Books, of course, should not be judged by their covers. In this case, however, the choice of cover illustration – the historic Reichstag veiled in silver fabric by the Bulgarian–American ‘wrap artist’, Christo – seems unusually significant, and not only because the author devotes his concluding remarks to it (more about that later). German history is a well-ploughed field. With library shelves groaning under the weight of books on the subject, only the narrowest studies, aimed at specialised markets, will offer much that is really new. The only justification for yet another narrative history of modern Germany – and with a title as blandly generic as this one – is therefore that a familiar story will be presented in a new wrapping.

And how German history needs such a new wrapping. For decades now, it has been all but monopolised by the Sonderweg (‘special path’) brand in its two major flavours: Germany’s deviation from the high road of Western liberalism through its illiberal patterns of philosophical thought; or through the German bourgeoisie’s self-interested pact with an authoritarian, militaristic, and aristocratic Prussianism. They are simultaneously teleological and apologetic, in that they explain Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust in terms of deep-rooted pathologies in German history while reassuring a sceptical audience of Germany’s rehabilitation following defeat, occupation and integration into the West.