Böcker av Todd (University of California Kontje

Global Germany Circa 1800 asks two interrelated questions: How did Germans participate in the European conquest of the world, and how were they different from other imperial powers? In other words, what is the relation between the German form of empire, the old Reich, and the modern European empires that emerged in the global age?In this book, Todd Kontje presents a revisionist literary and intellectual history, inviting readers to consider how we might understand "Germany" at the turn of the nineteenth century if we remove the nation-state as the inevitable goal of cultural and political development. Focusing on the pivotal era around 1800, when many of the concepts that define the modern era first came into being, Kontje investigates how thinkers in and around Weimar-from Goethe, Schiller, and Kant to Georg Forster, Heinrich von Kleist, and Alexander von Humboldt-worked within existing political structures to make sense of the region's place in the world. Ultimately, he reveals how Weimar, a remote artist hub long thought to exemplify the insularity of a soon-to-be-unified nation, was in fact utterly worldly, and in a manner very different from the political capitals of imperial nation-states like London and Paris. Accessible and entertaining, this literary history is essential reading for German studies students and scholars, and it will appeal to audiences in world history, empire studies, intellectual history, and comparative literature.

Examines the life and work of writer and political activist Georg Forster (1754-1794), a participant in Captain Cook's second voyage and one of the leading figures in the Mainz Republic.

This volume provides a succinct introduction to the life and works of Thomas Mann. The primary focus is on his literary texts, but it also touches on his evolution as one of the most controversial public intellectuals of the twentieth century.

This 1998 book is a survey in English of novels by German women from 1771 to 1871. It discusses the lives and works of fourteen women writers, and argues that their novels played an important role in shaping attitudes toward class, gender and the nation in the century before Germany's first unification.