Reddit mentions of A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People

Thank you for referring my answer! First time this has happened to me on here (not that I answer very many or often)!

In re-reading my answer linked above, I realize now I forgot perhaps the most important part in my excitement of (essentially) being asked to talk about one of my favorite subjects: citations for further reading! I will remedy my error now for this repeat of the question.

In addition to the linked answers above, here are a few books for additional reading:

German History Since 1800, edited by Mary Fulbrook. It's a collection of essays on various subjects within the last 200 years about Germany, and covers the 2nd Reich very well, with brief mentions of the First Reich.

A history of Germany, by Peter Wende. A broader history, including the Holy Roman Empire/First Reich.

A Mighty Fortress, by Steven Ozment. Also a broad history, covering the roughly 2000 years of German history.

I select these as places to begin or for the casual interest. There are plenty of options for very detailed studies on each Reich or specific parts of their histories. Check your local library for one or a similar one! If visiting a public library, check the 943 area of adult non-fiction (ask a librarian for help, if needed), if the library uses Dewey Decimal. If it uses Library of Congress Classification, German history should be in the DD range. These are the two most common system in American libraries. If you're not in the States, then I don't know where such information would likely be found (again, ask a librarian! We love helping find information!).

Further, some games can be useful in providing some background. The Civilization series I mentioned in my linked answer always has reasonably detailed history files in it. Civ IV, specifically, includes both the Holy Roman Empire and Germany as playable civs, with Charlemagne and Bismarck as playable leaders. Both civs and leaders have good history files. Europa Universalis IV offers a simulation of the HRE's institutions, however simplified it may be. This can provide a bit of insight on how difficult the empire was to manage for the kaiser, showing how disagreement can hinder his goals. I offer these as another alternative, for anyone who enjoys a good game with some historical learning thrown in.

The Holy Roman Empire existed for a millennium and comprised hundreds of quasi-independent states and principalities. Because of that, there aren't very many exhaustive histories on the subject. The ones that do exist tend to be limited in one way or another (Eastern Rome kind of has the same problem).

I recommend a popular overview of German history like A Mighty Fortress and suggest you continue on with smaller, more specific subjects - the Schmalkaldic League, the Carolingians, the Reformation, or whatever. If you're into the Thirty Years War then CV Wedgewood's appropriately titled The Thirty Years War is a fantastic narrative history, even if it doesn't measure up to modern standards of serious historical scholarship.

I really liked "A Mighty Fortress". It covers ~2000 years of "German" history: https://www.amazon.com/Mighty-Fortress-History-German-People/dp/0060934832

In all honesty I would love to have a book which covers from The Roman period to Bismarck. However if there are no books which can cover such a large period then a few books which covers all of this German history would also work.

So far I have mainly been looking on amazon but a lot of the books don't have the greatest reviews such as so I was mainly hoping people in this subreddit would have better suggestions