Germania and Agricola

Described by two prominent twentieth century leftist academics as one of the 'most dangerous books ever written,' Roman historian Tacitus's 98 AD work Germania is credited with almost single-handedly creating modern German nationalism after the manuscript's rediscovery in 1462. Originally titled 'On the Origin and Situation of the Germanic Peoples' (De Origine et situ Germanorum), it provides a vivid survey of the physical, cultural, and behavioral characteristics of the German people in what the Romans called Germania Magna-'Greater Germany'-that area east of the Rhine River. Germania begins with a description of the lands, laws, and customs of the Germanic people, and then moves on to detailed descriptions of the individual tribes all the way up to the Baltic Sea. This includes Tacitus's famous description of the Germans as a 'pure and unmixed race' with Nordic racial characteristics. It then describes the Germanic systems of government, religion, the egalitarian status of women in