A UNIQUE EXPLORATION OF GERMAN CULTURE, FROM SAUSAGE ADVERTISEMENTS TO WAGNER Sitting on a bench at a communal table in a restaurant in Regensburg, his plate loaded with disturbing amounts of bratwurst and sauerkraut made golden by candlelight shining through a massive glass of beer, Simon Winder was happily swinging his legs when a couple from Rottweil politely but awkwardly asked: "So: why are you here?" This book is an attempt to answer that question. Why spend time wandering around a country that remains a sort of dead zone for many foreigners, surrounded as it is by a force field of historical, linguistic, climatic, and gastronomic barriers? Winder's book is propelled by a wish to reclaim the brilliant, chaotic, endlessly varied German civilization that the Nazis buried and ruined, and that, since 1945, so many Germans have worked to rebuild. Germania is a very funny book on serious topics—how we are misled by history, how we twist history, and how sometimes it is best to know no history at all. It is a book full of curiosities: odd food, castles, mad princes, fairy tales, and horse-mating videos. It is about the limits of language, the meaning of culture, and the pleasure of townscape.

Learn all there is to know about the early Germans, who played a compelling but often overlooked role in ancient history.

'A New History of German Literature' offers some 200 essays on events in German literary history.

For many centuries Germanic peoples occupied much of northern and central Europe. From the fourth century onward migrant groups extended their power and influence over much of western Europe and beyond to North Africa. In so doing, they established enduring states in France, Spain, Italy and Britain. This illustrated book makes use of archaeological and literary sources to outline the ethnogenesis and history of the early Germanic peoples. It provides an overview of current knowledge of these peoples, their social structure, settlements, trade, customs, religion, craftsmanship and relations with the Roman Empire. In this second edition, the author incorporates important new archaeological evidence and reports on advances in historical interpretation. In particular, he offers new insights into developments in central and eastern Europe and the implications for our understanding of migration and settlement patterns, ethnicity and identity. Ten new plates have been added featuring significant new sites discovered in recent years.

Traditionally, Germany has been considered a minor player in Pacific history: its presence there was more limited than that of other European nations, and whereas its European rivals established themselves as imperial forces beginning in the early modern era, Germany did not seriously pursue colonialism until the nineteenth century. Yet thanks to recent advances in the field emphasizing transoceanic networks and cultural encounters, it is now possible to develop a more nuanced understanding of the history of Germans in the Pacific. The studies gathered here offer fascinating research into German missionary, commercial, scientific, and imperial activity against the backdrop of the Pacific’s overlapping cultural circuits and complex oceanic transits.