This book is a proof of the persistence of scientific catchwords which continue to be used from sheer ignorance or mental indolence, although they have been exposed by research. For how long, for instance, have philologists and archaeologists been writing about Westgermanen and Ostgermanen, though people thus named never existed ? And how often do abstract terms or conceptions such as ‘people’, ‘tribe’, ‘linguistic group’ become confused with each other or projected back into periods where they do not belong ? Maurer's merit is to have clarified these problems of Germanic philology. He tells us the history of the subject as well as the relevant facts, and above all the interaction between linguistics and archaeology. His book is less a description of the interrelations between Nordgermanen and Alemanni than a history of the Germanic groups and tribes at the time of Tacitus.