The national psyche is the principal protagonist in Harald Jähner’s subtle, perceptive and beautifully written Aftermath.

... important, exemplary.

... a scholarly masterpiece which is also a good read.

The pointedness...is quintessential Jähner; he does double duty in this fascinating book (translated into English by the gifted Shaun Whiteside), elegantly marshaling a plethora of facts while also using his critical skills to wry effect.

... highly readable.

... particularly intriguing in the way that it undermines commonly held perceptions of this period.

Jähner constructs an innovative overall interpretation of German lives in the postwar years.

... rich detail.

... a lucid, exhaustively researched and compelling account of a Germany which rises much more rapidly from the rubble than we had previously imagined.

Jähner’s book attracted considerable praise in Germany for knitting a coherent narrative out of events previously viewed separately—or ignored entirely. Its English translation is even more welcome, filling the yawning gap on bookshop shelves between a growing number of modern German history and the oversupply of Nazi studies that end in Hitler’s bunker.

Deeply researched while at the same time eminently readable, this book successfully presents an engrossing social, political, economic, and cultural perspective on an important era that is often overlooked in traditional history texts.

In unsparing prose, cultural journalist Jähner sets the record straight.

... illuminating.

One explanation for Aftermath’s popularity at home stares an American reader in the face. The book contains relatively few pages about Jews—not to mention gays, Roma, left-wingers, White Rose survivors or anti-Hitler exiles (with the exception, in the latter case, of some passages about the courageous Thomas Mann.) In short, the war’s much-written-about innocent victims—those forced to suffer before the aftermath—are largely absent. From the perspective of German readers, it’s a book almost entirely about 'us.' Perhaps they felt, given the endless shelves of tomes on the Holocaust, that it was about time.

... fascinating and obviously depressing.

... penetrating.