 | The Rhine by Roland Recht
Buy new: $47.25 / Used from: $45.98 A book tracing the river from its source to the sea ... Judging by the reviews, a pretty thorough overview.
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 | Cycling the Rhine Route: Bicycle Touring Along the Historic Rhine River by John Powell
Buy new: $16.20 / Used from: $12.08 Probably the most popular way to travel along the Rhine - at least if you're up to it!
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 | The Bonn Republic: West German Democracy 1945-1990 by A.J. Nicholls
Buy new: $190.00 / Used from: $250.32 For 40 years, Bonn was Germany's political center ... well, officially anyway. (I guess Frankfurt, Munich and a couple of other cities would take issue with that statement.)
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 | Konrad Adenauer: The Father of the New Germany by Charles Williams
Buy new: $37.55 / Used from: $12.99 Longtime mayor of Cologne, he brought the seat of government to his home town, Cologne's smaller neighbor, and proceeded to shape post-WWII Germany like few others did.
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 | The Bridge at Remagen
Buy new: $11.99 / Used from: $3.34 The Rhine is Germany's western border (not only geographically), and crossing it always had a symbolic meaning. This was one particularly hard-fought battle, just south of Bonn.
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 | Rhineland Radicals: The Democratic Movement and the Revolution of 1848-1849 by Jonathan Sperber
Buy new: $64.00 / Used from: $9.95 Germany's first major democratic movement was fueled by many politicians, intellectuals and activists from the Rhineland.
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 | A Good German Conscience by James Dow
Buy new: $44.50 Probably the most famous teacher ever of my alma mater, Bonn University, and one of the leaders of the 1848-49 movement: Ernst Moritz Arndt.
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 | The Communist Manifesto: A Modern Edition by Karl Marx
Buy new: $10.88 / Used from: $2.63 Well ... yes, they were both from the Rhineland, too - Marx from Trier, Engels from Barmen.
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 | Beethoven - Die Symphonien (Symphonies 1-9) / Abbado, Berlin Philharmonic by Ludwig van Beethoven
Buy new: $81.99 / Used from: $39.50 Bonn's most famous son, and THE quintessential German composer.
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 | Schumann: The 4 Symphonies
Buy new: $13.99 / Used from: $8.30 German romanticism at its musical peak, albeit fueled by depression. Not from there, he loved the Rhineland & named his 3rd syphony "Rhenish" in honor of the region where he lived until his death.
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 | Clara Schumann: Complete Piano Works
Buy new: $26.99 / Used from: $16.49 A stellar pianist and the 19th century's premier female musician, some say Schumann's wife Clara (nee Wieck) actually had even more talent than he did.
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 | August Macke, 1887-1914 (Taschen Basic Art) by Anna Meseure
Buy new: $9.99 / Used from: $1.35 Bonn was also home to one of the premier painters of the early 20th century ...
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 | The Stories of Heinrich Boll (European Classics) by Heinrich Boll
Buy new: $20.48 / Used from: $8.30 ... and Heinrich Boell, winner of the 1972 Nobel Prize for Literature and one of Germany's leading post-WWII writers, lived in Cologne all his life.
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 | Cologne Cathedral by Arnold Wolff
Buy used from: $45.12 A triumph of medieval architecture, and the symbol of the city of Cologne (and its powerful archdiocese) ever since its construction.
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 | Vun Drinne Noh Drusse by Bap
Buy used from: $40.34 They turned the German rock music scene upside down with their Springsteen- and Stones-tinged tunes and lyrics sung in the Cologne dialect, and made everybody in Germany want to learn "Koelsch"!
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 | Kolsch: History, Brewing Techniques, Recipes (Classic Beer Style Series) by Eric Warner
Buy new: $10.17 / Used from: $10.29 It's not only the name of the local dialect but also that of the local beer ... goes to show that not all German beer is from Bavaria.
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 | The Gutenberg Bible: Landmark in Learning by James Thorpe
Buy new: $10.16 / Used from: $2.38 The first book printed on the machine which would revolutionize the world, out of a modest printing business in early 16th century Mainz.
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 | Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World
Buy new: $26.95 / Used from: $4.94 Living the modest life of a nun, she was far and away the most important woman of her time, and the only woman permitted by the pope to write on religious subjects.
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 | Hildegard von Bingen: Canticles of Ecstasy
Buy new: $8.99 / Used from: $3.88 Even her music has recently been rediscovered.
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 | The Roman Empire and Its Germanic Peoples by Herwig Wolfram
Buy new: $52.00 / Used from: $3.17 Like in every region they occupied, the Romans left numerous traces in the Rhineland. (Check out the Roman museum in Cologne!) But ultimately, the "Barbarians" prevailed ...
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 | Rhine Castles : from Mainz to Koblenz (CD-Rom) by Heinz Beyer
OK, OK ... I guess you can't entirely leave out castles from a list about the Rhine Valley (and of course they are well worth mentioning, too).
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 | Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine by Lewis Spence
Buy used from: $1.94 Loreley, Mouse Tower and all the rest... first told here in 1915 and maybe not exactly in the Rhinelanders' jovial tone, but this seems to be the only English edition; at least, in Amazon's catalogue.
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 | Encyclopedia of Easter, Carnival, and Lent (Celebrations Library) by Tanya Gulevich
Buy new: $65.00 / Used from: $8.40 Carnival has been a Rhineland tradition since time immemorial. Different from the Brazilian version and Mardi Gras, it is no less wild and colorful.
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 | Touring In Wine Country: Mosel & Rheing by Stuart Pigott
Buy used from: $16.45 Oh yeah, and about that wine after all ...
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 | All Along the Rhine: Recipes, Wines and Lore from Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, Liechtenstein and Holland by Kay Shaw Nelson
Buy new: $14.95 / Used from: $6.25 ... with recipes for food to go with it, and some cultural background, too.
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