The Seduction of Culture in German History
by: Lepenies, Wolf

Hardcover. Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1st, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a unclipped dust jacket with fading to spine, 260 pages. 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. Clean copy.