Giles Macdonogh – författare

In 1945 Germany was a nation in tatters. Swathes of its population were despairing, homeless, bombed-out and on the move. Refugees streamed towards the West and soldiers made their way home, often scarring the villages they passed through with parting shots of savagery.Politically the country was neutered, carved into zones of occupation. While Britain and America were loathe to repeat the crippling reparations demands of the First World War, Russia bayed for blood, stripping their own zone of everything from rail tracks to lavatory bowls.After the Reich is the first history to give the full picture of Germany's bitter journey to reconstruction. Giles Macdonogh expertly charts the varied experiences of all who found themselves in the German melting pot. His people-focused narrative unveils shocking truths about how people continued to treat each other, even outside the confines of war. It is a crucial lesson for our times.

No one seriously interested in food need be reminded that Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin is the father of gastronomy, or that his book La Physiologie du goût, published in 1825 and never since out of print, is gastronomy's first great classic. Giles MacDonogh's book is likewise a first: the only full and authoritative biography of Brillat. Far from being just a gastronome, during perhaps the most interesting period of French history Brillat was also a lawyer, politician, emigré in flight from the guillotine, teacher of French in New York, first violin, hunter, secretary to the general staff of the French revolutionary army, judge, lover, and pornographer. Besides Brillat's life, Mr. MacDonogh presents a fascinating picture of provincial France under the ancien régime and the dangerous years that followed its fall. His remarkable book adds greatly to our knowledge both of the art of cookery in a heroic age of gourmandise and of French life at its gamiest.