Winder has a pithiness about him that condenses decades of internecine squabbling and violence into a snappy summary of the consequences.

‘All the labyrinthine details of the fighting hold their distressing interest because of this futility: nobody gets what they want and everybody dies.’

See the quote-mosaic review of this wonderful, lively, engaging book.  

Source: Simon Winder, Germania (London, Picador, 2011), p. 168