Customer Reviews

German-American Experience

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I actually took two classes with Dr. Tolzmann at the University of Cincinnati and that is how I came to know this book. I hadn't read the book in some years and picked it up again recently. Dr. Tolzmann is a fascinating man and clearly has a passion for his interests. This shines through in all of his work. I recommend this book highly to those with German heritage.

I found this book very enlightening. I originally thought my family had came from Germany in the mid-1800's because my family told stories about family members being able to speak German. After reading this book and doing a little family tree work, I found out to my surprise that my family had lived in the US since at least the 1700's and had passed down the language for many generations. This book does a great job of explaining the major German immigration routes, i.e., mainly through PA.

I also found the chapter describing German-American influence on American culture very useful, e.g., that our educational system is modeled after the Prussian system.

This is a great book and I highly recommend.

This book has serious problems both with accuracy and with scholarly integrity. Certainly, readers who know nothing of German-American history can learn important information from reading the book, but it is badly outdated, wrong in too many instances, and much of it is copied from an older work. Read the details in the H-Net review: [...]