'Vivid, full of sardonic humour, moral nuance and personal drama, this book takes the reader into the heart of the revolutionary crowd, and shows how exhilarating and terrifying it is to be there' Lucy Hughes-Hallett, New Statesman
'Compelling' Spectator, Books of the Year
Munich, November 1918: in the final days of the First World War, revolutionaries open the doors of military prisons, occupy official buildings and overthrow the monarchy. At the head of the newly declared Free State of Bavaria is journalist and theatre critic Kurt Eisner, and around him rally luminaries of German cultural history: Thomas Mann, Ernst Toller, Rainer Maria Rilke. For a thrilling, fragile moment, it is the poets, the playwrights and the intellectuals who light the path towards a changed world.
In his unique, dynamic style, Volker Weidermann gives us a thrillingly immersive account of the passion, idealism and bloodshed of this brief dream.