From Neil MacGregor, the author of A History of the World in 100 Objects, this is a view of Germany like no other. For the past 140 years, Germany has been the central power in continental Europe. Twenty-five years ago a new German state came into being. How much do we really understand this new Germany, and how do its people now understand themselves? Neil MacGregor argues that uniquely for any European country, no coherent, over-arching narrative of Germany's history can be constructed, for in Germany both geography and history have always been unstable. Its frontiers have constantly floated. Konigsberg, home to the greatest German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, is now Kaliningrad, Russia; Strasbourg, in whose cathedral Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Germany's greatest writer, discovered the distinctiveness of his country's art and history, now lies within the borders of France. For most of the five hundred years covered by this book Germany has been composed of many separate political units, each with a distinct history. And any comfortable national story Germans might have told themselves before 1914 was destroyed by the events of the following thirty years. German history may be inherently fragmented, but it contains a large number of widely shared memories, awarenesses and experiences; examining some of these is the purpose of this book. Beginning with the fifteenth-century invention of modern printing by Gutenberg, MacGregor chooses objects and ideas, people and places which still resonate in the new Germany - porcelain from Dresden and rubble from its ruins, Bauhaus design and the German sausage, the crown of Charlemagne and the gates of Buchenwald - to show us something of its collective imagination. There has never been a book about Germany quite like it. Neil MacGregor has been Director of the British Museum since August 2002. He was Director of the National Gallery in London from 1987 to 2002. His previous books include A History of the World in 100 Objects and Shakespeare's Restless World, now between them translated into more than a dozen languages.

尼爾•麥格雷戈

大英博物館前館長，倫敦古文物學會成員，英國著名藝術史學者。

1975年至1981年，在英國雷丁大學教授藝術與建築史。

1981年至1987年，主編英語世界曆史最悠久的美術及裝飾藝術期刊《伯林頓雜誌》。1987年至2002年，主持英國國傢美術館。

2002年至2015年，任大英博物館館長。

2010年，獲英國女王頒贈功績勛章。

主要作品有《大英博物館世界簡史》《大師之作的誕生》《莎士比亞的動蕩世界》等。