Based on a lifetime living in and reporting on Germany and Central Europe, award-winning journalist and author Peter Millar tackles the fascinating and complex story of the people at the heart of their continent. Focusing on nine cities, only six of which are in the Germany of today, he takes readers on a zigzag ride back through time via the fall of the Berlin Wall through the horrors of two world wars, the patchwork states of the Middle Ages, to the splendor of Charlemagne and the fall of Rome, with side swipes at everything on the way, from Henry VIII to the Spanish Empire. Included are mini portraits of aspects of German culture from sex and money to food and drink. Not just a book about Germany but about Europe as a whole and how it got where it is today, and where it might be tomorrow.