The Nation As a Local Metaphor: Wurttemberg, Imperial Germany, and National Memory, 1871-1918

Rating:
Summary: Density of text and repetitiveness of content make poor book
Review: I read this book as a student in Prof. Confino's class on Modern Germany (beginning with Bismarck until the present) at the University of Virginia. Confino, or the Chancellor as he is known by some, is an exceptional lecturer with a great sense of humor and a lively presentation style. Unfortunately for readers of this book, his skills as an author do not live up to his skills as an orator. In the first 100 pages Confino makes the same point 25 times. His examples are at times impossible to penetrate and leave the reader not invigorated to continue but instead weary and ready for slumber. He tries to look at an entity so as to serve as a micrcosm for something larger. This is a very popular style, especially in German history with authors like William Sheridan Allen and Christopher Browning, but for Confino it is not at all effective. Alon Confino is a good man and a smart and entertaining professor, but this book exhibits that he is not a talented writer.