LE GÉNIE ALLEMAND

With dynamic style, Phillipe Meyer retraces the lives of the brilliant personalities who created Germany, from Otto von Bismarck to Fritz Lang by way of Charlemagne, Karl Marx and Marlene Dietrich. An innovative approach to the history of Germany, through its leading figures.

Philippe Meyer, historian and specialist on Germany, has gathered in this book a hundred personalities who in his eyes constitute the greatest prodigies Germany has ever known. Many of these heroes are famous around the world, while others are more obscure. From all eras and all walks of life, these great minds are described here as genuine national icons. Far from limiting his choices to politicians and leaders, as historians tend to do, Philippe Meyer gives pride of place to authors, doctors and industrialists.
And while Meyer takes an interest in the individuality of each of these geniuses, he nonetheless underlines that all these virtuosos have one thing in common: they have, at their level and in their own way, transformed Germany.
Thanks to Meyer's enthusiastic and passionate writing, this instructive work will find its place in the libraries of readers as diverse as the book's heroes.

PHILIPPE MEYER, correspondent of the French Academy of Sciences, has published a number of books with Perrin: L'Or du Rhin, histoire d'un fleuve (The Gold of the Rhine, Story of a River, 2011); Baltiques, histoire d'une mer d'ambre (Baltic, History of an Amber Sea, 2013); Histoire de l'Alsace (History of Alsace, 2008) and Une histoire de Berlin (A History of Berlin, 2014).