The Course of German History: A Survey of the Development of German History since 1815 Paperback – 18 May 2001

This book was a fake, a re-impression by someone other than the original imprint. Bought the real thing in Waterstones and the difference in quality was striking. Avoid buying.

An angry historian letting rip

This book was recommended to me by a friend and I was attracted by the idea of refreshing my notions on German history. Unfortunately, not only this book, as pointed out by other reviewers, requires previous knowledge in the subject, but also fails to convey an outlook on German history, of which, I suspect, even the author fails to make sense of. The book is full of uncircumstanced moral judgments levelled on Germans, which can only be explained, though not justified, by the fact that the author is an Englishman writing just at the end of WWII. No scientific researcher could write on German emigration to America: “These emigrants were the best of their race - the adventurous, the independent, the men who might have made Germany a free and civilized country. They brought to the United States a contribution of inestimable value, but they were lost to Germany. They, the best Germans, showed their opinion of Germany by leaving it for ever”. The implication is that Germany, in this wholesale judgment, was bound never to be either free nor civilised.I dropped reading this book after the war of 1870: “ Convinced that they were fighting in a sacred cause, the Germans felt morally superior to their opponents as, centuries before, the Teutonic knights had felt superior to the heathen of the Baltic, and introduced into the warfare of civilized nations the ruthless barbarity which they had inherited from their eastern borders.”I would like to ask here: which country, either among the colonial powers of Europe or the United States in their dealings with the native Americans or the Mexicans, were not convinced of fighting in a sacred cause on behalf of their superior civilisation?

Taylor covers the whole of German history very briskly. He doesn't miss anything, he writes well, but if you want expansiveness, you'll need to turn to other books, e.g., Craig's volume on Germany 1848-1945 in the Oxford Modern History.I think Taylor anti-German stance is more than defensible, given the time this book was written, but if you want to understand him in more depth, you'll need to read his other books on the subject, especially his biography of Bismarck and his Struggle and, of course, Origins of WWII.My favorite British historian of the prelude to WWII, though Lewis Namier's Europe In Decay and Trevor-Roper's book on Hitler's last days are necessary supplements to Taylor.

A classic. Whether you like Taylor or not.