Heinrich August Winkler was born in 1938 in Königsberg. He studied history, philosophy, and public law in Tübingen, Heidelberg and Münster. He was associate professor at the Freie Universität in Berlin in 1970-72 and then professor of modern history in Freiburg until 1991. He has been at the Humboldt-Universität in Berlin since 1992, and has been a visiting scholar in Princeton, at the Wilson Center in Washington, at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Berlin, and at the Historisches Kolleg in Munich.

• 1: Legacy of a Millennium


• 2: Hampered by Progress 1789-1830


• 3: Liberalism in Crisis 1830-1850


• 4: Unity before Liberty 1850-1871


• 5: The Transformation of Nationalism 1871-1890


• 6: World Policy and World War 1890-1918


• 7: The Impaired Republic 1918-1933


• Looking Ahead

Vivid, succinct, and highly accessible, this first volume of Heinrich Winkler's magisterial history of modern Germany takes us from the final days of the Holy Roman Empire to the downfall of the Weimar Republic in 1933. Winkler brilliantly synthesizes complex events and illuminates them with fascinating new research, interweaving astute political analysis with profound social and cultural insight. A second volume continues the story to reunification in 1990.