For nearly a century, historians have depicted Germany as a rabidly nationalist land, born in a sea of aggression and violence. But was it always inevitable that the land that produced Goethe, Heine, and Einstein would also carry out genocide on an unprecedented scale? Is Germany truly an essentially bellicose nation? With this groundbreaking, five-hundred-year account, Helmut Walser Smith powerfully revises traditional perceptions of Germany and German history, revealing a nation far more complicated than most contemporary historians have imagined. Taking us from the earliest glimmers of nationhood in the 1500s, through the meteoric rise of the Nazi Party and World War II, to the modern period of centrism and even pacifism, Smith shows a nation in a constant state of reinvention-of its government and society, of its art and culture, and above all, of its attitudes toward nationalism. Richly illustrated, with original maps throughout, Germany is a must-read, "encompassing history of German efforts to define their nation in all its stunning contradictions" (Charles S. Maier). Book jacket.