Five best: books about Germany & Germans

Steven Ozment is a professor of ancient and modern history at Harvard University. His most recent book is A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People.

He selected five books that "excel in their portraits of Germany and the German people" for Opinion Journal.

Number One on the list:

The Roman Empire and Its Germanic Peoples by Herwig Wolfram (University of California, 1997).

Why do thousands of Germans annually visit the 19th-century monument near Detmold honoring the first-century barbarian prince Arminius? Herwig Wolfram explains all. Arminius was the first barbarian to defeat Roman legions, and in his life and deeds one finds the first stirrings of the "German people" among polyglot tribes migrating to the borders of the Roman Empire. At this time, barbarians served Rome as the members of federated armies and as agricultural workers, the talented becoming Roman citizens. By the fourth century, crack Germanic warriors occupied virtually every senior military post in the Roman army. As the Romans were "barbarized," the barbarians were "Romanized." The resulting mix of Roman, Christian and Germanic cultures lay at the heart of what became the German nation.

Read about all five titles on Ozment's list.

--Marshal Zeringue