This accessible, nicely illustrated brief history traces the nation from its origins through the present. With 56 color and 59 black-and-white illustrations from the German Historical Museum in Berlin. Schulze, a professor at the Free University of Berlin, looks particularly at the emergence of a German identity. He's especially good in his portrait of the country in the last 40 years, arguing that today's Germany is very different from that of the early 20th century.  (GER131, $21.00)