A panoramic sixty-year chronicle of the German people from the middle of the Second World War to the present day, Out of the Darkness is penetrating, meticulously researched historical writing from the acclaimed author of Empire of Things.
In 1945, Germany lay in ruins, morally and materially. The German people stood condemned by history, responsible for a horrifying genocide and a war of extermination. But by 2015 Germany looked to many to be the moral voice of Europe, welcoming almost one million refugees. At the same time, it pursued a controversially rigid fiscal discipline and made energy deals with a dictator. Many people have asked how Germany descended into the darkness of the Nazis, but this book asks another vital question: how, and how far, have the Germans since reinvented themselves?
Trentmann tells the dramatic story of the Germans from the middle of the Second World War, through the Cold War and the division into East and West, to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunited nation's search for a place in the world. Their journey is marked by extraordinary moral struggles: guilt, shame and limited amends; wealth versus welfare; tolerance versus racism; compassion and complicity. Through a range of voices - German soldiers and German Jews; environmentalists and coal miners; families and churches; volunteers, migrants and populists - Trentmann paints a remarkable and surprising portrait over 80 years of the conflicted people at the centre of Europe.
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
ISBN: 9780141985848
Number of pages: 880
Weight: 625 g
Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 38 mm
I could not put the book down. The way Frank Trentmann writes history, the way he brings together things great and small, analysis with narrative, is wonderful - Bernhard Schlink, author of The Reader
Outstanding ... A meticulous and well-judged account of Germany from 1942 to today [that] shows how it transformed itself from pariah nation to leader of a continent - Simon Heffer, Daily Telegraph, Best Books of the Year
An impressive account of how Germany built a new identity for itself after the barbaric Nazi years ... terrifically insightful ... This book runs to 838 pages, but barely a word is wasted. Trentmann is a skilful and unflashy storyteller with flickers of gentle irony. Echoing Tolstoy’s theory of history as the “sum of human wills”, he aims to stitch the scraps of everyday experience into a quilt of grand narrative. This results in a good deal of richness, colour and subtlety - Oliver Moody, The Times
Compelling ... vivid ... fresh ... one of the most impressive studies I have read of German guilt and shame ... an eloquent and original account of the last eighty years of the country’s history - David Blackbourn, Literary Review
Absorbing... Frank Trentmann's approach is novel [and] his Germans leap vividly off the page, both as archetypes and as complex, multi-layered individuals... an excellent book - Brendan Simms, New Statesman
Superb - Stuart Jeffries, Spectator
In Out of the Darkness Trentmann does something different and extraordinary. He has composed an account of recent Germany that is not primarily political or economic or social, but moral.. [His] moral history is enormous, but never heavy-going: he is a gifted and intelligent writer - Neal Ascherson, London Review of Books
Excellent ... Trentmann's study marshals an immense amount of evidence in response to a single basic question: how did Germans reassert themselves as morally oriented human beings? - Ben Hutchinson, Times Literary Supplement
Remarkably rich . . . Out of the Darkness usefully reveals the roots of [modern Germany's] ethical knots. Trentmann is still hopeful that Germans can untangle them - Peter Fritzsche, New York Times Book Review
Out of the Darkness give[s] a deep insight into how Germany and its people grappled with questions of guilt and identity.... navigates complex issues like self-pity, denazification, immigration, reunification and military intervention with refreshing clarity. This book couldn’t be more timely - Katja Hoyer, BBC History Magazine
The [postwar] moral remaking of Germany is a complicated tale. It’s a tale that Mr. Trentmann is well placed to tell... He brings to his challenging subject both the sympathy of a native German and the detachment of an outsider... engrossing - Ian Brunskill, Wall Street Journal
A fascinating, rich and fluid narrative - Der Spiegel, Books of the Year
A panorama of German mentalities since 1942 - Die Zeit, Best Books January 2024
Monumental ... a remarkable book ... original and unique insights into the lived history of the Germans ... succeeds like no other history to combine the width and depth of human voices with an overarching narrative ... stimulating, immensely rich and very readable - Frank Biess, Sueddeutsche Zeitung
A milestone in historical writing - Michael Hesse, Frankfurter Rundschau
Impressive ... shows how German history can be told in a new way - Wolf Lepenies, Die Welt
Trentmann adds another layer to the history of events: the accompanying self-reflection among the Germans, with all their contradictions, their conflicts, their insights and errors. This is original, enlightening and entertaining. We find ourselves in these pages and are amazed! - Gustav Seibt, Süddeutsche Zeitung
A must read! - taz Futur Zwei, Best Books Winter 2023
A lively portrait of German mentalities - Handelsblatt
A great panorama - Hamburger Abendblatt
Revelatory - Camden New Journal
A lively and very readable portrait of German society… which offers many surprising details and insights - BM, Buch-Magazin
He takes full advantage of the sources and gives voice to many contemporaries - Das Parlament
Masterful - Winnipeg Free Press
Trentmann draws from a wide range of sources, including amateur plays and essays by schoolchildren. These lend intimacy to his portrait of a citizenry engaged in the continuous process of formulating its own views of right and wrong as it debates issues from rearmament to environmentalism - The New Yorker
[A] rich, ambitious account of Germany’s improbable rise from a moral abyss to a prosperous democracy that is sometimes held up as a bulwark of stability and liberal values… [the book] remains fresh and surprising throughout, thanks in part to Trentmann’s knack for drawing on an astounding range of voices - Washington Post
This history of modern Germany runs to almost 900 pages, but barely a word is wasted. Trentmann is a skilful and unflashy storyteller with flickers of gentle irony. He aims for a grand narrative but I suspect what will live longest in the reader's memory are the vignettes, among them the bourgeois Bundeswehr soldier in Bosnia who believed that the souls of the savage war criminals around him might be redeemed if only he could play them Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. - Oliver Moody, Sunday Times
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