Fontana History of Germany

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"In the late eighteenth century, German-speaking Europe was a patchwork of lodrships and principalities, hundreds in all. Most people lived in the countryside, just half survived until their late twenties, and women were still occasionally burnt as witches. By the beginning of our own century, a unified Germany was the most powerful state in Europe. No longer a quaintly provincial "land of poets and thinkers", but an industrial and military giant with an advanced welfare system, Germany prompted mingled admiration and alarm among its contemporaries."--Back cover