A brilliant survey--from Roman Germaniato Bonn's recent reconciliation with Moscow--this up-to-date and authoritative new work provides a much-needed guide to modern German history. The German quest for national unity and power, which led to the establishment of the Hohenzollern Empire under Bis­marck in the nineteenth century and the catastrophe of the Third Reich under Hitler in the twentieth, is placed in the context of German history since antiq­uity in this concise interpretive survey. Addressed to the general reader inter­ested in European history and interna­tional relations, it will also be useful to students, journalists, librarians, and anyone needing a lucid introduction to the background of postwar Germany and its role in the contemporary world. This concise account of the impact of complex factors in the Middle Ages and early modern period on the course of more recent German history is comple­mented with a dozen original maps, a brief chronology, and a selected bibliog­raphy.