Germany: The Empire Within [Hardcover]

Amity Shlaes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 19, 1991

In a book that is rich in personalities and incident, Amity Shales explores distinct segments of German society that reflect the memories, traditions, and dreams that will burden and shape the new German nation. Maps.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Wall Street Journal correspondent Shlaes contributes interesting insights into various facets of the German psyche as the "Volk" confront the uncertainties of reunification. Obviously well-versed in things Teutonic, she examines different social aspects that will shape and explain the new nation: the recent and historical "aussiedler" (settlers) from Eastern Europe; the politics of music in Bavaria; the contemporary status of German nobility; a private Jewish school in Berlin; and the unification of a once-divided city. Exhibiting considerable sympathy, she manages to make understandable a great deal of the nation's postwar behavior. She is at her best when dealing with the West German reaction to those coming in from the East, pointing out that Germans, commonly considered cold and aloof, feel a real warmth and sense of responsibility for the emigres. Her acute observations on a people once again thrust into a position of primacy on the European continent make this a good choice for public and academic libraries.
- Norman Lederer, Stevens State Sch. of Technology, Lancaster, Pa.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 264 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1st edition (February 19, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374256055
• ISBN-13: 978-0374256050
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,389,349 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Amity Shlaes is completing two books, a biography of Calvin Coolidge, "Coolidge", for HarperCollins, and FORGOTTEN MAN GRAPHIC, a graphic version of "The Forgotten Man" for adults. The artist is Paul Rivoche.
Miss Shlaes is a senior fellow in economic history at the Council on Foreign Relations. Bloomberg carries her syndicated column. Readers know her work also from the Financial Times, where she was senior columnist for half a decade 2000-2005), and the Wall Street Journal, where she edited op eds and served on the editorial board, eventually concentrating on economics(1983-2000). Over the years Miss Shlaes has appeared in a variety of other publications, from Commentary Magazine, the American, and Foreign Affairs to the New Republic, Forbes, Fortune, the (London) Spectator, the American Spectator, Cosmopolitan and the New Yorker. She is also a commentator for "Marketplace," the radio show.

Miss Shlaes started out her career in the foreign policy area, writing about East Europe. Her first book, "Germany: The Empire Within" appeared in 1991 (Farrar, Straus and Jonathan Cape). In the later 1990s, while at the WSJ, Miss Shlaes penned a national bestseller on the tax code, "The Greedy Hand" (Random House). In 2002 Miss Shlaes was J.P. Morgan fellow at the American Academy in Berlin, where she undertook work on her current book, "The Forgotten Man." "The Forgotten Man" first appeared in 2007 (HarperCollins/Jonathan Cape). The paperback edition (HarperPerennial) contains a timeline and other material for teaching. Both editions are national bestsellers. In December, 2008, the Japanese edition of TFM was published by NTT. TFM appeared in Chinese in 2009. In 2011, it appeared in Italian and German.

In 2008, 2009 and 2010, Miss Shlaes taught "The Forgotten Man" at New York University's Stern School of Business. She is the recipient of the Frederic Bastiat Prize of the International Policy Network, the Warren Brookes Prize (2008) of the American Legislative Exchange Council, as well as a two-time finalist for the Loeb Prize (Anderson School/UCLA). In 2009, "The Forgotten Man" won the Manhattan Institute's Hayek Prize.

Miss Shlaes is a magna cum laude graduate of Yale College and did graduate work at the Freie Universitaet Berlin on a DAAD fellowship.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Germany Identity, Wonderfully Examined By Peering Through Its Fringe, March 13, 2010

By 

Thomas R. Dean (Kenilworth, New Jersey United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Germany: The Empire Within (Hardcover)

This is a charming and wonderfully informative book by an American looking at Germany at the moment of its "reunification", largely by examining German consciousness by those who were in some ways, Germany's "fringe":

both the long arrived and newly arriving "Germans" from Poland, Czechoslovakia, the USSR and East Germany; the supra-German identity held by the the long-heralded noble families (Hapsburg and Schwarzenberg) creating a new Europe; the awkwardness toward and by the (newly arrived and sparse) Jewish community; those hangers-on in Berlin for a quarter century who would see the eastern wall of their pampered, long-accustomed home blown off; the confidence of the competitive Bavarians; the indefatigably devoted aristocrats serving as their Hamburg newspaper's "Barbara" to fill the peculiar needs of the newly arrived "Germans".

The stories are told quite personally - and quite fascinating.

The accounts are made far more intriguing by Ms. Shlaes' telling observations and personal involvement. She was the scholarly girl from Chicago who'd become infatuated (bizarrely, to acquaintances and her non-religious Jewish family) with the German language, and made repeated trips there, spending a year in Berlin for academic study in the early 1980s - and later returning time and again to live and to report for either the Wall St. Journal or Financial Times.

Ms. Shlaes' telling detail, understatement, fascination with people and their circumstances - oh and also her humor (I can't get out of my head the alarm of tourists in the Reichstag cafeteria as Ms. Shaes clamored loudly (and facetiously) for "TOTAL WAR!" in the early 1980s!). She has a way of igniting and then enlisting our own wonder as she conveys the marvelous sights and sounds of a Germany in rapid change.

The book is so very worth your while. It's not a scholarly study of aspects of modern German history. It's better.