Germany History

Softcover. Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, reprint, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 997 pages, color and b&w illustrations. A deadly continental struggle, the Thirty Years War devastated seventeenth-century Europe, killing nearly a quarter of all Germans and laying waste to towns and countryside alike. Peter Wilson offers the first new history in a generation of a horrifying conflict that transformed the map of the modern world. When defiant Bohemians tossed the Habsburg emperor's envoys from the castle windows in Prague in 1618, the Holy Roman Empire struck back with a vengeance. Bohemia was ravaged by mercenary troops in the first battle of a conflagration that would engulf Europe from Spain to Sweden. The sweeping narrative encompasses dramatic events and unforgettable individuals-the sack of Magdeburg; the Dutch revolt; the Swedish militant king Gustavus Adolphus; the imperial generals, opportunistic Wallenstein and pious Tilly; and crafty diplomat Cardinal Richelieu. In a major reassessment, Wilson argues that religion was not the catalyst, but one element in a lethal stew of political, social, and dynastic forces that fed the conflict. By war's end a recognizably modern Europe had been created, but at what price? The Thirty Years War condemned the Germans to two centuries of internal division and international impotence and became a benchmark of brutality for centuries. As late as the 1960s, Germans placed it ahead of both world wars and the Black Death as their country's greatest disaster. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. NY, E. P. Dutton, reprint, 1977, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. David Irving's The Trail of the Fox is the best work on Rommel ever written. The circumstances around Rommel's involvement with the attempt on Hitler's life, which is the most speculated aspect of Rommel's life, and how the Gestapo came to believe Rommel was involved, have not been made clear in most of the historiography on Rommel. Irving pieces together what really happened most effectively. There are so many strengths of this book, of which the greatest is probably the fact Irving had access to Rommel's dairy and many of his letters, which he got permission from the family to view. Other items he found in collections in the United States, England, and Germany. Since he worked on this in the 1970's he also was able to interview a number of German officers who were still alive that knew and served with Rommel. The whole work is the way historical research should be done; totally reliant on primary source material, and ignores secondary sources that often use conjecture or just repeat incorrect narratives from earlier books. Every source is from people who fought the war; Germans, Italians, British, French and American officers who were in these campaigns and had either first hand observation of Rommel or were major participants like Eisenhower, Churchill, Goebbels, etc. Clean copy.

Hardcover. GR, DZA Verlag fur Kultur und Wissenschaft, 1st, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 161 pages, no dust jacket, pictorial boards. A collection of essays and photographs on the city of Dresden, ending in it's destruction at the end of WWII. Foreward by Herbert Wagner.

Softcover. New York, Abbeville Press, 1st US, 1984, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 160 pages, illustrated throughout in b&w. Previous owner's sticker on front end paper, light edgewear and soil to wrappers. Clean, tight copy. The pictures assembled here show how this artistic culture originated in the aftermath of the First World War and the unsettled early years of the Weimar Republic, uneasily balanced between revolutionary pretensions and the desire for order. The montage of images--photographs, paintings, drawings, collages, books, and film stills--evokes the period with shocking vividness.

Hardcover. Chicago, University Of Chicago Press, 1st, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, pages. In When Buildings Speak,Anthony Alofsin explores the rich yet often overlooked architecture of the late Austro-Hungarian Empire and its successor states. He shows that several different styles emerged in this milieu during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Moreover, he contends that each of these styles communicates to us in a manner resembling language and its particular means of expression. Covering a wide range of buildings--from national theaters to crematoria, apartment buildings to warehouses, and sanatoria to postal savings banks--Alofsin proposes a new way of interpreting this language. He calls on viewers to read buildings in two ways: through their formal elements and through their political, social, and cultural contexts. By looking through Alofsin's eyes, readers can see how myriad nations sought to express their autonomy by tapping into the limitless possibilities of art and architectural styles. And such architecture can still speak very powerfully to us today about the contradictory issues affecting parts of the former Habsburg Empire.

Hardcover. Annapolis, Naval Institute Press, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 249 pages. Hardcover. Brick cloth boards with gilt titles to spine. Illustrated with photos in b/w. Dust jacket with light wear. Clean, unmarked copy.

Hardcover. Munchen GR, Hugendubel, reprint, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 256 pages, Over 250 historical photos featuring public buildings, storefronts, cafes and other gathering spaces in the city. GERMAN TEXT. Clean, bright copy in a similar dust jacket. Appears to be a reprint of a book first published in 1990.