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The Seduction of Culture in German History / Wolf Lepenies.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2009]Copyright date: ©2006Edition: Course BookDescription: 1 online resourceContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780691121314
  • 9781400827039
Subject(s): Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Available additional physical forms:
  • Issued also in print.
Contents:
Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- INTRODUCTION. Bombs over Dresden and the Rosenkavalier in the Skies -- 1. Culture: A Noble Substitute -- 2. From the Republic into Exile -- 3. Novalis and Walt Whitman: German Romanticism and American Democracy -- 4. German Culture Abroad: Victorious in Defeat -- 5. French-German Culture Wars -- 6. German Culture at Home: A Moral Failure Turned to Intellectual Advantage -- 7. The Survival of the Typical German: Faust versus Mephistopheles -- 8. German Reunification: The Failure of the Interpreting Class -- 9. Culture as Camouflage: The End of Central Europe -- 10. Irony and Politics: Cultural Patriotism in Europe and the United States -- 11. Germany after Reunification: In Search of a Moral Masterpiece -- NOTES -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- INDEX
Summary: During the Allied bombing of Germany, Hitler was more distressed by the loss of cultural treasures than by the leveling of homes. Remarkably, his propagandists broadcast this fact, convinced that it would reveal not his callousness but his sensitivity: the destruction had failed to crush his artist's spirit. It is impossible to begin to make sense of this thinking without understanding what Wolf Lepenies calls The Seduction of Culture in German History. This fascinating and unusual book tells the story of an arguably catastrophic German habit--that of valuing cultural achievement above all else and envisioning it as a noble substitute for politics. Lepenies examines how this tendency has affected German history from the late eighteenth century to today. He argues that the German preference for art over politics is essential to understanding the peculiar nature of Nazism, including its aesthetic appeal to many Germans (and others) and the fact that Hitler and many in his circle were failed artists and intellectuals who seem to have practiced their politics as a substitute form of art. In a series of historical, intellectual, literary, and artistic vignettes told in an essayistic style full of compelling aphorisms, this wide-ranging book pays special attention to Goethe and Thomas Mann, and also contains brilliant discussions of such diverse figures as Novalis, Walt Whitman, Leo Strauss, and Allan Bloom. The Seduction of Culture in German History is concerned not only with Germany, but with how the German obsession with culture, sense of cultural superiority, and scorn of politics have affected its relations with other countries, France and the United States in particular.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9781400827039

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- INTRODUCTION. Bombs over Dresden and the Rosenkavalier in the Skies -- 1. Culture: A Noble Substitute -- 2. From the Republic into Exile -- 3. Novalis and Walt Whitman: German Romanticism and American Democracy -- 4. German Culture Abroad: Victorious in Defeat -- 5. French-German Culture Wars -- 6. German Culture at Home: A Moral Failure Turned to Intellectual Advantage -- 7. The Survival of the Typical German: Faust versus Mephistopheles -- 8. German Reunification: The Failure of the Interpreting Class -- 9. Culture as Camouflage: The End of Central Europe -- 10. Irony and Politics: Cultural Patriotism in Europe and the United States -- 11. Germany after Reunification: In Search of a Moral Masterpiece -- NOTES -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- INDEX

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

During the Allied bombing of Germany, Hitler was more distressed by the loss of cultural treasures than by the leveling of homes. Remarkably, his propagandists broadcast this fact, convinced that it would reveal not his callousness but his sensitivity: the destruction had failed to crush his artist's spirit. It is impossible to begin to make sense of this thinking without understanding what Wolf Lepenies calls The Seduction of Culture in German History. This fascinating and unusual book tells the story of an arguably catastrophic German habit--that of valuing cultural achievement above all else and envisioning it as a noble substitute for politics. Lepenies examines how this tendency has affected German history from the late eighteenth century to today. He argues that the German preference for art over politics is essential to understanding the peculiar nature of Nazism, including its aesthetic appeal to many Germans (and others) and the fact that Hitler and many in his circle were failed artists and intellectuals who seem to have practiced their politics as a substitute form of art. In a series of historical, intellectual, literary, and artistic vignettes told in an essayistic style full of compelling aphorisms, this wide-ranging book pays special attention to Goethe and Thomas Mann, and also contains brilliant discussions of such diverse figures as Novalis, Walt Whitman, Leo Strauss, and Allan Bloom. The Seduction of Culture in German History is concerned not only with Germany, but with how the German obsession with culture, sense of cultural superiority, and scorn of politics have affected its relations with other countries, France and the United States in particular.

Issued also in print.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 08. Jul 2019)