Volume 53, Number 16 · October 19, 2006
The Triumph of a Double Life
By Amos Elon
Five Germanys I Have Known
by Fritz Stern
Farrar, Straus and Giroux,546 pp., $30.00
Germany's descent into barbarism under the Nazis and its moral and political regeneration after the war still resist explanation. In Five Germanys I Have Known, Fritz Stern, the leading American scholar of nineteenth- and twentieth-century German history, reflects the two faces of Germany through the prism of his own life in both countries. His impressive book combines haunted childhood memories with learned insights and reflections on German and American history. Its main concern is expressed in its emphasis on the fragility of democracy everywhere.
Review, 4977 words
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