John Ardagh   Germany and the Germans (Penguin). The most comprehensive English-language characterization of the country and its people, taking into account its history, politics and psyche, and covering almost every aspect of national life, revised after unification. Its approach is always lively, yet remains scrupulously unbiased.

 

David Childs   The GDR: Moscow's German Ally (Unwin Hyman/Routledge). The best book on the GDR period, fully revised the year before Die Wende , when the regime still seemed fully secure. Obviously now dated, but still of considerable interest for its detailed descriptions and explanations.

David Childs and Richard Popplewell   The Stasi (Macmillan/New York UP). In-depth academic study of the huge parasitical ministry that was the East German secret police.

W.A. Coupe   Germany Through the Looking-Glass (Berg). The author presents the period 1945-1986 via a collection of German political cartoons, adding his own analysis of the issues in each case. Opinionated and subjective, the book introduces German humour and a German view of the country's postwar development.

Ian Derbyshire   Politics in Germany (Chambers). Survey of the German political scene, with Die Wende and the subsequent elections fully documented.

Timothy Garton Ash   The File (Flamingo). Following the opening of the Stasi archives, the author traced all those who had spied on him, and lays bare the informer society that was the GDR.

Stuart Parkes   Understanding Contemporary Germany (Routledge). Sympathetic examination - with a broadly optimistic conclusion - of the political, economic and social structures of post-unification Germany.

Peter Schneider   The Germany Comedy (I.B. Tauris/Farrar, Straus & Giroux). Discussion of the myriad problems caused by unification, with many wry descriptions and observations of the bizarre contradictions and anomalies that ensued.

Günther Wallraff   Lowest of the Low (Methuen/Freundlich). In 1983, Wallraff spent two years labouring among Turkish and other immigrant workers, finding out about the underside of German affluence. The book was a political bombshell when it came out, painting a picture of exploitation and malpractice rarely discussed in Germany. Unfortunately, it now seems that the author was guilty of fabricating some of the evidence, thus diminishing its long-term impact. The Undesirable Journalist (Pluto Press) is a collection of short but similarly shocking pieces exposing some of the nastier aspects of the country's postwar prosperity.

Alan Watson   The Germans: Who are they now? (Mandarin/Edition Q). A guide to German identity and the way it is shaping for the future. Each of the eight chapters attempts to provide an answer to one strand of the question posed in the title.