John Kampfner is an award-winning author, broadcaster and foreign-affairs commentator. He began his career reporting from East Berlin (during the fall of the Wall) and Moscow (during the collapse of communism) for the Telegraph. After covering British politics for the Financial Times and BBC, he edited the New Statesman. He is a regular TV and radio pundit, documentary maker and author of six previous books, including the bestselling Blair's Wars. His most recent book, Why the Germans Do it Better, was a top ten bestseller, Book of the Year in the Guardian, Economist and the New Statesman, and sold over 100,000 copies in all editions.
No-one is better qualified than John Kampfner to write about Berlin - that living palimpsest of German, and thus European, history. His knowledge is both deep - historical, analytical - and wide, drawn from a large diaspora of knowledgeable contacts. One of Europe's foremost intellectuals, Kampfner is also incapable of writing a dull sentence, which allows this book to succeed as history, travel book, autobiography, treatise, and love-letter. * Andrew Roberts, author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny * Excellent and provocative * The Sunday Times on Why The Germans Do It Better * One of the best English-language introductions in recent years to modern Germany and its politics: thoughtful, deeply reported and impeccably even-handed * The Times on Why the Germans Do it Better * Highly readable and well-informed... [Kampfner] mixes historical sweep with vivid reporting to celebrate Germany's strengths and achievements * Financial Times on Why the Germans Do it Better * With insights based on painstaking research and evidence gleaned from months crisscrossing the country... Kampfner's analysis is simply peerless * Literary Review on Why the Germans Do it Better * One of Britain's most distinguished political writers * Mail on Sunday on Why the Germans Do it Better * Kampfner roams widely in Germany and has a reporter's ear for the telling anecdote. He knows his history too -- Lionel Barber * The Spectator on Why the Germans Do it Better *