Bavaria – A Different Kind of History
Bavaria is not – Bavaria is made. This was true in the kingdom after 1806, under the Nazi dictatorship, and even in modern Bavaria with its hegemonic party and its sometimes monarch-like figures. Depending on utilitarian thinking or invoked traditions, as well as ideological, political, or tourist concepts, certain images of Bavaria have been and continue to be created to this day. Historian Bernhard Löffler delves into the construction of various spatial concepts and images of Bavaria in his fascinating book, offering new and unusual perspectives on the land of the Bavarians.

Indeed, Bavaria has mountains, meadows, forests, and lakes, castles, monasteries, and chapels, but this overwhelmingly dominant image is very selective. Often, spaces and landscapes serve more as projection surfaces for painters and writers, historians, ethnologists, and conservationists, as well as tourists and enthusiasts of hiking and forestry clubs. They are also instrumentalized by ideologists, politicians, and marketing experts, measured, organized, and put to use by bureaucrats, cartographers, and traffic planners. In this refreshing presentation, Bernhard Löffler illuminates the backgrounds of "state Bavarian" history, narrating landscapes, regions, the Bavarian stubbornness in the world – how they came to be, who shaped them, and how they influenced others.

"The injustice of the world begins with the distribution of mountains."

• A new perspective on Bavaria beyond clichés
• Regions, identities, and the history of the Bavarians
• Nature, landscape, and environment in the image of modern Bavaria
• Oberammergau and Obersalzberg, East Mark and Main Franconia – historical regions and strange places.