cover image Angela Merkel: Europe’s Most Influential Leader

Angela Merkel: Europe’s Most Influential Leader

Matthew Qvortrup. Overlook/Mayer, $37.95 (384p) ISBN 978-1-4683-1316-1

Bloomberg Businessweek reporter Qvortrup presents a well-researched but unsatisfying biography of Germany’s chancellor. He follows Merkel’s path: a Lutheran girlhood in East Berlin, her first marriage, her years as a scientist, her entry into politics during German reunification, and her rise to the chancellorship, which he follows right up to the 2015 Syrian refugee crisis. The book reads more as a history than a biography; the early chapters are heavy on historical context and light on personal detail and later chapters explore political negotiations and decision-making, with very few explorations of Merkel’s non-work life or of her psychology and motivations. Qvortrup’s writing comes alive when recounting political machinations (such as those behind Merkel’s 2005 electoral win), but the overall narrative and prose are workmanlike at best and clunky at some points. (On the building of the Berlin Wall: “The Cold War had entered a new phase and life would never be the same again. Not until 1989, at any rate.”) The reader leaves the book with plenty of facts about Merkel’s life and possessing a better understanding of recent German politics, but knowing little more of Merkel’s worldview, motivations, and personality. (July)