A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People [Paperback]

Steven Ozment (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 18, 2005

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

It takes erudition and verve to attempt a history that covers the life of a controversial people over two millennia. Harvard historian Ozment has plenty of both, yet the result is oddly unsatisfactory. Ozment (The Burgermeister's Daughter, etc.) quickly and wisely dismisses any notion that a history of Germany must be focused on the Third Reich. Instead, the travails of political disunity serve as his narrative anchor. Neither the ancient Germanic tribes nor their medieval and early modern successors could forge any long-lasting unity. Only under Bismarck did a unified political entity emerge, and it soon succumbed to visions of grandeur that resulted in two world wars and a Holocaust, renewed territorial losses and political divisions. Ozment's focus on disunity provides narrative coherence to a long, contentious and complex history, but the costs are huge. Particularly the early chapters read like "one damned thing after another" as a succession of tribal leaders, princes, kings and emperors march across the pages. So many important issues that might grasp a reader's interest are left out. There is nary a mention of economics, legal and social practices among the Germanic tribes, of women and working life. When discussing the Nazi worldview, the author has an unfortunate tendency to equate Jews and Christians as Nazi targets. It is certainly true that the Nazis were deeply anti-Christian, but the Jews were singled out for total physical annihilation. Ultimately, Ozment does not provide a history of the German people, but a tale of their rulers and a few leading intellectuals. 8 pages of b&w photos, maps not seen by PW.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Like a moth to a flame, those who write general histories of Germany are drawn to the era of National Socialism. Some see the Nazis as an aberration; others find the seeds of totalitarianism as far back as the age of Luther. In this readable and absorbing survey of the Germans over the past two millennia, Ozment, who is McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History at Harvard, thankfully avoids that trap. He refuses to allow a 12-year period of fascism to define a people or their history. Instead, he convincingly asserts that both liberal democracy and totalitarianism were novel experiments for Germans and the triumph of neither was preordained by German history. While some may be disappointed that Ozment devotes little space to the Nazi era, his analyses of the "barbarian" and Merovingian periods are fascinating and offer original perspectives on aspects of German history that are often given short shrift. This is an enjoyable and well-done work that is ideal for the general reader. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (January 18, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060934832
• ISBN-13: 978-0060934835
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #423,037 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

65 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Two millennia of German history, May 25, 2004

By 

Celia Redmore "Celia Redmore" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People (Hardcover)

"A Mighty Fortress" undertakes to narrate the history of Germany as a cohesive story, beginning at the beginning and ending today. It is a mammoth task, covering over two millennia from the days of the Roman Empire: That is ten times as long as the United States of America has been in existence. The result is a massive amount of information packed into one book, but it does give an intelligence to events, which is missing when we randomly examine short periods of historical time with the benefit, and distortion, of our knowledge of the future.

Fortunately, the book spends more time on some periods of history than others. We are taken at a fast clip up to the Middle Ages and through some less pivotal times. But the author slows the pace and looks in fine detail at such critical persona as Martin Luther and Otto von Bismarck, both complex and contradictory figures. Placed in historical context, much of what seems short-sighted or self-defeating today becomes understandable when approached forwards from the past, rather than backwards from the future. In this way, familiar names develop the immediacy and vivacity that they must have had to their contemporaries: Dürer, Kant, Goethe, Hegel, Beethoven, Marx, Nietzsche, Grass.

The book contains eight pages of photographs and six maps. That is really not enough to follow the constantly changing borders of Europe and I found it helpful to keep a historical atlas handy. Less easily resolved was the author's practice of Americanizing names. This may have been a conscious choice to isolate us from pre-existing judgments about historical characters, but it would have been more forgiving to map in a footnote, for example, Ludwig von Yorck to Generalleutnant Hans David Ludwig Graf Yorck von Wartenburg. In addition, converting every Heinrich and Henri to Henry (or Frederick or William) made it hard to separate the players, given the lack of imagination of the European aristocracy in naming their offspring. These are, however, all very minor items.

Judging from the reception "A Mighty Fortress" has received in Germany, Professor Ozment has correctly identified the frustration of modern Germans in being identified only through the dreadful years of the Third Reich. Ozment may be more willing than most to sound the all-clear on Germany's potential for belligerence, but he has served the interests of all of us in placing Germany in factual historical context.

43 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book with only a few minor shortcomings, May 3, 2005

By 

Eric Ebeling "Eric Ebeling" (NJ/DC, USA; Wiesbaden, Germany) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People (Hardcover)

I find Germany history of all ages and eras to be a fascinating subject. This book is both a great introduction to German history for those who know little abou the subject and an admirable synthesis of overarching themes that seem to consistently pop up throughout German history. That said, I did feel at times that knowing about certain people, wars, themes, etc. did help me to understand the context of discussion in this book. However, as a general history, it is useful in for identifying areas that interest one as a reader for further study. This book could have used more maps and there was room for some expansion on early and medieval German history. Overall, however, this was a very enjoyable read. I was particularly pleased with the author's fluid writing style and the fact that the author did not focus solely or predominantly on one era (read Nazi Germany) but rather looked at the entirety of German history since the 1st century BCE to the early 21st century.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Flawed, but intriguing, May 19, 2004

By 

Prinz Eugen (Winsted, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People (Hardcover)

The title to the book is somewhat misleading as there is very little in Steven Ozment's book that would be new to a student of German history and its history is not so much that of the German people, but rather of the great men of German history. Having said that, it is a very interesting read, capturing the scope and complexities of German history without being as dry as general histories often tend to be. Ozment is obviously very knowledgable about his subject matter and is able to convey that knowledge thoughtfully and succinctly. Some might argue that he does so a bit too succinctly as he seems to skim the surface of German history, never delving as deeply into any part of it as the reader might like him to. A novice to German history could easily become lost in his "Who's Who of German History" style and someone well-versed in German history could easily become frustrated by his lack of detail. Overall, it is a good read, but one might wish that he included more detail about the lives of the German people themselves and more detail on some of the events that he mentions rather than merely his theories about these events.