Dying with an Enlightening Fall: Poland in the Eyes of German Intellectuals, 1764-1800 - Hardcover

Pickus, David

9780739101537: Dying with an Enlightening Fall: Poland in the Eyes of German Intellectuals, 1764-1800

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0739101536 ISBN 13: 9780739101537

Publisher: Lexington Books, 2001

Dying with an Enlightening Fall is a study of a critical but under-examined moment in German intellectual history. David Pickus encourages readers to discover the connections between the tumultuous events in Poland at the end of the eighteenth century and the critical self-perception of Germany's first generation of truly modern writers. At the same time that the Polish Republic of Nobles was annexed by its neighbors, the German Enlightenment reached its apex. Pickus claims that Poland's manifest failure to adapt to Europe's changing conditions, and its subsequent fall, made Poland a lesson in failure in the eyes of German thinkers. Poland allowed German intellectuals to formulate modern sensibilities; it became a necessary foil, defining what the modern age should be by what it was not.

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About the Author:

David Pickusis a Fellow in the Barrett Honors College at Arizona State University.

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