'Comprehensive and vivid... I don't know of a better short history of this great country.'
PHILIP PULLMAN
'Here is Germany as you've never known it: a bold thesis; an authoritative sweep and an exhilarating read. Agree or disagree, this is a must for anyone interested in how Germany has come to be the way it is today.'
PROFESSOR KAREN LEEDER, Prof. of Modern German Literature, University of Oxford
'An excellent little book... [Hawes] knows what he's on about and his conclusions are measured, but he favours clear, concise prose over dense academese. He has a sense of humour, and a sharp eye for similarities between then and now.'
SPECTATOR
'The Shortest History of Germany, a new, must-read book by the writer James Hawes, [recounts] how the so-called limes separating Roman Germany from non-Roman Germany has remained a formative distinction throughout the post-ancient history of the German people.'
ECONOMIST.COM
'A daring attempt to remedy the ignorance of the centuries in little over 200 pages... not just an entertaining canter past the most prominent landmarks in German history -- also a serious, well-researched and radical rethinking of the continuities in German political life.'
PROFESSOR NICHOLAS BOYLE, Schröder Professor of German, Cambridge University
'An excellent, elegantly written overview of German history from the Iron Age to Angela Merkel's chancellorship... Authoritative and accessible'
NEW EUROPEAN
'A sparkling little book, which really does begin at the beginning… Hawes exemplifies the remarkable contribution of Anglo-Saxon scholarship to post-war German historiography... It is not accidental that some of the best minds in the Anglosphere have worried away at the German problem ever since 1945. The preceding generation had been dragged into two world wars, the Iron Curtain ran through Berlin, and getting to grips with German history was the key to preventing the Cold War from becoming a Third World War. Hawes has distilled all this into a primer that might be slipped into a prime ministerial red box.'
STANDPOINT
'Brexit and Trump have given this sweeping story of Germany's struggles with its demons an urgent topicality. For as Hawes knows better than anyone, if there is a future for liberal democracy, it will be a German one'
NICK COHEN
'Sweeping and confident... has a frightening urgency'
OBSERVER
'Engaging... I suspect I shall remember it for a lifetime'
OLDIE
'Fascinating … as an introduction to the most important country in Europe today, this is a great read, and an ideal primer'
TRIBUNE MAGAZINE
'Yes, the Nazis are here, but so too is a history stretching from the Germanic tribes who took on the Roman Empire, right up to Chancellor Angela Merkel… Comprehensive, vivid, and entertaining… if you want to understand a country on which much of the free world is now pinning its hopes, you could do worse than start here.'
IRISH EXAMINER
'Absolutely brilliant . . . Hawes sets about tearing up the Prague picture postcard-image of Kafka with tremendous, crowd-pleasing vigour'
Ian Sansom, GUARDIAN, on Excavating Kafka
'performed with wit and finesse . . . his book is full of enlightening surprises . . . [Hawes] is an admirable guide, leading us through this tangled intellectual copse.'
THE TIMES on Englanders and Huns
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His last book, Englanders and Huns, was shortlisted for the Political Books of the Year Awards in 2015. He leads the MA in Creative Writing at Oxford Brookes University.
