes of the Roman Empire and the medieval dynasties to the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification. He shows that the Germans are a people who desire national unity yet have kept themselves from it by aligning with autocratic territorial governments and regional cultures. From Luther, Kant, Goethe, and Beethoven to Marx, Einstein, Bismarck, and Hitler, the country´s leading figures have always tried to become everything and more than what ordinary mortals could be. In fact, Germans living centuries apart have shared in different ways a common defining experience that is unique to their culture: a convergence of external provocation and wounded pride, and an unusual ability to exercise great power in response to both.

In this work of penetrating, virtuoso scholarship, Steven Ozment captures the soul of a nation that is at once ordered and chaotic, disciplined and obsessive, proud and uncertain. Epic in scope, refreshing in its insights, and written with nuance, acumen, and verve, A Mighty Fortress presents the history of the Germans as the story of humanity writ large.

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 27-Aug-2008, 00662092509780066209258, 130-500-530-120-570-340-8

A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People, Book, Image © HarperCollins

Search: HarperCollins, Book Posters, Book Art