The Federal Republic of Germany is a country with a long and rich history. It’s a country that is best known in the West as central to the dominant geopolitical struggles of the 20th century – namely the two World Wars and the Cold War. Today, it is one of the largest economies in the world and the economic powerhouse of Europe – having risen from the ashes of destruction and an artificial division that lasted nearly 50 years. Or was it artificial division? Was it perhaps instead the case that the fault lines within ...
The Federal Republic of Germany is a country with a long and rich history. It’s a country that is best known in the West as central to the dominant geopolitical struggles of the 20th century – namely the two World Wars and the Cold War. Today, it is one of the largest economies in the world and the economic powerhouse of Europe – having risen from the ashes of destruction and an artificial division that lasted nearly 50 years.
Or was it artificial division? Was it perhaps instead the case that the fault lines within the state we know today as Germany date back to Roman times? And that those fault lines can help understand everything from the disbursement of the reformation to the rise of the Nazis?
To explore those questions and more, I am joined today by the acclaimed writer and historian James Hawes – author of “The Shortest History of Germany”, an international bestseller that covers over 2,000 years of history.
On the show James and I discuss a range of topics, including:
- How Britain inadvertently set up Prussia to conquer its neighbors and proclaim a German Empire in the 19th century
- How that German Empire became the center of arts, sciences, economics and philosophy before the First World War
- Why Germany set its eyes to the East as a focal point for expansion in both World Wars
- How one half of Germany was able to bounce so quickly back from destruction after 1945 to overtake every other European economy
- What the Ukraine War and the rise of the AfD mean for the future of German
- And more
James Hawes grew up in Gloucestershire, Edinburgh and Shropshire. He took a First in German at Hertford College, Oxford, then did a postgrad theatre studies in Cardiff, Wales. Having failed as an actor, he worked as an English teacher in Spain. In 1985-6 he was in charge of CADW excavations at the now-UNESCO World Heritage site of Blaenavon Ironworks. He took a PhD on Nietzsche and German literature 1900-1914 at University College, London 1987-90, then lectured in German at Maynooth University (Ollscoil Mhá Nuad) in Ireland between 1989 and 1991 before doing so at Sheffield University and Swansea University.
James has published six novels, all with Jonathan Cape. He turned to creative non-fiction with a Kafka anti-biography, Excavating Kafka (2008) which became the subject of a BBC documentary. In 2015, Englanders and Huns was shortlisted for the Paddy Power Political Books of the Year 2015. The Shortest History of Germany, published in May 2017, reached #2 in the Sunday Times bestseller charts in April 2018, being pipped for #1 only by Noah Yuval Harari. The Shortest History of England appeared in October 2020 and reached #4 in the Times bestseller charts in July 2021.
James has reviewed and/or written for every UK broadsheet, on topics from DIY to Prince Philip. His journalistic high-points to date were the cover-story for The New Statesman in September 2017 and the long read The England Delusion in Prospect in August 2021; this was publicly described by Prof Ciaran Martin, CB, founding Chief Executive of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, as “a really brilliant essay on the historical origins of UK constitutional tensions”. He has appeared on Radio 4 Today, Channel 4 News, Sky News and GB News.
In 2022, he was “series story consultant” and key on-screen commentator in the eight-part BBC TV series “Art that Made Us”. He also wrote the accompanying book.
His next book will be The Shortest History of Ireland.
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