num_pages: 480
description: A unique exploration of German culture from sausage advertisements to WagnerSitting 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.
language: English
title: Germania: In Wayward Pursuit of the Germans and Their History
publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux