Neil MacGregor was Director of the National Gallery, London from 1987 to 2002 and of the British Museum from 2002 to 2015. His previous books include A History of the World in 100 Objects and Shakespeare’s Restless World, between them translated into more than a dozen languages. For his work on the BBC Radio 4 series, British Museum exhibition and book Germany: Memories of a Nation, he was awarded (in Germany) the Friedrich Gundolf Prize, the Goethe Medal and the German National Prize and (in the UK) the British Academy's Nayef Al-Radhan Prize for Transcultural Understanding. He is now Chair of the Steering Committee of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin.
A Sunday Times bestseller
“Fascinating. . . .The book’s high-quality allows for its many
illustrations to be reproduced well. Engravings, paintings,
photographs and detailed maps from Germany’s past all serve to make
its legacy come alive. Throughout this magnificent work, Neil
MacGregor shows that despite its past, Germany is a country that
has come into full flower a quarter-century into its fully unified
modern state. He presents the healthy perspective of a people who,
despite being weighted with baggage, are reconciling well as they
move into the future.” —Perry Munyon, The Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette
“Highly readable. . . .beautifully illustrated. . . .Mr.
MacGregor’s choice of objects is always interesting…and his
treatment is lively.” —Neil Gregor, The Wall Street Journal
“MacGregor [is] our greatest cultural polymath. . . . Anyone who
wants to understand Germany should read this book.”
—Antony Beevor, The Observer
“Immensely readable and sharply intelligent. . . . MacGregor’s
chapters move boldly and fluently across time, held together by his
own assured by attractively conversational voice. . . . The
starting point is often something material, like Riemenschneider’s
four evangelists, reprising the successful formula of MacGregor’s
wonderful and much-imitated A History of the World in 100 Objects,
a previous cooperative venture between the British Museum and the
BBC. The objects considered in the present book include things you
would expect: Gutenberg’s printing press, Luther’s German
translation of the Bible, Meissen porcelain, a modernist cradle and
ceramic vases from the Bauhaus, the Volkswagen Beetle. Other
objects might be more surprising to readers. The coinage of the
Holy Roman Empire and the no less impressive diversity of German
sausages both serve to illustrate the historic fragmentation of the
German lands, a major theme of the book. . . . The book is filled
not just with objects, but with places of memory. There is a fine
chapter on the forest and its place in the German imagination,
which draws on the fairytales of the Brothers Grimm and the work of
Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich, and takes the story up to
the present day and the new meaning of the forest within a green
Germany. MacGregor writes especially well about monuments, such as
the Brandenburg Gate and the Victory Column in Berlin. He is adept
at showing how monuments bear witness to the constant reworking of
German history—the work of salvaging, even. . . . MacGregor’s light
touch means that we never feel as if we are being hurried along to
a predetermined destination, not even in the section called “The
Descent” that takes us from Bismarck to Hitler. There is some
artful foreshadowing in earlier chapters. . . . MacGregor shows his
sill at making objects speak. . . . There are many brilliant
vignettes in this book, too many to mention in a review. . . .
high-minded, cosmopolitan…beautifully illustrated. MacGregor is an
engaging guide who never talks down to readers. He has written a
remarkable set of reflections on the objects and places of German
memory.”
—David Blackbourn, The Guardian
“Four years ago, Neil MacGregor made marvelous use of the British
Museum, of which he is the director, to interpret the history of
the world through 100 objects. Since the museum owns a fabulous
collection of German artefacts—including not one, but two of the
original Gutenberg bibles—it makes sense to apply that same method
to a country that, at the end of a year of military strutting, we
are beginning to view with more respect. . . . Magnificently
illustrated and superbly edited. . . . It’s hard to imagine a
method more successful than MacGregor’s—the careful juxtaposition
of singular objects with their surrounding history—for conveying
the complexities of Germany’s continuing journey.”
—Miranda Seymour, Daily Telegraph (Four Stars)
“Neil MacGregor’s alternative cultural history of a country
uniquely difficult to pinpoint—its borders shifting, its ruling
systems manifold for much of the past 500 years—offers the sense of
a coherent whole nonetheless. His method is memory. His way in is
through objects and people; places and buildings; paintings, toys,
and printed money; forests and single oak trees. . . . MacGregor
knows unerringly which objects to select and which chapters of
Germany’s “enrichingly and confusingly fragmented history” to bring
to life through them. . . . This book is immaculately researched,
timely and important.”
—Rebecca K. Morrison, The Independent
“The director of the British Museum tells the compelling story of a
traumatized country through objects and places that represent the
enduring strength and hope of the people. . . . MacGregor traces
the evolution of German identity. . . . A comprehensive record
jam-packed with visuals.”
—Kirkus
“Through artifacts as varied as a sausage, Gutenberg Bibles, and a
porcelain rhinoceros, MacGregor illustrates how a composite German
identity was forged and the country came to be. . . . His concise
lessons in German history form a cogent and fluent account that
gets as close to the core of German identity as any book by a
non-German could.” —Publishers Weekly (Starred)
“Striking. . . . Germany: Memories of a Nation is deeply felt,
carefully conceived, and an important addition to any consideration
of the shape not only of modern Germany but of Europe as a
whole.”
—The Economist
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