For English-speakers unfamiliar with famous Germans, I mildly recommend The German Genius. This book was written in 2010. It covers the last 200-300 years of fa

For English-speakers unfamiliar with famous Germans, I mildly recommend The German Genius. This book was written in 2010. It covers the last 200-300 years of famous Germans and their contributions to science, the arts and politics. While it's an awesome book and a really good introduction to Germany, I can only "mildly" recommend it because it's 800 pages of short biographies. It took me 6 months to finish. It's a bit of a slog.