Germany: Memories of a Nation

自律、嚴謹、效率與準時，大概是一般人對德國人的印象吧。一起跟著大英博物館館長尼爾．麥葛瑞格(Neil MacGregor)來想想看，為什麼德國人可以這樣？這些答案都藏在歷史的小細節裡唷。繼《看得到的世界史》、《莎士比亞變動的世界》，麥葛瑞格 新作，從十五世紀古騰堡印刷術開始到當代德國，用三十個視角剖析德國。不論是宗教改革先驅馬丁路德，還是二戰時希特勒。甚至是當代著名劇作家，貝托爾特．布萊希特(Betrolt Berecht)與畫家，格奧爾格．巴澤利茨(Georg Baselitz )，透過看似平淡無奇，卻具有標誌性與象徵性的故事，發掘德國精神的源頭。時至今日，德國作為歐洲經濟強權，對世界的影響與日俱增。但你究竟對德國了解多少？甚至想知道德國人如何面對兩德統一以來新的國家認同嗎？柏林圍牆倒塌二十五週年，大英博物館與英國廣播公司(BBC)再次攜手打造，用最淺顯易懂的故事，告訴你當代德國錯綜複雜的歷史。透過一系列的實體物件，例如畫作、地圖、錢幣、邁森的瓷器、古今雕塑，甚至是汽車，來說明抽象的德國精神。過去動盪的年代，見證德國的死亡與重生。讓作者告訴你，歷史如何改變德國，甚至影響歐洲。德國六百年來的成長與蛻變，都值得世人學習與借鏡。From Neil MacGregor, the author of A History of the World in 100 Objects, this is a view of Germany like no otherFor the past 140 years, Germany has been the central power in continental Europe. Twenty-five years ago a new German state came into being. How much do we really understand this new Germany, and how do its people now understand themselves?Neil MacGregor argues that uniquely for any European country, no coherent, over-arching narrative of Germany's history can be constructed, for in Germany both geography and history have always been unstable. Its frontiers have constantly floated. Königsberg, home to the greatest German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, is now Kaliningrad, Russia; Strasbourg, in whose cathedral Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Germany's greatest writer, discovered the distinctiveness of his country's art and history, now lies within the borders of France. For most of the five hundred years covered by this book Germany has been composed of many separate political units, each with a distinct history. And any comfortable national story Germans might have told themselves before 1914 was destroyed by the events of the following thirty years.German history may be inherently fragmented, but it contains a large number of widely shared memories, awarenesses and experiences; examining some of these is the purpose of this book. Beginning with the fifteenth-century invention of modern printing by Gutenberg, MacGregor chooses objects and ideas, people and places which still resonate in the new Germany - porcelain from Dresden and rubble from its ruins, Bauhaus design and the German sausage, the crown of Charlemagne and the gates of Buchenwald - to show us something of its collective imagination. There has never been a book about Germany quite like it.