The foundation of eternity

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Foundation of Eternity (original title: A Column of Fire ) is a historical novel by Ken Follett . As a kind of continuation, he uses the setting as well as some motifs from his first Kingsbridge world success The Pillars of the Earth (original title: The Pillars of the Earth ) and from his second Kingsbridge novel The Gates of the World (original title: World without End ) and creates such a series of novels. However, the action no longer takes place in the Middle Ages, but in the 16th century, in the Elizabethan Age . The English original title was published on September 12, 2017, the German version also in 2017.

With this third novel, Follett has created a "Kingsbridge series", but it is not a trilogy like The Saga of the Century . It is only a return to the historical novel , which is partly still set in the fictional English Kingsbridge and the county of Shiring, but no longer takes place in the Middle Ages . In the age of religious struggles and religious intolerance, the scope of action goes far beyond England and encompasses all of Western Europe , Southern Europe and even the New World . The author combines historical storylines from world history and religious history with fictional love stories and life courses of his people from England and France.

Themes and motifs

The historical topic can be summarized as follows, as a review does:

It is a time of upheaval after the Reformation, in which first under Queen Maria I, the "Bloody Mary", the Catholics cruelly persecuted the Protestants and then under Elizabeth I the Protestants cruelly persecuted the Catholics. A time when people die because they don't believe in God the way others like. A time when the power of Spain is waning and that of England is growing and France is being shattered by cruel religious wars. And a time when the first modern secret services emerged. This is what the book is essentially about: The struggle in the 16th century for religious tolerance and the defense against subversions in England.

Connected to this great historical theme are some storylines and motifs that depict the life and development of various low-ranking or higher-ranking people at that time. It is noteworthy that Follett attempted to “weave” some people from Kingsbridge into the great political events of the second half of the 16th century and to connect them with historical figures.

Kingsbridge people

  • Ned Willard, the impoverished son of a merchant from Kingsbridge, becomes a successful helper and defender of Elizabeth I , whose religious tolerance he shares. He worked with Sir William Cecil and later accompanied Ambassador Francis Walsingham .
  • Margery Fitzgerald, who is loved by Ned for life, is a devoted Catholic who secretly and for decades helped smuggle Catholic priests into England. But she followed the commandments as a young girl, followed her parents and married Bart Shiring, a future earl .
  • Rollo Fitzgerald, her brother and a fanatically loyal Catholic, has been a kind of secret agent for Catholicism for decades and works incognito as John Langlais. He is a major opponent of Ned.
  • Barney Willard, Ned's brother, first becomes a seafarer in the Spanish service who sails all the way to Hispaniola in the Caribbean . He later became the captain of English ships that took part in the battle against the Spanish Armada in 1588.
  • Swithin and Bart Shiring are the noble, but also brutal, lords of the county in which Kingsbridge is located. They show the typical behavior of the high nobility of the time , to whom everything has to be of service. Earl Swithin even tries to rape young Elizabeth before she becomes queen.
  • Bishop Julius, the bishop of Kingsbridge Cathedral , is a clergyman whose official authority is the decisive factor in Margery's obedience to parental requests for marriage, she marries Bart Shiring. The high clergyman is instrumental in torturing and burning the Kingsbridge shipowner Philbert Cobley as a heretic . This leader of the Puritans is burned in front of the cathedral for the pleasure of the spectators.

Criticism of person design and text length

Some criticisms criticize that Follett put too many historical events in the book:

Ned Willard comes from this Kingsbridge and returns to this Kingsbridge at the end. [...] The cardinal weakness of the book is that you still don't have a real picture of this man, whom you could follow through your entire life. The other characters also somehow remain paper. Ken Follett likes to say that when he writes he gets overwhelmed with tears - when that happens, he knows he is on the right track. After reading the 1162 pages, we honestly don't know of any place where we could imagine the author crying. Not even when Maria Stuart confronts her executioner. […] And Follett cannot find an end. He also has to accommodate Guy Fawkes, who - Elizabeth I had been dead three years - wanted to blow up James I and the English Parliament in 1603.

content

action

The book covers the life of Ned Willard, who came home in 1558 as a young man from a year-long stay in Calais , England , and at the age of 19 was thinking of marriage and family. With the death of Queen Mary Tudor the long reign of Elizabeth I begins, who serves Ned throughout history - including in her secret service. The novel ends in 1620. Events such as the reign and death of Elizabeth and the thwarting of the attack by Guy Fawkes on James I (England) on November 5, 1605, in which Ned also played a decisive role, are discussed. In 1620, great-grandfather Ned Willard is over 80 years old, is happy about his great-grandchildren and sees that his grandson Jack, a builder and puritan , wants to go to the New World on a ship called the Mayflower in order to live a freer life there undisturbed by English laws to be able to lead.

Table of contents

Part I (pp. 23–325), period: The year 1558

The eight chapters of the long Part I deal with the events that take place around the main characters in Kingsbridge, Paris, London and Hatfield; Seville in Spain is also a scene. The main storylines of the novel begin in this 300-page opening section. It is the fateful year for some of the main characters of the novel, in which the course is set for decades of developments:

  • Ned cannot marry Margery and his mother becomes impoverished. As a result, he entered the service of the young Queen Elizabeth and remained committed to her protection throughout his life.
  • Queen Mary Tudor dies, Elizabeth I ascends the throne. She wants to face the religious war with religious tolerance. Her 45-year reign begins, an English era.
  • The Catholic Maria Stuart marries the young French king and gets nothing in England. This leads to an intensified conflict with the English queen.
  • Margery has to marry the noble Bart Shiring. In spite of the secret continuing love for Ned, she is his opponent through the demands of Catholicism.
  • During his stay in Spain in Seville, Ned's brother Barney becomes a seafarer through unfortunate circumstances and remains connected to this profession all his life. 30 years later, in Part IV of the book, he will fight as a captain against the Spanish Armada.
  • Margery's fanatical brother Rollo becomes a lifelong actor against Elizabeth and a fighter for Catholicism in England through Elizabeth's accession to the throne.
  • Pierre Aumande began his lifelong career as political advisor to the House of Guise in Paris, and his unscrupulousness showed his first successes.
  • Sylvie Palot grows into the work of her Protestant father, a printer of forbidden books. Her character develops in such a way that later in her life she impresses Ned and becomes his wife.

In the first chapter, 19-year-old Ned Willard arrives in his hometown in the first days of 1558 - coming from Calais - and learns that Margery Fitzgerald, with whom he fell in love before his stay on the other side of the Canal, is going to marry Viscount Bart Shiring . The parents are ambitious and rely on a marital connection to the nobility, on an increase in the status of their offspring. This development continues in the third chapter, Margery obeys because the bishop reminds her of the fourth commandment.

In the second chapter - Paris scene - one meets Pierre Aumande and Sylvie Palot, who later become opponents in the French capital, where there are many Protestants who are later called Huguenots . A conflict is foreseeable, as Pierre seeks promotion to the house of the arch-Catholic aristocratic family Guise , while Sylvie, the daughter of a printer, secretly sells forbidden Protestant literature. But both are very likeable at first.

The fourth chapter is about Barney Willard, who lives in Seville , and his partners Carlos Cruz and Ebrima Dabo, who manufacture iron and arouse the hatred of their competitors through an invention. When they have to flee from the Inquisition, they only manage to find shelter on a Spanish warship quickly; therefore they must serve and learn the craft of war for several years. In this way, Barney becomes a passionate sailor and gunner. This way of life and the knowledge of soldiers determine his future life.

The fifth chapter shows how the impoverishment of the Willards from the ruthlessness of the Fitzgerald family develops and how the secret services of the Puritans who come together under the direction of the Cobley family are discovered. Rollo helps decisively and reveals for the first time his vengeful and evil character and his religious fanaticism.

The royal wedding couple of 1558:
Maria Stuart and Francis II.

The sixth chapter is in Paris about the wedding of Maria Stuart to the younger and feeble King Francois . The (now strange-looking) public consummation of the marriage is portrayed (not historical!) From the perspective of Mary friend and partner Alison McKay, who prepared with the help of Dowager Queen Catherine de Medici the pretense of a defloration in the event that the groom impotent is . Despite detailed observation, she (and thus the reader) does not know whether this was necessary or whether the marriage actually took place. - Sylvie has meanwhile fallen in love with the charming and good-looking Pierre and does not suspect his cunning and cunning. This Pierre only uses Sylvie to discover the secret meetings of the Huguenots.

In the seventh chapter, Ned's mother, and with it the hero of the novel, loses almost all of her fortune. A lawsuit is lost in favor of the Fitzgeralds because Bishop Sixtus intervenes decisively. And in the heretic trial against Philbert Cobley, too, the fanatical zeal of the bishop and the torture he allows are decisive for the outcome of the trial. The physically broken accused is sentenced to death by burning and tortured in public in front of the cathedral.

The exciting fateful year 1558 ends in chapter eight with the fact that Ned - full of disgust at this burning of heretics - travels to Hatfield to enter the service of the young Elizabeth, who is soon to rule. He gets to know Sir William Cecil better, who also takes him into service, saves Elisabeth from being raped by Earl Swithin and falls a little in love with the clever and flirtatious heir to the throne. When the terminally ill Maria dies, Elisabeth is proclaimed Queen in London and Ned is allowed to bring her the message to Hatfield.

Part II (pp. 327-576), period 1559-1563

The five chapters of the second part deal with the development of the religious civil war in France and Europe. Chapters nine to eleven take place in Paris and the surrounding area and show the unscrupulousness with which Pierre Aumande gradually gained the trust of the leading politicians of the House of Guise. He is also not afraid to use his bride Sylvie by preparing the wedding with her in order to expose the assembled "heretics" during the Protestant celebrations. However, he then has to marry a maid so that a child conceived by a young noble Guise can be adequately cared for.

In the twelfth chapter Barney comes as a gunner on board the ship "Hawk" to Hispaniola , where the Africans on board are sold as slaves on this Caribbean island . They are needed for the heavy work on the sugar cane plantations . There he falls in love with a pretty, self-confident rum distiller and fathered a son with her, but he did not find out about him until many years later because he had to leave the island without his lover. In the next chapter he will return to Kingsbridge like a prodigal son. But he's not as poor as this one in the Bible.

In the thirteenth chapter, the action continues in the English county of Shiring. Margery becomes a victim of her brutal father-in-law Swithin, who rapes her and with her fathered a child who is of course attributed to Bart. But Ned's secret activities lead Swithin to murder in the cathedral; and the desecration of relics is such a blasphemy that even a royal court can do nothing but order the count to be executed by the sword. The Queen also thinks of deterring fanatical Catholics and Ned encourages this thinking. Swithin is the first to be killed by Ned as "Her Majesty's Agent". At the same time, his death is of course the revenge on the rapist of Margery, for which he would continue to do anything.

III. Part (pp. 581–828), period 1566–1573

The eight chapters of this part lead to Bartholomew's Night in Paris. The decisive turning point in this period is 1570, when a papal bull excommunicated the English Queen Elizabeth and released her subjects from the oath of allegiance. Thus unrest and fighting between the religious parties in England and all of Europe are foreseeable. The fourteenth chapter ties in with the fate of Barney's companions: Carlos Cruz and Ebrima Dabo. They now live in Antwerp in the summer of 1566 , are both married and run the largest ironworks in the city. Since the governor of the Habsburg Netherlands tends to tolerate the Protestants, the Grand Inquisitor Pieter Titelmans takes all the more energetic action and has them tortured, mutilated and burned. In one episode, the author shows how even a 14-year-old girl is supposed to be burned at the stake as a heretical Protestant. This “act of faith” ( Autodafé ) fails due to the resistance of the audience . On the other hand, there is the counter-movement of the Calvinist iconoclasts who move to the cathedral of Antwerp in order to destroy the pictures and the precious furnishings in it. Carlos and Ebrima cannot prevent this from happening and a painting donated by Carlos goes up in flames.

The next chapter deals with the fate of Mary Queen of Scots and her companion and friend Alison McKay in 1568. Mary has gone through difficult times: two marriages, the murder of the first husband by the second and the defeat against angry Scottish nobles who she - without their young son James - imprisoned at Loch Leven Castle , a Scottish island castle. Elisabeth does not intervene in these Scottish disputes and does not come to the aid of her cousin Maria. The two prisoners manage to escape from the island in a spectacular way and to get to Carlisle in England, but Ned comes there on behalf of Elisabeth with the message that Maria is now a prisoner in England.

In the sixteenth chapter - in the spring of 1570 - the brothers Ned and Barney meet again in Kingsbridge, their mother's funeral being the sad occasion. After the funeral service, Ned meets Countess Margery and talks to her about her son Bartlet, who was fathered by Swithin. Ned mentions that he has now become master of Wigleigh and recalls that his father always said that they were descended from Merthin the bridge builder (see volume 2 of the Kingsbridge series The Gates of the World , in which Merthin is the main character! ) and are actually country nobles. He has to clarify a border issue with her husband, Earl Bart, because one of his farmers has cleared a piece of the Count's forest. In conversation with him, the uprising in the north of England is also remembered, an action to liberate Maria Stuart and to overthrow Elizabeth, who had been put down and killed 500 men as a punishment. Margery remembers her husband's many love affairs, who even brings a 15-year-old servant to his bed, and is happy to be able to represent her hungover husband in the Wigleigh affair. During this country trip, the love between Ned and Margery flares up again and they love each other more passionately in this month of May.

For Rollo, Margery's brother, the Pope's bull, published this spring, destroys his bourgeois existence. Queen Elizabeth is excommunicated by the Pope and all subjects are relieved of their oath of allegiance under threat of the same church punishment. When Rollo does not want to swear on the 39 articles of the Anglican Church in front of the city council, which for safety's sake is loyalty to the Queen, he is forced to close Kingsbridge leave and sell his house. In the summer he went to Douai in the Spanish Netherlands , where he entered the English college of William Allen and happened to meet Pierre Aumande, who gave the fanatical hater of Protestants the code name Jean Langlais. Under this name he will be Ned's opponent all his life and later, with the help of his sister Margery, secretly smuggle Catholic priests to England.

Ned and Margery worry about the future of their love affair. But a letter from Sir Cecil announced that he had to accompany the ambassador Sir Francis Walsingham to France and that the separation was imminent. When Ned is in France, it becomes clear a few weeks later that Margery is pregnant by him and will give birth to Ned's child in 1571.

The seventeenth chapter takes place in Paris in 1572, in which Ned, as the ambassador's deputy, is supposed to identify possible conspiracies against Elisabeth early on and, if possible, prevent them. You reside in the university district. When Ned wants to go to the Louvre for an event of the court society, he is stopped by Sylvie Palot, who wants to sell him paper and even a French Bible. The courage of this woman, with whom he soon falls in love, impressed him; she wants to bring the delivery in the afternoon. Pierre Aumande also leaves for the Louvre and is visited by Rollo alias Jean Langlais. During the conversation about the political situation it becomes clear that Rollo has known the deputy ambassador Ned Willard since he was a child and hates him. In little Alain, Pierre has a stepson from his forced wife Odette, whom he treats just as badly as his mother.

In the Louvre, Ned had his first success in collecting news; he met Jerónima Ruiz, whom Barney had known since his stay in Seville, and exploited her aversion to her role as the concubine of the Spanish cardinal Romero to make the first valuable contact. Another contact with the Comtesse de Banlieu and her daughter Aphrodite will prove useful later. He also learns from Louise de Nimes that Pierre is the illegitimate son of an illegitimate son of the Guise and that she hates herself. During this court society, King Charles announced that his sister MargotMargarete von Valois would be married to Heinrich von Bourbon on August 18th of that year, which immediately led to unrest and political speculation. In the afternoon at home, Ned receives the paper and a pragmatic Bible in French from Sylvie, and he also learns about Pierre's meeting with Langlais. During the conversation, Sylvie realizes that Ned has a picture of his former lover, but has not married since this unhappy love 14 years ago. That makes her so happy that her mother promises to be in love on the head.

The eighteenth chapter, which is only a few pages long, takes the reader to the Caribbean and describes the arrival of Barney with his own ship "Alice" on the island of Hispaniola and the search for Bella, his former lover. He realizes with horror that her rum distillery has been sold and looks for her in a small wooden house next to the mansion where she is supposed to live. He meets an aged, terminally ill woman, but who admits that she has always waited for his return. Only now does he find out the reason: He has an eight-year-old son named Bernardo Alfonso Willard, or Alfo for short. Barney's whole life is turned upside down as Bella is dying and he has to take care of his boy and be a father.

In the next chapter (number 19) there is an abrupt change in Ned and Pierre's life: Now they face each other as rivals for Sylvie and as opponents in the religious war. Ned and Sylvie fall in love, where Ned notices that he is being shadowed and spied on on behalf of Pierre. While checking the "new flame from Ned" Sylvie discovers Sylvie in her paper shop and tries to intimidate her. But he is insulted by her and Isabel and, with reference to the shameful secrets of his origin and his forced marriage, prompted to withdraw. - First of all, Pierre concentrates on turning the upcoming wedding celebrations (since he cannot prevent the marriage) into a bloodbath that is supposed to ignite in the heated atmosphere of Paris. An assassination attempt on Admiral Coligny , in which he was seriously injured, did not lead to the unrest Pierre had hoped for. Thanks to his informants, Ned can see through Pierre's plans more and more and tries to thwart them. When he gets the opportunity to steal Pierre's black list from his desk, he and Sylvie, who accompanies him, have to realize that they are too late: Pierre took the list with him, obviously to start the massacre. Ned and Sylvie can only warn as many Huguenots as possible and invite them to the English embassy before they fall victim to the massacre.

Contemporary representation of the massacre

The 20th chapter describes the night of Bartholomew , whose atrocities Ned and Sylvie directly witness. It begins with the intrigues that Pierre now uses to achieve the unrest he hoped for, including a. the guard set up by the king to protect Coligny must be withdrawn. Pierre decides to start the hoped-for unrest by ringing bells "warning" the Catholics of an alleged attack by the Huguenots, which happens after Coligny is murdered. When Sylvie hears the bell and realizes its meaning, she can only narrowly escape the command that massacres the household that she was about to warn next. Ned, who in the meantime has alerted the embassy and has then warned all of the addresses assigned to him, comes to Sylvie's mother, learns from her the book hiding place in which Sylvie may have taken refuge, and hurries there. On the way he saves the life of Aphrodite Banlieu, who is allegedly being raped as a Protestant, and brings her home. He uses a white armband like the marauding commandos, and can thus reach Sylvie's hiding place undisturbed. Meanwhile, Pierre takes revenge on individual Huguenots, especially Sylvie's family. Isabel has pistols and can shoot an attacker before she is killed; Ned and Sylvie arrive shortly afterwards and have to flee from Pierre's men. Ned is almost defeated in a sword fight when Sylvie saves his life, and both escape to the English embassy. - In a kind of "epilogue", Ned says that he married Sylvie and moved to England with her. The sale of the Bibles was entrusted to Sylvie's assistant Nath, Sylvie buys them as before in Geneva and brings them to Paris.

In the 21st chapter, Rollo is shown, the priest illegally smuggled into England. Margery supports this, but she does not know that Rollo is also using it in preparation for the repetition of the Bartholomew Night massacre in England. Then it is described how Sylvie and Ned visit Kingsbridge for the first time. Sylvie recognizes in Margery the person who loved Ned, she realizes that Roger is Ned's son. Out of sheer jealousy, she finally suggests Ned do something with him that he has never done with any woman before. In fact, Ned has a wish that he can only whisper to her, and so the reader does not find out which sexual practice they then "try".

IV. Part (pp. 833-1061), period 1583-1589

The six chapters in this part have the naval battle against the Spanish Armada in 1588 as their climax.

V. Part (pp. 1065-1146), period 1602-1606

The last three chapters deal with the death of Elizabeth, the attack on the successor James I by Guy Fawkes and the end of Rollos, which is hung in Kingsbridge.

Epilogue (pp. 1151–1156): period 1620

At the age of 80, grandfather Ned saw his grandson Jack, a builder, set off for America on the Mayflower.

Diverse tableau of people

There is an abundance of main and secondary characters in the novel who are at home all over Western Europe. In addition to the fictional people, who are mainly settled in Kingsbridge and County Shiring, there are a number of real historical figures in England alone.

There are many fictional characters at home in France, especially in Paris. And of course, in addition to fictional characters from the House of Guise, there are also real nobles of this house as well as many personalities from the Houses of Valois and Bourbon.

There are also real and fictional people from Scotland, Spain, the Netherlands and other parts of the world.

So the novel goes far beyond the first two Kingsbridge novels. The people from Kingsbridge are integrated into the European constellation of powers and their aristocratic rulers and families and play important main or secondary roles in world events during the Elizabethan Age.

main characters

Fictional main characters:

  • Ned Willard: (In the service of Sir William Cecil and Elizabeth I)
  • Barney Willard (Ned's brother, ship's captain)
  • Margery Fitzgerald (Faithful Catholic, Countess Shiring, loved by Ned)
  • Rollo Fitzgerald (Margery's brother, aka Jean Langlais, agent of the English Catholics)
  • Sylvie Palot (Protestant from Paris, bookseller, Ned's wife)
  • Pierre Aumande (member of the Catholic Guise party, unscrupulous schemer and climber)

Historical main characters:

Fictional and historical minor characters

Fictional minor characters in and around Kingsbridge:

  • Alice Willard, mother of Ned and Barney
  • Bart, Viscount Shiring, later Earl Margerys husband
  • Swithin, his father, Earl of Shiring
  • Sal Brendon, the Count's housekeeper
  • Sir Reginald Fitzgerald, father of Rollo and Margery
  • Lady Jane, their mother
  • Philbert Cobley, shipowner, Protestant
  • Dan Cobley, his son
  • Donal Gloster, clerk

Other fictional supporting characters in England:

  • Brother Murdo, traveling preacher
  • Susannah, Countess Brecknock, friend of Ned and Margery
  • Jonas Bacon, captain of the "Hawk"
  • Jonathan Greenland, First Officer of the "Hawk"
  • Stephen Lincoln, a clergyman
  • Rodney Tilbury, judge

Historical minor characters in England:

Minor characters in Europe:

  • Alison McKay, maid and girlfriend Maria Stuart
  • Isabelle Palot, mother of Sylvie
  • Giles Palot, her father
  • Nath, Pierre Aumande's maid
  • Louise, Marquise of Nimes
  • Aphrodite Beaulieu, daughter of Count Beaulieu
  • Carlos Cruz, Spain
  • Jerónima Ruiz, Spain
  • Archdeacon, later Cardinal Romero, Spain
  • Wolman family, Netherlands
  • Willemsen family, Netherlands

Minor characters from other parts of the world:

  • Ebrima Dabo, slave from Africa, later a citizen of Antwerp
  • Bella, rum distiller in Hispaniola

Historical minor characters in Europe:

It is neither possible nor sensible to list and briefly describe all the characters in the novel.

Meetings

  • dpa review of the Hamburger Abendblatt:

Statements of the author about his work:

“'Yes, there are a few echoes of the 16th century in our time,' says Follett in an interview with the dpa. Religious hostilities are also commonplace today and the Islamist terror worries him: 'Aren't we all dismayed when innocent people are killed for idiotic reasons?' This is one of the reasons why he values ​​the work of secret services that can save lives. But: 'All prime ministers and presidents and chancellors always thought they were in control of their service.' A difficult task. 'But in a democracy it is also such an important task to control these controllers.' "

Notes on the book:

“But the new book is a real Follett in one more respect: The historical novel has once again been meticulously researched (Follett has a whole team) and written down in detail. It's kind of a double educational novel; not only because the initially adolescent hero develops, but because the book does something for the education of the reader, explains to him the wars of religion and the battles for the throne, the rise and fall of great empires and the development of mankind at the beginning of modern times. "

  • The blog "Histojournal" states:

With his novel, Ken Follett offers the reader a very small window into a time that may be a few hundred years ago, but which is familiar to many through the dramas of Shakespeare. Many subjects - the New World, the slave trade - appear in Follett's novel, and the beginning arouses great expectations, but in the end nothing is really tangible. For a deeper penetration of this very complex topic, the novel is too frayed: into a tragic love story, an adventure story, a political thriller and a crime story. Interspersed with courtly intrigue and a pinch of eroticism. But despite all the criticism, Follett fans will also find a lot of time coloring about the Elizabethan age in this novel, which was one of the most multifaceted of the early modern times.

Board game

expenditure

  • Ken Follett: A Column of Fire . Penguin, London 2017, ISBN 978-1-4472-7873-3
  • Ken Follett: The Foundation of Eternity. Historical novel. (Translation by Dietmar Schmidt and Rainer Schumacher) - Bastei-Lübbe-Verlag, Cologne 2017, ISBN 978-3-7857-2600-6

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Review in the culture section of the Abendblatt , accessed on August 5, 2018.
  2. ↑ Review in the world, criticism of personal design, accessed on August 6, 2018
  3. ^ Review of the book in the Abendblatt , accessed on August 6, 2018.
  4. ↑ review of the book in Histojournal , accessed on August 6, 2018th