Description: Ardagh's masterly account captures the diversity and contradictions of Germany in the mid-1990s. In a special new introduction he looks at recent events - the re-election of Chancellor Kohl in 1994, the rebuilding of Berlin to make it Germany's capital once again, the coming and going of recession, the flare-up of racial violence and the continued malaise in the east despite economic renewal. In a new postscript, Ardagh examines Germany's crucial role today in the European Union. And his book surveys many other aspects of German life, such as the clashing passions for fast cars and forests; the 'regional patchwork'; sex, snobbery and suburbia. He mocks the vogue for spa cures and the zany Cologne carnival. He explores the savagery of gutter journalism, the harsh lives of Turkish guest workers and, above all, the terrible legacy of Nazism. Perceptive and positive but never uncritical, his book has been acclaimed on all sides as a major achievement.

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