Mann's "Wallenstein" is one of the great biographies of the century. The subject is utterly fascinating. Wallenstein is one of history's 'bad boys', a ruthless, godless, grasping, paranoid master of mercenary mayhem, operating in the chaos of the Thirty Years War. Feared and loathed -- and ultimately murdered by his employer, the Holy Roman Emperor -- Wallenstein's military-entrepreneurial genius was sufficient to earn him the idolization of XIXth century German nationalists, who wrote onto his violent career a story of incipient national consciousness.

It is Mann's genius to strip this argument bare, leaving only the chill calculation and bravura wickedness of this evil man. Gorgeously written, fully of witty detail and laconoic comment, "Wallenstein" is a fascinating journey into the mind of a monster in a monstrous time.

The mysterious nobleman and warlord Wallenstein portrayed by Germany's prime 20th century historian. A stunning story of life, politics and society of the early years of the "Great European War", centered around the mythical politician. Historical biography at an all-time high by the master of the genre.

If you want to read a thorough, dense, long, and even engaging history of Germany since the French Revolution, then Golo Mann has written the book for you. In The History of Germany since 1789, we the readers relive the panorama of the German speaking lands of north central Europe.

I must say that the information density contained between the two covers is incredible. Five hundred thirty five pages of small type fill in as many details as a survey work could possible provide. One cannot skim through this stuff. There is an actual narrative going on here, and the relevance or meaning of one sentence often depends strongly on what has preceded it. By now you may think that this will be a dry, difficult, and tedious tome. It certainly is a challenging one. I'll admit it can be tedious. But Golo Mann has perhaps taken after his father (the novelist Thomas Mann) and produced a work with an eye on the story. It may be challenging, but it is, for lack of a better term, conversationally challenging. It reads like the author is really trying to relate and explain the history of his nation. He comments. He editorializes at times. He is not a remote, detached, and invisible entity. He tries to explain the perspectives of the figures involved. If you pay the proper attention to this book, you will be rewarded with a seemingly overwhelming and often bewildering, but always rewarding story of a remarkable nation.