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.
Awards and Recognition
- Wolf Lepenies, Winner of the 2006 Peace Prize, German Booksellers' Association
"Lepenies's reflections on French-German and American-German culture wars suggest that cultural interpretation is as much a part of the social world as any social or political fact. . . . [H]is history of an idea . . . contains important political lessons for both Europe and the United States. The substitution of culture for politics is a dangerous road to travel."—Andreas Huyssen, The Nation
"At times German cultural pride has become so obsessive that it's distorted the development of society. In an audacious new book, The Seduction of Culture in German History, . . . Wolf Lepenies blames the catastrophes of 20th-century German politics on a tendency to overrate culture at the expense of politics."—Robert Fulford, National Post
"The Seduction of Culture in German History, by Wolf Lepenies, offers fresh insights into the causes of the Nazi lunacy. Erudite and richly detailed, it traces the pathology of nationalist and cultural fixations, with implications for our own nervous and jingoistic age."—Peter Rose, The Australian
"A highly thought-provoking . . . series of 'history of ideas' vignettes. Lepenies traces the evolution of the Kulturnation, a nation united by culture rather than by political institutions, from the 18th century, when it emerged in the absence of a central German reunification in 1990. . . . Lepenies concludes with a cautiously optimistic view of Germans' reconciliation of culture and politics. . . . Highly recommended."—Choice
"[Lepenies] gives a thorough treatment of the culture wars between France and Germany, émile Durkheim and Max Weber, the role culture played behind the Iron Curtain, and how the intellectuals triumphed over the communists throughout much of Eastern Europe but not in the German Democratic Republic . . .. Lepenies excels . . . in his examination of German society and its embrace of culture while shunning politics."—Victorino Matus, First Things
"A highly thought-provoking, if not contentious, series of 'history of ideas' vignettes. Lepenies traces the evolution of the Kulturnation, a nation united by culture rather than by political institutions, from the 18th century, when it emerged in the absence of a central German state, until German reunification in 1990. . . . Lepenies concludes with a cautiously optimistic view of Germans' reconciliation of culture and politics. . . . Highly recommended."—Choice
"Wolf Lepenies, one of Germany's foremost public intellectuals, has written a fascinating and chilling essay on the seemingly unshakable German attitude of valuing culture over politics. . . . [T]he role or cultural trends as powerful agents still needs to be seriously addressed. Lepenies's book does just this."—Anna B. Manchin, H-Net Review
"[T]he eleven chapters/essays read most like a sophisticated and stimulating after-dinner conversation with much wit and many a dazzling insight and bon mot."—Diethelm Prowe, Historian
"It is . . . one of Lepenies' achievements to be able to combine irony and engagement. . . . [T]here is a refreshing combination of restrained detachment with an unambiguous commitment to the ideal of a free society."—Beatrice Puja, European Legacy
"Wolf Lepenies has written a penetrating account of the role of Germany's self-image as the home of Kultur in that country's intellectual and political history. His range of reference is amazingly wide, and his writing is a delight. The Seduction of Culture in German History combines striking anecdotes, historical sweep, and incisive critical analysis."—Richard Rorty, Stanford University
"For anyone who has been astonished by the German obsession with high culture—even in economic hard times, Berlin has three opera houses—Wolf Lepenies's deeply intelligent book is indispensable reading. But The Seduction of Culture in German History is more than the history of a national obsession. It is a searching analysis of the ways in which culture can serve as a sinister substitute for ethical engagement in democratic politics. With his brilliant forays into the cultural history of America and France and his dazzling sweep from Bismarck to the present, Lepenies has written a book whose passionate commitment to participatory democracy is rendered the nobler by his sophisticated irony and urbanity."—Stephen Greenblatt, Harvard University, author of Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare
"The Seduction of Culture in German History is a powerful and sustained meditation on the dilemmas of Germany's legendary infatuation with Kultur. These themes have never been brought together so impressively and convincingly. This marvelous tour d'horizon of twentieth-century German intellectual life provocatively suggests that the central interpretive questions about the German past remain unsettled. Lepenies's prose is lively, witty, and engaging. Every paragraph is packed with dazzling insight. The writing is lapidary, the conclusions magisterial."—Richard Wolin, CUNY Graduate Center
"Wolf Lepenies has written a wonderfully erudite and thought-provoking book on that grand theme of German history since the eighteenth century: the immense value placed upon Kultur and the disparagement of politics. Lepenies accomplishes his task by taking the reader on a wide-ranging tour through the thought and biographies of many of the key figures of German, French, and American intellectual life. The problem he examines is a critical one for understanding Germany and the connections between it and the United States. The book is an intellectual tour de force written in a fluent and highly engaging style."—Eric D. Weitz, University of Minnesota
