The German Genius: Europe's Third Renaissance, the Second Scientific Revolution and the Twentieth Century
Peter Watson
Mar 2022 · Simon and Schuster · Narrated by Richard Attlee
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36 hr 36 min
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‘A breath-taking panorama’ Sunday Times
‘A compelling, epic tale’ Financial Times
Peter Watson's magisterial sweep through modern German thought and culture confounds stereotypes that the world has of Germany, and Germany has of itself.
From the end of the Baroque age and the death of Bach to the rise of Hitler in 1933, Germany was transformed from a poor relation among Western nations into a dominant intellectual and cultural force in the Western world. In the early decades of the 20th century German artists, writers, philosophers, scholars, scientists and engineers were leading their country to new heights, and by 1933 Germany had won more Nobel prizes than any other nation, including Britain and America put together.
How did the Germans transform their country so as to achieve such pre-eminence? In this absorbing cultural and intellectual history, Peter Watson explores the origins of the German genius, and convincingly demonstrates that it was German thinking – from Beethoven and Kant to Diesel and Nietzsche, from Goethe and Wagner to Mendel and Planck, from Hegel and Marx to Freud and Schonberg – that has done more than anything else to create the modern West.
‘A compelling, epic tale’ Financial Times
Peter Watson's magisterial sweep through modern German thought and culture confounds stereotypes that the world has of Germany, and Germany has of itself.
From the end of the Baroque age and the death of Bach to the rise of Hitler in 1933, Germany was transformed from a poor relation among Western nations into a dominant intellectual and cultural force in the Western world. In the early decades of the 20th century German artists, writers, philosophers, scholars, scientists and engineers were leading their country to new heights, and by 1933 Germany had won more Nobel prizes than any other nation, including Britain and America put together.
How did the Germans transform their country so as to achieve such pre-eminence? In this absorbing cultural and intellectual history, Peter Watson explores the origins of the German genius, and convincingly demonstrates that it was German thinking – from Beethoven and Kant to Diesel and Nietzsche, from Goethe and Wagner to Mendel and Planck, from Hegel and Marx to Freud and Schonberg – that has done more than anything else to create the modern West.
‘A breath-taking panorama’ Sunday Times
‘A compelling, epic tale’ Financial Times
Peter Watson's magisterial sweep through modern German thought and culture confounds stereotypes that the world has of Germany, and Germany has of itself.
From the end of the Baroque age and the death of Bach t...
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About the author
Peter Watson is a journalist, television presenter and historian of ideas. He was a senior editor of the Sunday Times, New York correspondent of The Times and a columnist for the Observer. He has written for multiple publications, including the New York Times and Spectator. His books, which have been translated into more than 25 languages, include Ideas: A History from Fire to Freud, The German Genius, The French Mind and Convergence: The Idea at the Heart of Science.
Peter Watson is a journalist, television presenter and historian of ideas. He was a senior editor of the Sunday Times, New York correspondent of The Times and a columnist for the Observer. He has written for multiple publications, including the New York Times and Spectator. His books, which have ...
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