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Germany : memories of a nation / Neil MacGregor.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2015Description: xli, 606 pages : illustrations (chiefly color), color maps ; 24 cmContent type:
  • text
  • still image
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781101875667
  • 1101875666
Subject(s):
Contents:
Where is Germany?. The view from the gate ; Divided heaven ; Lost capitals ; Floating city ; Fragments of power -- Imagining Germany. A language for all Germans ; Snow White vs. Napoleon ; One nation under Goethe ; Hall of heroes ; One people, many sausages -- The persistent past. The battle for Charlemagne ; Sculpting the spirit ; The Baltic brothers ; Iron nation ; Two paths from 1848 -- Made in Germany. In the beginning was the printer ; An artist for all Germans ; The white gold of Saxony ; Masters of metal ; Cradle of the modern -- The descent. Bismarck the blacksmith ; The suffering witness ; Money in crisis ; Purging the degenerate ; At the Buchenwald gate -- Living with history. The Germans expelled ; Beginning again ; The new German Jews ; Barlach's angel ; Germany renewed.
Summary: "Germany is unlike any other country in the world. But how much do we really know about it, and how do its people understand themselves? In Germany: Memories of a Nation, Neil MacGregor -- director of the British Museum and author of A History of the World in 100 Objects -- presents the stories of a nation through a collection of thirty objects and touchstones. From coins and crowns to fairy tales and philosophers, MacGregor presents the inventions, ideas, and icons that comprise the many identities of the German people. Germany: Memories of a Nation is a view of this complex and fascinating country like no other"-- Provided by publisher.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 943 M147 Available 33111008088268
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

For the past 140 years, Germany has been the central power in continental europe. Twenty-five years ago a new German state came into being. How much do we really understand this new Germany, and how do its people understand themselves?

Neil MacGregor argues that, uniquely for any European country, no coherent, overarching narrative of Germany's history can be constructed, for in Germany both geography and history have always been unstable. Its frontiers have constantly shifted. Königsberg, home to the greatest German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, is now Kaliningrad, Russia; Strasbourg, in whose cathedral Wolfgang von Geothe, Germany's greatest writer, discovered the distinctiveness of his country's art and history, now lies within the borders of France. For most of the five hundred years covered by this book Germany has been composed of many separate political units, each with a distinct history. And any comfortable national story Germans might have told themselves before 1914 was destroyed by the events of the following thirty years.

German history may be inherently fragmented, but it contains a large number of widely shared memories, awarenesses, and experiences; examining some of these is the purpose of this book. MacGregor chooses objects and ideas, people and places that still resonate in the new Germany--porcelain from Dresden and rubble from its ruins, Bauhaus design and the German sausage, the crown of Charlemagne and the gates of Buchenwald--to show us something of its collective imagination. There has never been a book about Germany quite like it.

"By arrangement with the BBC and the British Museum"--Title-page verso.

"Originally published in Great Britain by Allan Lane, an imprint of Penguin Books, London, in 2014"--Title-page verso.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [567]-572) and index.

Where is Germany?. The view from the gate ; Divided heaven ; Lost capitals ; Floating city ; Fragments of power -- Imagining Germany. A language for all Germans ; Snow White vs. Napoleon ; One nation under Goethe ; Hall of heroes ; One people, many sausages -- The persistent past. The battle for Charlemagne ; Sculpting the spirit ; The Baltic brothers ; Iron nation ; Two paths from 1848 -- Made in Germany. In the beginning was the printer ; An artist for all Germans ; The white gold of Saxony ; Masters of metal ; Cradle of the modern -- The descent. Bismarck the blacksmith ; The suffering witness ; Money in crisis ; Purging the degenerate ; At the Buchenwald gate -- Living with history. The Germans expelled ; Beginning again ; The new German Jews ; Barlach's angel ; Germany renewed.

"Germany is unlike any other country in the world. But how much do we really know about it, and how do its people understand themselves? In Germany: Memories of a Nation, Neil MacGregor -- director of the British Museum and author of A History of the World in 100 Objects -- presents the stories of a nation through a collection of thirty objects and touchstones. From coins and crowns to fairy tales and philosophers, MacGregor presents the inventions, ideas, and icons that comprise the many identities of the German people. Germany: Memories of a Nation is a view of this complex and fascinating country like no other"-- Provided by publisher.

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