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Germany, 1918: a country in flux. The First World War is over, the
nation defeated. Revolution is afoot, the monarchy has fallen and the
victory of democracy beckons. Everything must change with the times.
Out of the ashes of the First World War, Germany launches an
unprecedented political project: its first democratic government. The
Weimar Republic is established. The years that follow see political
extremism, economic upheaval, revolutionary violence and the
transformation of Germany. Tradition is shaken to its core as a
triumphant procession of liberated lifestyles emerges. Women conquer
the racetracks and tennis courts, go out alone in the evenings, cut
their hair short and cast the idea of marriage aside. Unisex style
comes into fashion, androgynous and experimental. People revel in the
discovery of leisure, filling up boxing halls, dance palaces and the
hotspots of the New Age, embracing the department stores’ promise of
happiness and accepting the streets as a place of fierce political
battles.
In this short burst of life between the wars, amidst a frenzy of
change, comes a backlash from those who do not see themselves reflected
in the new Republic. Little by little, deep divisions begin to emerge.
Divisions that would bring devastating consequences, altering the
course of the twentieth century and the lives of millions around the
world. Vertigo is a vital, kaleidoscopic portrait of a pivotal moment
in German history.
***SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION***
***SHORTLISTED FOR THE BRITISH ACADEMY BOOK PRIZE*** ***SHORTLISTED
FOR THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE*** A Book of the Year The Times *
Sunday Times * Telegraph * New Statesman * Financial Times * Irish
Independent * Daily Mail 'A masterpiece' SPECTATOR 'Exemplary [and]
important... This is the kind of book few writers possess the
clarity of vision to write' MAX HASTINGS, SUNDAY TIMES
'Magnificent... There are great lessons in the nature of humanity
to be learnt here' TELEGRAPH Germany, 1945: a country in ruins.
Cities have been reduced to rubble and more than half of the
population are where they do not belong or do not want to be. How
can a functioning society ever emerge from this chaos? In
bombed-out Berlin, Ruth Andreas-Friedrich, journalist and member of
the Nazi resistance, warms herself by a makeshift stove and records
in her diary how a frenzy of expectation and industriousness grips
the city. The Americans send Hans Habe, an Austro-Hungarian Jewish
journalist and US army soldier, to the frontline of psychological
warfare - tasked with establishing a newspaper empire capable of
remoulding the minds of the Germans. The philosopher Hannah Arendt
returns to the country she fled to find a population gripped by a
manic loquaciousness, but faces a deafening wall of silence at the
mention of the Holocaust. Aftermath is a nuanced panorama of a
nation undergoing monumental change. 1945 to 1955 was a raw, wild
decade poised between two eras that proved decisive for Germany's
future - and one starkly different to how most of us imagine it
today. Featuring black and white photographs and posters from
post-war Germany - some beautiful, some revelatory, some shocking -
Aftermath evokes an immersive portrait of a society corrupted,
demoralised and freed - all at the same time.
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