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The Shortest History of Germany
by
READ IN AN AFTERNOON. REMEMBER FOR A LIFETIME.
The West is in full retreat. The Anglo-Saxon powers, great and small, withdraw into fantasies of lost greatness. Populists all over Europe cry out that immigration and globalisation are the work of a nefarious System, run by unseen masters with no national loyalties. From the Kremlin, Tsar Vladimir watches his Great Game line u ...more
The West is in full retreat. The Anglo-Saxon powers, great and small, withdraw into fantasies of lost greatness. Populists all over Europe cry out that immigration and globalisation are the work of a nefarious System, run by unseen masters with no national loyalties. From the Kremlin, Tsar Vladimir watches his Great Game line u ...more
Kindle Edition, 160 pages
Published
April 28th 2017
by Old Street Publishing
(first published April 2017)
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Sonja Maierhauser
Yes, I found it fascinating and readable. It answered many questions for me and piqued my curiosity to learn more!
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A revisionist history at odds with everything else I've read. This is not a history, it is a thesis that boils down to an evil race of East Germans that are hell bent on destroying the world for the last 150 years. It's mainly supported with dog whistle factoids, deliberate misinterpretations and outright falsehoods. Either the author has been paid to deliberately write this argument or he is congenitally dishonest.
It's well written and easily consumed, the first 1500 years are gobbled up and it ...more
It's well written and easily consumed, the first 1500 years are gobbled up and it ...more

If anyone is kind enough to read this review I think it only fair to state the following: I am not religious. I speak German. I have lived and worked in Germany and managed German companies in the UK, Africa and Central Asia. I do not claim to be an expert, but do have sufficient knowledge both of history and current affairs to justify this review.
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This is not a history, rather a propaganda exercise and, for anyone who knows anything of German and European h ...more
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This is not a history, rather a propaganda exercise and, for anyone who knows anything of German and European h ...more

Something that should be said from the start: Hawes is not a historian, his work was not endorsed by historians, and it falls behind even the normally low standards of history books written for the general public. It's barely referenced, lacks a bibliography, and omits facts if they don't fit into the author's general argument.
I had one encounter with Hawes before, and it left me intrigued. In September 2017, he wrote an article in the New Statesman in which he explained the then-upcoming Germa ...more
I had one encounter with Hawes before, and it left me intrigued. In September 2017, he wrote an article in the New Statesman in which he explained the then-upcoming Germa ...more

Well, I see that there are many very angry one star reviews for this book on Goodreads, from those who are outraged that there is neither bibliography, footnotes nor academic references for it, but surely, written by an author who is also a university lecturer, it’s clear that Hawes is not aiming for it to be taken as an academic work? HG Wells didn’t have references in his Short History of the World, nor did EH Gombrich in his A Little History if the World, albeit written for young readers.
I s ...more
I s ...more

I wrote the review copied below in a fit of pique a few minutes after finishing the book, so its a little heated. On reflection, there's some good stuff here about the German relationship with "roman" Europe - particularly the mixed identity of the areas west of the Rhine - and it complimented some aspects of Prisoners of Geography, which I had read just beforehand.
However, here's the reason I gave it one star:
Understanding how two centuries of revolution and violence have somehow culminated in ...more
However, here's the reason I gave it one star:
Understanding how two centuries of revolution and violence have somehow culminated in ...more

It started off as a very informative read and somehow along the way turned into an anti-Prussian propaganda. Hawes' argument basically comes down to this: everyone and everything east of Elbe is rubbish and to blame for all the disasters of 19th-21st century. Don't waste your time on this.
...more

Feb 04, 2019
Maja - BibliophiliaDK ✨
rated it
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review of another edition
Shelves:
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Germany has always been a divided country
I bought this book in the airport on my way home from Berlin because I was interested in German history and this seemed like a good place to start. And I was not wrong about that. It is a great place to start because it is so short and condensed. There were definitely times when I found myself think 'what about this' or 'what about that' and these things were never adressed or answered. But it dind't ruin the book for or my understanding of the subject. ...more
I bought this book in the airport on my way home from Berlin because I was interested in German history and this seemed like a good place to start. And I was not wrong about that. It is a great place to start because it is so short and condensed. There were definitely times when I found myself think 'what about this' or 'what about that' and these things were never adressed or answered. But it dind't ruin the book for or my understanding of the subject. ...more

Problematic to say the least. For half of this book, I was marvelling at the author's skill in boiling down the history of a complex subject in such a limited amount of pages. By clever use of diagrams and illustrations, I learned a lot about the broad sweep of Germany's history and was relishing the narrative. Then, around the time of German unification, the grinding of the author's axe suddenly became ear splitting. The author equates Germany's western and southern reaches to a utopia of good
...more

Whilst in Munich with my boyfriend in February of this year, I mentioned that I'd love to learn more about German history. I have a sound grasp of it from the Weimar Republic up until the fall of the Berlin Wall, and have studied the period between 1914 and 1945 intensively, but I knew very little about earlier eras. James Hawes' The Shortest History of Germany therefore sounded as though it would be perfect to fill in those gaps.
It rings alarm bells for me when history books do not include a bi ...more
It rings alarm bells for me when history books do not include a bi ...more

if your interest in history or simply curious about German history, this is the book to go.
Clearly written, not boring it focus on fact without putting you to sleep.
for me understanding why world war I started and also discovering a permanent mark on brittish society with German origin made this book fun to read,
totally recommend
Clearly written, not boring it focus on fact without putting you to sleep.
for me understanding why world war I started and also discovering a permanent mark on brittish society with German origin made this book fun to read,
totally recommend

I am impressed with how much James Hawes has accomplished in just 226 pages of image-rich and small-format pages. To me, the book has three layers on which it can be appreciated:
First, the reader is served an engaging and accessible tale of 2,000 years of German history. I particularly enjoyed the many maps and the interspersed etymological facts (such as the English pound Sterling being derived from Easterling, referring to the reliable money of the Hansa merchants on the German Baltic Coast).
S ...more
First, the reader is served an engaging and accessible tale of 2,000 years of German history. I particularly enjoyed the many maps and the interspersed etymological facts (such as the English pound Sterling being derived from Easterling, referring to the reliable money of the Hansa merchants on the German Baltic Coast).
S ...more

I had very mixed thoughts on this book. On the one hand, he's drawn the history together very well in that he shows its continuity. This makes a much more readable and compelling history than - as so often happens - it being treated as separate events that are isolated from one another.
However, Hawes clearly has his own biases that crop up throughout the book. In an early map of Europe ('In the Proto-Beginning', xi) he labels northern Germany 'Proto Germans' and the Mediterranean, specifically ...more
However, Hawes clearly has his own biases that crop up throughout the book. In an early map of Europe ('In the Proto-Beginning', xi) he labels northern Germany 'Proto Germans' and the Mediterranean, specifically ...more

Was going to give this only one star… but then I reminded myself that Hawes is primarily an author of fiction. As a work of historical fiction, the book gets a nudge upwards. Even then, the strategies used to make the desired point are anything but subtle.
If we are to take the book at the face value of its title, I understand that to keep 2,000 years of history short it's going to be necessary to simplify, smooth over details, and leave things out. But still, the book deliberately skips over eno ...more
If we are to take the book at the face value of its title, I understand that to keep 2,000 years of history short it's going to be necessary to simplify, smooth over details, and leave things out. But still, the book deliberately skips over eno ...more

This was an impulse buy, and I’m a bit of a sucker for short histories (let alone “the shortest history” - how could I resist?). The Observer calls it “sweeping and confident” and the New European calls it “authoritative.” I’d have to disagree with the New European assessment, although add “overconfident” to the Observer’s characterisation and it’s pretty much spot-on. What Hawes has to say about Hegel and Marx is pure nonsense, and it seems a little too neat that we can simply blame Protestanti
...more

95th book for 2018.
Interesting polemical essay, arguing that the recent rise of neo-nazism in East Germany is nothing new, and that there are really two Germanys, one east and one west of the Elbe, that have existed since Roman times. I am not sure I buy all the arguments, but an enjoyable and provocative read.
3-stars.
Interesting polemical essay, arguing that the recent rise of neo-nazism in East Germany is nothing new, and that there are really two Germanys, one east and one west of the Elbe, that have existed since Roman times. I am not sure I buy all the arguments, but an enjoyable and provocative read.
3-stars.

The Sh**test History of Germany paints with a very broad brush, and presents a particular view that is more of a personal thesis than a history. To some extent, that is really true of all histories, especially pop histories. Especially short ones. It started off promisingly enough, sketching out a picture of the Roman interactions with the peoples of Germania, and proceeding from there, keeping in mind the boundaries at the Roman time as a template through which to remember what passed before. B
...more

Welllllllllllllllllllllll...where to start with this book. I got off to quite a bad start with this. I bought it as a Kindle edition, I genuinely thought it was going to be a short bite-sized book that I could use to brush up on my Germany history. Unfortunatley this wasn't to be , as this book is compeletely revisionist and falls into an opinion-based view on real events that have been put through James Hawes mind an emerge bearing little resemblance to reality and actual history.
Have you ever ...more
Have you ever ...more

This book is dishonest history. The main argument is based on a distinction between cultural "West Germans" who are descended from those tribes which were under the power of the Roman Empire, and "East Germans" who were never 'civilized'.
This distinction is a fantasy, based on some idealized (and, indeed, sterilized) idea of what the Roman Empire was. Rather than the source of all democratic and liberal thought, the Roman Empire is more accurately characterized by its "state-worship" and "scar- ...more
This distinction is a fantasy, based on some idealized (and, indeed, sterilized) idea of what the Roman Empire was. Rather than the source of all democratic and liberal thought, the Roman Empire is more accurately characterized by its "state-worship" and "scar- ...more

When I saw this book, I saw it as an opportunity to learn more about the history of Germany. Disappointment set in almost from the moment I opened the book. Non-existent documentation, an overly familiar writing style, and blatant political bias plagued the account. In a small book such as this, one expects superficial treatment; however, the author's biases seem to drive what he glosses over and what he treats more in-depth. The author needs to return to writing fiction and refrain from non-fic
...more
![The Humpo Show [ Richard ]](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1546892831p2/23204231.jpg)
Covering everything from Charlemagne, Martin Luther, Otto von Bismarck and Adolf Hitler, to the Reformation, Prussia, First World War and the Berlin Wall, The Shortest History of Germany is a breezy visit through German events, monarchies, politics and geography.
Structured in a clear and wide-ranging manner - necessary due to covering a couple of thousand years in less than 300 pages - but Hawes manages it well, and makes good use of text, images, maps and box-outs. This is a good book for intr ...more
Structured in a clear and wide-ranging manner - necessary due to covering a couple of thousand years in less than 300 pages - but Hawes manages it well, and makes good use of text, images, maps and box-outs. This is a good book for intr ...more

This is a swoop over 2,000 years of history that can be read in a couple of hours. It gives an interesting insight into the history of Germany. Some parts are brushed over rather lightly making it hard to understand exactly what is going on, but with the brevity, you don't get bogged down in the detail. The theory advanced that modern Germany is really a fusion of two separate cultures that have kept experiencing different developmental pressures is interesting and not one I'd heard before. Whil
...more

A great book about a very interesting topic. This is one of the books that show that history, unlike many of us experienced in school, doesn't have to be dry and boring. It's an entertaining read that taught me about the bigger power struggles in Europe over centuries, but also about my own family history.
Does it go in to a lot of detail? No. Is it unbiased? No. Is that an issue? No. This is not a history book in the classical sense of the word. It is not a regurgitation of facts that we have he ...more
Does it go in to a lot of detail? No. Is it unbiased? No. Is that an issue? No. This is not a history book in the classical sense of the word. It is not a regurgitation of facts that we have he ...more

I don’t tend to read much non-fiction, but as this was one of Waterstones ‘books of the month’ and Germany is one of my favourite countries that I’ve visited - this book was an instant purchase.
It’s a fascinating bite size read, the author covers 2000 years in just over 200 pages.
It’s certainly wetted my appetite to read more on the subject.
It’s a fascinating bite size read, the author covers 2000 years in just over 200 pages.
It’s certainly wetted my appetite to read more on the subject.

To the casual observer, today’s Germany is impressive for its economic and political clout. It's a country that gives a strong impression of unity and shared purpose, with its richer western population having poured trillions into the coffers of their eastern neighbours over the past 30 years to pursue an ideal of reunification. Sitting at the heart of the European Union, Germany has shown moral leadership over the refugee crisis, and although its approach to enforcing austerity on weaker eurozo
...more

In my view, the book is a mix of a personal and biased thesis of the author and the bits of history that are most convenient to support it. It’s good to get an overview of German history, but take it all with a grain of salt. Should by no means be considered an objective and professional work. When I bought the book after reading the title and the reviews of reputable institutions, I thought it would be a proper history, and not a divisive and incomplete interpretation.

I found this quite interesting. I really liked how history was traced from the beginning (ie Bronze Age, pre Roman encounters) all the way to the Present. It is interesting because then you can see certain themes emerge. I've noticed this when I've traced other region's history in total and I found surprising coincidences.
So the author argues there's an overlapping theme of West Germany vs East Germany. The rich against the powerful. So there is an opinion stated throughout the book. So I canno ...more
So the author argues there's an overlapping theme of West Germany vs East Germany. The rich against the powerful. So there is an opinion stated throughout the book. So I canno ...more

This short book surprised me. I came to it at a time when I finished a big project and was undecided if I wanted to commit to any serious study. I was looking for informational history books of kings-and-things variety. But this turned out to be that and more: A little book with a big thesis (or two). It helped put Germany in perspective, right up to the present moment in its politics. One can argue with its central assumption - that geography is destiny - but I greatly enjoyed it's brilliant pr
...more

Do not read this book. I picked it up as I was hoping to gain a basic understanding of German history and culture however I now greatly regret it. Mr Hawes seems to make grand assumptions about Germany, and more specifically East Germany, without providing any evidence for it. The lack of a bibliography and rigorous referencing is especially concerning considering the fact that the book essentially turns into a 200 page spiel on the evilness of East Germany.
Additionally, Mr Hawes opens the book ...more
Additionally, Mr Hawes opens the book ...more
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“It’s a seminal moment in the history of Germany and Europe. Stopping at the Elbe is not a normal military-political decision; it’s one dictated by higher powers. Crossing the Rhine is fine; but the Elbe marks the end of reasonable ambition.”
—
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