For people of a certain age 1968 was a year of political awakening: we realised we could do something about wars, we could defy unjust governments. Especially students were at the forefront of all of that. This novel, set in the Germany of that period, tells of the awakening of a conservative but decent young Englishman, but it is also a broad portrait of life in that country: there was a lot of unfinished business from the time of the Nazis.