Merkel's Law Wisdom from the Woman Who Led the Free World

For readers of Notorious RBG and The World According to Star Wars, a fun and inspiring biography filled with lessons from the most powerful woman in the world, based on New York Times Berlin correspondent Melissa Eddy’s more than a decade’s worth of coverage of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the modern nation she helped shape.

Angela Merkel is a boss. A trailblazer. An icon of colorful suits. Formerly the new leader of the free world. With an entire hand gesture named after her (the “Merkel Diamond”), and celebrated in a viral meme for sparring with Trump, Angela Merkel spent a decade economically and politically revitalizing her country. The first woman chancellor of Germany and one of the longest-serving European leaders ever, Merkel’s quiet resolve, calculated confidence, and extreme privacy around her personal life have made her a feminist role model for the ages. Merkel’s Law is a revelatory look at an unlikely vanguard, and at the country she led for sixteen years.

No one is better positioned than New York Times Berlin correspondent Melissa Eddy to pull back the curtain on the woman who engineered Germany’s rise to wealth, power, and an economy worth 3.8 trillion in USD. Drawing upon an unparalleled well of sources close to Merkel, Merkel’s Law traces her childhood in East Germany as the daughter of a clergyman, her meteoric rise to power, and her more recent public acclaim—as well as the numerous setbacks she faced along the way both from political rivals and from men in her own party who scoffed at her ambition. Told in short chapters framed by the laws of Merkel’s leadership, like “Know Where You Come From” and “Nothing Remains the Same, Embrace Change,” it is a clever and insightful tour of the wisdom of Merkel. Painting a portrait of a political genius, savvy businesswoman, and model for modern power, Merkel’s Law is not only the story of her life, but the lessons we can learn from it.

Melissa Eddy is a journalist based in Berlin who covers German politics, social issues, and culture for The New York Times. She has covered Chancellor Angela Merkel since she entered office in 2005. A Minnesota native fluent in German and French, she came to Germany as a Fulbright scholar in 1996. Before joining the International Herald Tribune, now the international edition of The New York Times, in 2015, she was a correspondent for the Associated Press in Frankfurt, Vienna, and the Balkans. Merkel’s Law is her first book.