Out of the Darkness

I could not put the book down. The way Frank Trentmann writes history, the way he brings together things great and small, analysis with narrative, is wonderful – Bernhard Schlink, author of The Reader
Outstanding … A meticulous and well-judged account of Germany from 1942 to today [that] shows how it transformed itself from pariah nation to leader of a continent – Simon Heffer * Daily Telegraph, Best Books of the Year *
An impressive account of how Germany built a new identity for itself after the barbaric Nazi years … terrifically insightful … This book runs to 838 pages, but barely a word is wasted. Trentmann is a skilful and unflashy storyteller with flickers of gentle irony. Echoing Tolstoy’s theory of history as the “sum of human wills”, he aims to stitch the scraps of everyday experience into a quilt of grand narrative. This results in a good deal of richness, colour and subtlety – Oliver Moody * The Times *
Compelling … vivid … fresh … one of the most impressive studies I have read of German guilt and shame … an eloquent and original account of the last eighty years of the country’s history – David Blackbourn * Literary Review *
Absorbing… Frank Trentmann’s approach is novel [and] his Germans leap vividly off the page, both as archetypes and as complex, multi-layered individuals… an excellent book – Brendan Simms * New Statesman *
Superb – Stuart Jeffries * Spectator *
In Out of the Darkness Trentmann does something different and extraordinary. He has composed an account of recent Germany that is not primarily political or economic or social, but moral.. [His] moral history is enormous, but never heavy-going: he is a gifted and intelligent writer – Neal Ascherson * London Review of Books *
Excellent … Trentmann’s study marshals an immense amount of evidence in response to a single basic question: how did Germans reassert themselves as morally oriented human beings? – Ben Hutchinson * Times Literary Supplement *
Remarkably rich … Out of the Darkness usefully reveals the roots of [modern Germany’s] ethical knots. Trentmann is still hopeful that Germans can untangle them – Peter Fritzsche * New York Times Book Review *
Out of the Darkness give[s] a deep insight into how Germany and its people grappled with questions of guilt and identity…. navigates complex issues like self-pity, denazification, immigration, reunification and military intervention with refreshing clarity. This book couldn’t be more timely – Katja Hoyer * BBC History Magazine *

Frank Trentmann is Professor of History at Birkbeck, University of London, and at the University of Helsinki. He is the author of Empire of Things and Free Trade Nation, was a Moore Scholar at Caltech and has been awarded the Whitfield Prize, the Austrian Science Book Prize, the Humboldt Prize for Research and the 2023 Bochum Historians’ Prize. He grew up in Hamburg and lives in London.

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