There were elements of this book that I found to be clichéd and annoying such as the contemporary British travel writing troupes of dreary museums and kitschy monuments. However, I was won over by the author's astute observations of German history and culture that went well beyond what is normally found and suggest to me that Winder is a thinker as well as a writer. ( )

A book about German history that doesn't take itself too seriously, and on the whole, focuses on the local and specific rather than any broad lines, reflecting the reality of German-speaking lands well up into the 19th century, drawing on the author's personal experiences and travelling. ( )

Years after reading Mr. Winders subsequent book, Danubia, I finally located a copy of Germania. Winder is a quirky person and this book is at times hilarious, at other times horrific and sometimes hateful about Germans. I coud not stop reading. Now I have to read the third book in this group, Lotharingia. ( )

UPDATE: I picked this book back up in 2021, got about 150 pages into it, then got distracted by other books and sort of forgot that I was reading it. Not a great endorsement for a book. I'm marking it as abandoned and moving it from the pile of stuff on the end table back to its place on the bookshelf; my instinct is to toss it out but I'll keep it for awhile and see if the mood strikes me again.

Gave this a start in June 2018, and then moved it back to my to-read list. While I enjoyed the writing, my knowledge of German history is too weak to follow along. I plan to read a more cut-and-dry history of the nation in order to get the basic facts down, and then come back to this book for the fun stuff.

In this delightful romp through German culture and history, Simon Winder does two unexpected things: admits that he can’t speak German; and ends the narrative in 1933. Winder overcomes these potentially fatal handicaps, and his book Germania gives a solid overview of the history and culture of the Germans.

Winder, an Englishman and frequent traveller to Germany, naturally takes a travelogue approach. It’s a personal story of discovery as much as anything. I was put in mind of A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson, or Blue Latitudes by Tony Horwitz (both of which I also thoroughly enjoyed). There is humour throughout, but Winder also skilfully includes the serious side of things, and even hints at the dark side of German history. His choice to end the narrative when he does allows him to only ever hint at *that* dark part of the country’s history.

The great success of this book is that it brings all the incredible stories of German history to light for English-speakers in an accessible and enjoyable book.

Winder has actually done a “central European” trilogy, and I must get on to the other two volumes, which deal with the former Habsburg Empire and the Benelux nations respectively. ( )

Germany. The industrial and economic behemoth of the modern Europe. But it hasn’t always been that way. In this book Winder takes us way back into Germanys past, as far as the Romans even, before bringing up to the relatively modern age. The Germany of this age was a frontier of the Roman empire, similar to the far north of England; over the line were the barbarians. There is still architecture from those days too, that has survived countless wars and skirmishes.

Until relatively recently, 1871 in fact, Germany was a patchwork of princedoms, mini states and bigger empires, some really tiny too. Sometimes they all got along, but frequently they didn’t. As he travels around the country he reveals snippets of history about the places he visits. There are tales of battles, disputes, religious leaders whose remains were displayed in gibbets around the town (the gibbets are still there too), of aristocrat princes and barons and the castles and cathedrals that they built.

He does avoid recent World War 2 history, partly because the history that the Germans prefer is prior to that too, and also that they are countless other books on that conflict. He does brush gently against it, looking at the events that lead to Hitler and the Nazis seizing power in the 1930’s.

I was quite looking forward to this one, as I had enjoyed reading another of his called Danubia. That book was interesting, and also witty and fairly often really funny. Sadly this one didn’t seem to have that lighter humour that it really needed to lift it. IT is stuffed full of fact and anecdotes, and come across as being fairly well researched. Worth reading if you have a fascination with Germany, but may not be for everyone. 2.5 stars ( )

I love this book. Beautifully written, smart, fun. ( )

The starting-point of Simon Winder's book is Tacitus' "Germania", published in AD100, and its vision of the tribes and lands outwith the then Roman empire, a vision used to promote the concept of 'pure blood' throughout German history.

Winder suggests, to the contrary, that "in practice Germany is a chaotic ethnic lost-property office, and the last place to be looking for 'pure blood', and the book goes on to elaborate on this theme.

The author is clearly knowledgeable, with a wide-ranging appreciation of history and an encyclopaedic knowledge of both high-brow and low-brow German culture, as evidenced by his discourses on opera, mining and cooking.

However, despite the obvious and extensive scholarship on display here, the serious stuff is too often accompanied by asides or acerbic comments. For example, on pp. 111-112, he says: "Of course, even allowing for the huge oversimplification created by clinging to crowned heads, German history is just endlessly more interesting and funny simply because the Wettins, Hohenzollerns, Wittelsbachs and Habsburgs between them generate a madly complex gimcrack of genealogies, competing, interrelating, rising, falling, dying on the battlefield, going mad, doing nothing much at all".

This is historical writing gone fallow: what could have been interesting and insightful ends up as either knocking copy or wasted text. There's a hint that the author, too, knocks his own copy when he describes this work, in the Introduction, as "chaotic" (pg. 14).

It is, and I chose not to finish it. ( )

Germania is a book that only a middle aged British man could write. That doesn't make it bad; it just explains things like the book's seeming obsession with Nazis and an oddly phrased remark that Handel wasn't German. Remarkably, the closer one gets to the Nazi Era, the less he talks about Nazis, so while I almost gave the book up because it seemed that every aspect of early and medieval Germany was related to or foreshadowed the Nazis, I'm glad I stuck with it because it did get better. Winder's work is an overview of German history from the beginning through 1933 told through the filter of his travels around Germany seeking out the historic and the eccentric. And he gets to spend a lot of time complaining about the French—a favorite pastime of Britons and Germans. If you like obscure German microstates, questionable street food, or ridiculous provincial museums, this book is for you, because Winder does too. And he travels the length and breadth of Germany in his quest for the next juicy tidbit. But he also spends time on serious matters: his thoughts about the fall of pre-1914 European civilization especially is worth the effort of finishing the book.

Overall, it's a fun, accessible read written in a style that lets the author's personality and humor shine through. Although he does offer references/further reading at the end, this should not be confused an academic history and was never meant to be one.

Recommended for Germanophiles looking for a fun read; the follow-up Danubia, about Austria-Hungary, is even better. ( )

Essays about the identity of the Germans starting with Tacitus (Germania) and stopping with remarks of today but avoiding the Nazi-period although it is looming in the background at least in half of the chapters. Amusing with sometimes great insights from one who considers himself an outsider. ( )

An excellent and entertaining history of Germany. ( )

I enjoyed Simon Winder’s book Danubia enough to seek out his earlier combination travelogue/history, Germania - a "personal response," as he calls it, to German history.

Writing “German” history prior to 1871 presents a daunting task because before that date there was no country known as “Germany.” The land we think of as Germany was composed of numerous principalities, dukedoms, bishoprics, and independent city-states that popped in and out of existence owing to the vagaries of hereditary suzerainty and noble marriages. Winder notes that successive historical maps of the country resemble nothing so much as "an explosion in a jigsaw factory." He does not undertake to present a chronological narrative; rather, he travels around the countryside and regales the reader with stories relevant to the place he is visiting, although the history still manages to be presented in roughly chronological order.

Winder is not one to make heroes of long-gone historical characters. Of Charlemagne he writes:

"As usual with such leaders, historians – who are generally rather introverted and mild individuals – tend to wish Charlemagne to be at heart keen on jewels, saints’ relics and spreading literacy, whereas an argument might be made for his core competence being the efficient piling-up of immense numbers of dead Saxons.”

Rather, the “heroes” of Winder’s story are the Free Imperial Cities such as Strasburg , Nuremberg, and the Hanseatic League that endured the middle ages as independent entities fostering trade and cosmopolitan values.

Winder breaks off his history in 1933 with the rise of the Nazis, avoiding not only the nastiest period in German history, but also its remarkable economic recovery after World War II. But he does manage to get in a few jabs at modern Germany, as with his exploration of what it means to “be” German, spoofing the Nazi’s efforts to create a pure Aryan race. After a short summary of the shifts of various unrelated tribes over the territory for about a thousand years, he says, “In practice Germany is a chaotic ethnic lost-property office, and the last place to be looking for ‘pure blood.’” Indeed, he sees German reverence for their deep past as having a corrosive and disastrous effect:

"There can be few stronger arguments for the damage that can be done by paying too much attention to history than how Germany has understood and taught its ancient past, however aesthetically pleasurable it can be in operas."

Winder livens up his sweep of German history with a tourist’s eye for the unique and noteworthy in his travels, describing the Christmas markets, the Ratskellers (with their massive glasses for serving beer), the ubiquitous castles, dense forests, flower-bedecked windows on half-timbered houses, marzipan in a variety of shapes (including, in one Lübeck shop, models of the Brandenburg Gate, the Eiffel Tower, and the Houses of Parliament) and “endless sausages.” He quips, “There is always a pig and a potato just around the next corner…..”

Evaluation: Germania, like Danubia, is a quirky book that could hardly be classified as serious history, although it contains a lot of factual information on an important topic. ("Germany," the author writes, "is a place without which European culture makes no sense.”) Perhaps “travelogue with historical background” might be a more apt description. The writing is sprightly and entertaining, and the book presents an often delightful and decidedly unique guide to the region.

(JAB) ( )

If you would like to know more about German history than just the events of the Second World War, then I recommend this laugh out loud history of the Germans. Simon Winder has organised his view of Germany history using his travels around Germany and its neighbours to develop themes such as a Germanic cultural obsession with the Middle Ages, the horrors of the Black Death and the Thirty Years War and the role of Free Imperial Cities. Those readers who have a more extensive knowledge of Central European history than me can have fun disagreeing with his vividly expressed opinions and amusing asides.

Here is one example from p150, 'One very odd aspect to many European countries, not often noticed, is that, if you start in their top north-wests they are generally unattractive, gloomy, harsh places - but if you travel south-east life gets better. This is drastically true in Scandinavia, but more curiously it works for Spain, Italy, France and Greece.'

If you, like me, reside in the fair city of Sheffield (the greenest city in Britain), you too can borrow this excellent book from the public library. ( )

A wayward book indeed, which starts out seeming like an eccentric (and very British) travelogue but ends up as an often perceptive overview of German history. He starts at the beginning, with the Germania described by Tacitus, and ends in 1933 -- because, it seems,,he could not bear to go further. Some of the book verges on cutsey see-how-quaint the pre-Prussian statelets were, but some is perceptive history and powerful writing (the section on the 30 Years War is hard to forget). He doesn't answer The Question about German history -- who can -- but does look behind it, around it, beside it, and through it. Well worth reading, and I would guess very helpful as a travelling companion. ( )

Winder makes German history somewhat easier to grasp, but he gets so much wrong through not understanding German, that the process is painful. Also it is rather ridiculous what things he complains about in Germany - most of them are at least as true about England. What saves this book is that just when you are about to give it up in disgust he comes up with a rather nice story. ( )

German history made interesting

A really good anecdotal and idiosyncratic history of Germany. Simon Winder doesn't let his lack of expertise or German get in the way. His love of Germany overcomes everything. He glories in the Ruritanian past of today's European superpower. As well as history he provides a wonderful travelogue with lots of ' I must go there, see that' moments scattered throughout the book. And he is a master of digression if not quite on the scale of Tristram Shandy. He shows a little lack of imagination by using a traditional chronological approach to telling the historical tale but he doesn't fail to engage the reader on what could be (is) a long, difficult and complicated story.

Read less ( )

I lived on the Mosel in Germany for three years. During that time I wondered at all the history that surrounded me - castles, schlosses, cathedrals, walled cities, and even Roman ruins (e.g., Trier). I could never get a cohesive handle on German history because it seemed so compartmentalized and fractionated. Simon embraces the fact that Germany, until at least the twentieth century, in fact did not have a cohesive history. He presents an extremely readable history of Germany from Roman times to WWII. The narrative is chronological and he tells the story through his own personal travels to small towns and cities throughout Germany and Austria. His writing is humorous, be it poking fun at the ugly art, failed architecture, mundane cuisine, ponderous music, and innumerable, dysfunctional and incompetent minor nobility who ruled hundreds of small, disjunctive, and unimportant principalities. ( )

This is an early review of a book I have just purchased; a fuller review will follow.

The author claims this to be a 'personal history' and it consists of a roughly chronological dip into events and personalities of German history. I saw it and it was a book right up my street, but I have two cautions. Firstly, it breaks off roughly at the outbreak of the Second World War; and whilst the author does address some of the issues around Nazism, it becomes clear that he only feels able to address it on his own terms. He has attempted no analysis or explanation. I could say that as he is not a professional historian, then this doesn't matter. But I can't say that. I'm not a professional historian either, and I've grappled with this issue myself.

Secondly, he lumps Austria in with Germany.

I know some Austrians who would be enraged at this. At best, it's like including Britain in a history of the USA. Winder himself says "Historically, the areas now called Germany and Austria have been so entangled that generally I do not differentiate between them." No, no, NO! Their histories have at times been closely connected, but not to the extent that the author suggests. It would be possible - very interesting, in fact - to write a similar book about the German-speaking peoples, but it should not and could not be called 'Germania'. In doing this, Winder has merely perpetuated a myth and a misunderstanding and does little to bring enlightenment to this issue. This will influence my star rating when I finally read the book, which otherwise looks very good.

Germania is, surprisingly, a history of Germany. The thing is though, it's not told from a stuffy, rigorous perspective but instead is told in an easy and humorous manner by the author. It is at times irreverent and long-winded, but it is always entertaining and illuminating.

Winder is a man obsessed with all things German. Ever since a childhood holiday in Germany, he has been fascinated by this country that sits at the heart of Europe, but which yet took so long to solidify into a coherent sovereign state. Winder mixes descriptions of favourite locations around Germany with a very liberal dose of history, and a unique perspective on the Germans. The book stops just shy of WWII as the author clearly does not feel comfortable with this dark period in German history. However, the book stretches back in time to the Romans, thus covering a significant period of time.

The book is peppered with laugh out loud comments and observations, but when finished reading, I realised that I had also absorbed a large amount of factual knowledge. If only all historical writing was this captivating. ( )

Read 2016 ( )