Steven Ozment

This book gives some interesting insights into merchant class life in Germany at the time. Balthasar is a merchant in Nuremberg who makes regular trips to Italy to purchase fabrics, wines and other merchandise, to the Frankfurt fair to sell and to various hot springs for his health. His wife Magdalena mostly stays at home except for visits to family members in other towns, but she not a mere housewife. She distributes merchandise, including judging the quality of wine to be sold, collects moneys owed and communicates with other members of the family business. The letters between the couple are partly business, partly personal news of family and neighbors, suggestions about items to purchase and admonitions to eat right, travel carefully and return as soon as practical. I was most surprised to learn that after the death of their 10 year old son, Magdalena was able to order an autopsy, apparently on her own authority as her husband was traveling. I had no idea that autopsies were legal or routine at the time. The editor, Steven Ozment, a specialist in Reformation era history at Harvard, interlaces the letters with commentary on the customs, religion and history of the period. Very interesting.… (meer)

Three hundred odd pages of text can't fully cover two millennia of history, but Ozment makes interesting the topics he chooses to write about. I learned how germanic tribes were sometimes courted by and sometimes taken advantage of by the Romans, the importance of Martin Luther, how the French revolution affected Germans, why the Germans did not really have their own revolution, what post cold war reunification was like, and much much more. Also, I learned the difference between historiography and history and why it is important.
The pages, like many history books, are long on rulers, battles, regime changes, and short on what was happening to ordinary people, leaving me wondering what really changed and what didn't sometimes.
There are interesting references to the history of ideas, including a chapter about nineteenth century philosophers and political thinkers. Hitler and the Nazi's got their chapter, one that explained much to me.
I was looking for a book that especially clarified early germanic history as well as the last two centuries, and this one filled the bill. The fourteen page introduction is worth reading on its own.… (meer)