Germany in the World: A Global History, 1500-2000

by David Blackbourn

Brilliantly conceived and majestically written, this monumental work of European history recasts the five-hundred-year history of Germany. With Germany in the World, award-winning historian David Blackbourn radically revises conventional narratives of German history, demonstrating the existence of a distinctly German presence in the world centuries before its unification―and revealing a national identity far more complicated than previously imagined. Blackbourn traces Germany’s evolution from the loosely bound Holy Roman Empire of 1500 to a sprawling colonial power to a twenty-first-century beacon of democracy. Viewed through a global lens, familiar landmarks of German history―the Reformation, the Revolution of 1848, the Nazi regime―are transformed, while others are unearthed and explored, as Blackbourn reveals Germany’s leading role in creating modern universities and its sinister involvement in slave-trade economies. A global history for a global age, Germany in the World is a bold and original account that upends the idea that a nation’s history should be written as though it took place entirely within that nation’s borders. 35 illustrations; 5 maps

Genres: History, Germany, Nonfiction, European History, Audiobook, World History

800 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2023

Reviews

[David Dean · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is well conceived and I was attracted to it by good press reviews. Although I learned a lot from it, I was disappointed. Several sections meander seemingly endlessly through the material, while other things are barely addressed at all - such as the role of Germany in creating the EU. Strangely, the kaiser during WWI is named only once and doesn’t appear in the index. And the use of anglicised German names, such as Kaiser Frederick William, is annoyingly, as clearly the Author is a German speaker and uses German terms many times, sometimes without translation. The pictures are only in b/w and the maps barely readable - I expect more from a book of this scope.

[Ale Muñozledo Descamps · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always knew that Germany had a big influence in today’s world, but I was nowhere close to knowing what it has really done in today’s society. We have to give it up to the Germans. Great book btw!

[Cheryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

"I have long been intrigued by the idea of “playing with scales.” Turn the magnification up on a place or an event, and you see things previously invisible. But turn your gaze in the other direction, to look at very large processes, and you also notice patterns previously invisible. These two alternatives to the national frame, the micro and the macro, are not mutually exclusive. The two often come together in this book, the historian’s version of what businesspeople call “glocalization.”

"As more people left, nationalists at home began to lament their “loss” to the fatherland and label them “Germans abroad” rather than “emigrants.” Did they retain their “Germanness”? That depended—on where they came from, whether they settled in town or country, whether they belonged to a close-knit religious community, whether they were young or middle-aged, married or single. What emerged from the experience was often hard to pin down. To take an example from Germans who settled in Australia: what kind of language was “seinen Foot downputten”? The answer is: a hybrid language. Hybridity is one of the most useful ways to think about the cultural contacts you will find in one form or another in every chapter of this book."

Not awful reading, dense here and there, so only for those really interested in some of the ways Germans affected the world and how Germans became who they are today.

I read this to expand my view of my ancestry, originating from a German enclave in Slovenia, and while unremarkable in most ways, just the fact that I know names and dates 6 generations back seems interesting, and the fact that they did not assimilate into the country they spent 600 years in, and kept their dialect alive , which is as old as Middle English of the Canterbury Tales by Chaucer. My father had not interest in the history, but his brother did, although it wasn’t really passed down to us, so I am recreating a lot of things. I realized as I started reading, since the book starts in 1500, it actually wasn’t relevant, since my ancestors left somewhere in Germany in the 1300s.

Germans were often chameleons, or shape-shifters, as they passed through or settled in the empires of others. More than other nationalities, they merged into the local background. Even their names changed: an Ehinger became an Eynguer or an Alfinger in New Spain. Sometimes the new name was a literal translation: Zweig (branch) turned into LaBranche, Blümel (flowers) into Flores. Linguists call this a calque. But the fact that Germans often became invisible points to something important. They disappeared into the empires of others because there was no German empire.

Johann Gottfried Herder wrote the preface to a German translation of the Sanskrit work Sakuntala, he found space for an anticolonial critique. It was, suggested Herder, lamentable that this “cultural and spiritual treasure of the most peace-loving nations of our earth” had been entrusted to the English, “the most commerce-driven nation of the globe.”14 Self-righteousness like this fed a striking, long-term German identification with colonial subject peoples. This assumed toxic form in the twentieth century, when many Germans after World War One and the Treaty of Versailles liked to see themselves as another colonial victim of the French and Anglo-Saxons.

[Dergrossest · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nobody is a bigger Germanophile than me, brainwashed as I was as a child by my father for whom the Germans represented an ally against the yoke of the British oppressor in his native land. However, even I could not buy what this is author is selling in this book. Sure, our Teutonic friends have certainly contributed significantly to the development of Western civilization over the past 500 years, but I think that the Fraulein protests a bit too much about their supposedly outsized influence across all avenues of human endeavor. Indeed, it was hard staying awake for long stretches as the book waxed on interminably about obscure German contributors to the arts, culture and sciences who nobody remembers anymore. Moreover, how convenient to begin the analysis in 1500, after the Germans had given us the fall of the Rome, the Dark Ages and endless pogroms inflicted upon the Jews. Add that to starting the First and Second World Wars, and the Holocaust, and it is clear that for all their contributions to culture, the Germans certainly seem at least equally adept and predisposed to burning it all down.

Read this if you are majoring in Germanic studies at University. Otherwise, leave this behind, hop into you BMW, find a nice bar to watch a Bundesliga match and enjoy a crisp Bitburger Pilsner.

[Derek Patterson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Took the assignment somewhat literally and created a work in that most German of styles: prolix. Dense to the point of distraction in some areas, barely scratching the surface of others. It’s erudite certainly, but it’s also far more original and interesting in the first half than the second - I somewhat enjoyed it up until around the Franco-Prussian war and it then became a little tedious. Anglicising Wilhem II to William II was also baffling and threw me off consistently, this is a solved problem even in the most casual of history books. I’d only hesitantly recommend if the subject matter is important or relevant to you, I think the book failed its stated project and you’d be better reading about most of these periods elsewhere.

[Robin Bayer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Others have mentioned that taking on 500 years of anything is going to lead to short shrift in some parts and perhaps too much focus on others. That said, learning about the early history of the lands that became Germany really helped shape some understandings of the political and social proclivities of the people who eventually found it worthwhile to unite together. The author did occasionally shift into a style of using first-person for his thoughts, which seemed a bit out of line with the much more traditional, if sometimes wearying "and then this happened" approach to history books.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I learned a lot of interesting facts from this book, it was nearly impossible for me to read it for more than 30 minutes at a time without needing to break from the tedium; I rarely returned for more right afterwards. I felt like every phenomenon (e.g. exemplary medical science in 1890s Germany) was illustrated with 10 portrayals of nearly identical persons, each spanning a page or two, such that it all felt so redundant.

[Denis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is easy and exciting to read for me the issue is, it's about everything, that has connection to Germany, but such a wide range doesn't let it to be a story. It's like an encyclopedia or a collection of facts about everything german.
I must admit it is a good starting point, if you want to learn about German history.

[Martim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Worth the read. It has a quite original perspective, plus being written by an American adds another layer of perspective which is also of interest. It is well written, at times a bit repetitive. The last part about Germany from the 70s onwards is slightly boring, could be smaller in my view. But it might just be my lack of interest.

[Meilech · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received a free copy of this book through Goodreads.

This book tells the history or Germany from a different angle that you would typically find.
It can be long winded at times but this is for anyone that seriously enjoys to read about the history of Germany.

[Gordon Howard · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too much history for one book to cover very well. Sections are alternatively boring and interesting. Germans on the new world as influential is unconvincing, gets more convincing with the 20th century.

[Jared · Rating 2 out of 5]

In short:
- great idea for a book
- writing is excellent
- personalities of the characters come vividly to life
But…
- a meandering narrative
- as long as it is, it spends not enough time rooting the stories to the historical narrative they are a part of

[Jim Blessing · Rating 2 out of 5]

This had some interesting chapters and a number of not that interesting.