
The German Genius
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Yet how did the Germans achieve their pre-eminence beginning in the mid-18th century? In this fascinating cultural history, Peter Watson goes back through time to explore the origins of the German genius, how it flourished and shaped our lives, and, most importantly, to reveal how it continues to shape our world. As he convincingly demonstarates, while we may hold other European cultures in higher esteem, it was German thinking-from Bach to Nietzsche to Freud-that actually shaped modern America and Britain in ways that resonate today.
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Content
- Intro
- Half-title page
- Also By Peter Watson
- Title page
- Copyright page
- Contents page
- Author's Note
- Introduction: Blinded by the Light: Hitler, the Holocaust, and 'the Past That Will Not Pass Away'
- PART ONE THE GREAT TURN IN GERMAN LIFE
- 1. Germanness Emerging
- 2. Bildung and the Inborn Drive toward Perfection
- PART TWO A THIRD RENAISSANCE, BETWEEN DOUBT AND DARWIN
- 3. Winckelmann, Wolf, and Lessing: the Third Greek Revival and the Origins of Modern Scholarship
- 4. The Supreme Products of the Age of Paper
- 5. New Light on the Structure of the Mind
- 6. The High Renaissance in Music: The Symphony as Philosophy
- 7. Cosmos, Cuneiform, Clausewitz
- 8. The Mother Tongue, the Inner Voice, and the Romantic Song
- 9. The Brandenburg Gate, the Iron Cross, and the German Raphaels
- PART THREE THE RISE OF THE EDUCATED MIDDLE CLASS: THE ENGINES AND ENGINEERS OF MODERN PROSPERITY
- 10. Humboldt's Gift: The Invention of Research and the Prussian (Protestant) Concept of Learning
- 11. The Evolution of Alienation
- 12. German Historicism: 'A Unique Event in the History of Ideas'
- 13. The Heroic Age of Biology
- 14. Out from 'The Wretchedness of German Backwardness'
- 15. 'German Fever' in France, Britain, and the United States
- 16. Wagner's Other Ring--Feuerbach, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche
- 17. Physics Becomes King: Helmholtz, Clausius, Boltzmann, Riemann
- 18. The Rise of the Laboratory: Siemens, Hofmann, Bayer, Zeiss
- 19. Masters of Metal: Krupp, Benz, Diesel, Rathenau
- 20. The Dynamics of Disease: Virchow, Koch, Mendel, Freud
- PART FOUR THE MISERIES AND MIRACLES OF MODERNITY
- 21. The Abuses of History
- 22. The Pathologies of Nationalism
- 23. Money, the Masses, the Metropolis: The 'First Coherent School of Sociology'
- 24. Dissonance and the Most-Discussed Man in Music
- 25. The Discovery of Radio, Relativity, and the Quantum
- 26. Sensibility and Sensuality in Vienna
- 27. Munich/Schwabing: Germany's 'Montmartre'
- 28. Berlin Busybody
- 29. The Great War between Heroes and Traders
- 30. Prayers for a Fatherless Child: The Culture of the Defeated
- 31. Weimar: 'Unprecedented Mental Alertness'
- 32. Weimar: The Golden Age of Twentieth-Century Physics, Philosophy, and History
- 33. Weimar: 'A Problem in Need of a Solution'
- PART FIVE SONGS OF THE REICH: HITLER AND THE 'SPIRITUALIZATION OF THE STRUGGLE'
- 34. Nazi Aesthetics: The 'Brown Shift'
- 35. Scholarship in the Third Reich: 'No Such Thing as Objectivity'
- 36. The Twilight of the Theologians
- 37. The Fruits, Failures, and Infamy of German Wartime Science
- 38. Exile, and the Road into the Open
- PART SIX BEYOND HITLER: CONTINUITY OF THE GERMAN TRADITION UNDER ADVERSE CONDITIONS
- 39. The 'Fourth Reich': The Effect of German Thought on America
- 40. 'His Majesty's Most Loyal Enemy Aliens'
- 41. 'Divided Heaven': From Heidegger to Habermas to Ratzinger
- 42. Cafe Deutschland: 'A Germany Not Seen Before'
- Conclusion: German Genius: The Dazzle, Deification, and Dangers of Inwardness
- Appendix: Thirty-five Underrated Germans
- Notes and References
- Index
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