For the best part of two decades, European politics was dominated by Angela Merkel. As chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 2005 until 2021, she was admired by millions not just in her own country but around the globe. Freedom, her memoir, is an engrossing read. It reminds us of the rational, forensic, evidence-driven approach she brought to governing, and provokes a sense of nostalgia for all that she represented. If hers was a style of leadership already rare in the time she held office, it is even more so now. As autocrats and populists increasingly crowd the world stage, the loss of Merkel’s level-headedness seems even more acute.
The book is serious and sober, a substantive – if at times a little too densely detailed – account of her time in office and the state of the world. For all that she became such a constant figure in the international arena, Merkel was also something of an enigma. In Freedom, the reserved, slightly introverted personality we are familiar with is there, but she lets us see behind it.
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