Freedom
-
-
4.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- $42.99
Publisher Description
The long-awaited memoir by one of the most important political leaders of our time
For 16 years, Angela Merkel bore the governmental responsibility for Germany, leading the country through numerous crises and shaping German and international politics and society with her actions and attitude. But Angela Merkel was not born a Chancellor. In her memoirs, co-written with her long-standing political advisor Beate Baumann, she looks back on her life in two German states – 35 years in the GDR (German Democratic Republic), 35 years in reunified Germany. More personally than ever before, she talks about her childhood, youth, and her studies in the GDR, and the dramatic year of 1989, when the Wall fell and her political life began. She shares insights into her meetings and conversations with the world's most powerful leaders and elucidates, with clear and precise examples, significant national, European, and international turning points and how decisions were made that shape our times. Her book offers a unique insight into the inner workings of power – and is a decisive plea for freedom.
“What does freedom mean to me? This question has occupied me my entire life. Naturally, politically, because freedom needs democratic conditions, without democracy there is no freedom, no rule of law, no protection of human rights. But this question also occupies me on another level. Freedom, for me, is finding out where my own limits are, and pushing my own limits. Freedom is for me not to stop learning, not to have to stand still but to be allowed to continue, even after leaving politics.” - Angela Merkel
A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
With her legacy in question, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel sets the record straight not just about her policy decisions but her beliefs in this striking memoir. After living and working on the Soviet side of the Berlin Wall and joining the unification team that formed the country’s current government, she has a fascinating perspective on European politics well beyond her 16 years as Germany’s leader. She deftly provides plenty of detail about governmental inner workings without becoming bogged down in minutiae. The big-ticket items—dealings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump, plus her in-office stances on Ukraine’s NATO status and immigration—don’t disappoint, but there’s much more to Merkel’s life. The former Minister for Women and Youth’s complicated relationship with feminism could fill another book. British actress Juliet Stevenson expertly captures the spirit of one of the West’s most prominent modern leaders with her narration. Freedom manages to be a noteworthy historical account of 21st-century politics and an intriguing account of one woman’s remarkable life.
