Lionel Gossman's Books

Basel in the Age of Burckhardt

A Study in Unseasonable Ideas

By: Lionel Gossman

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Basel in the Age of Burckhardt

A Study in Unseasonable Ideas

By: Lionel Gossman

This remarkable history tells the story of the independent city-republic of Basel in the nineteenth century, and of four major thinkers who shaped its intellectual history: the historian Jacob Burckhardt, the philologist and anthropologist Johann Jacob Bachofen, the theologian Franz Overbeck, and the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. "Remarkable and exceptionally readable . . . There is wit, wisdom and an immense erudition on every page."—Jonathan Steinberg, Times Literary Supplement "Gossman's book, a product of many years of active contemplation, is a tour de force. It is at once an intellectual history, a cultural history of Basel and Europe, and an important contribution to the study of nineteenth-century historiography. Written with a grace and elegance that many aspire to, few seldom achieve, this is model scholarship."—John R. Hinde, American Historical Review

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630

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226305007

ISBN 13

9780226305004

Medievalism and the Ideologies of the Enlightenment

The World and Work of La Curne de Sainte-Palaye

By: Lionel Gossman

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Medievalism and the Ideologies of the Enlightenment

The World and Work of La Curne de Sainte-Palaye

By: Lionel Gossman

Originally published in 1968. The contribution of eighteenth-century Englishmen to the study of medieval life and literature is fairly well known, but it is commonly assumed that in France, the center of Enlightenment, no one—with the exception of a few obscure antiquarians—was seriously interested in the Middle Ages. Gossman argues that the Enlightenment gave great impetus to medieval studies in France and altered their orientation, removing them from the realm of legal and ecclesiastical dispute and bringing them into a new framework of general history. Concentrating his investigation of Enlightenment medievalists on the most influential of them, La Curne de Sainte-Palaye, Gossman describes Sainte-Palaye's social and intellectual milieu and follows him in his relations with scholars and philosophes in France and abroad. Voltaire, Montesquieu, Gibbon, Walpole, Muratori, and Herder are some of the figures whose paths crossed that of Sainte-Palaye. Far from being opposed to philosophie, the medievalists were, Gossman argues, nourished at the same intellectual sources and shared many of the values of the philosophes. The existence of a close connection between medievalism and the Enlightenment is substantiated by the author's detailed analyses of Sainte-Palaye's work in the history, literature, and language of the French Middle Ages. Although Sainte-Palaye had a surprising influence on the literature and historiography of both the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—in France, England, and Germany—eighteenth-century medievalism, Gossman argues, is best understood not as anticipation of things to come but as part of a complex of ideas and feelings peculiar to the Enlightenment itself.

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415

Publisher

JHU Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1421430843

ISBN 13

9781421430843

Basel in the Age of Burckhardt

A Study in Unseasonable Ideas

By: Lionel Gossman

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Basel in the Age of Burckhardt

A Study in Unseasonable Ideas

By: Lionel Gossman

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630

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University of Chicago Press

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ISBN 10

0226305007

ISBN 13

9780226305004

Thomas Annan of Glasgow

Pioneer of the Documentary Photograph

By: Lionel Gossman

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Thomas Annan of Glasgow

Pioneer of the Documentary Photograph

By: Lionel Gossman

In the wake of Glasgow’s transformation in the nineteenth-century into an industrial powerhouse — the "Second City of the Empire" — a substantial part of the old town of Adam Smith degenerated into an overcrowded and disease-ridden slum. The Old Closes and Streets of Glasgow, Thomas Annan’s photographic record of this central section of the city prior to its demolition in accordance with the City of Glasgow Improvements Act of 1866, is widely recognized as a classic of nineteenth-century documentary photography. Annan’s achievement as a photographer of paintings, portraits and landscapes is less widely known. Thomas Annan of Glasgow: Pioneer of the Documentary Photograph offers a handy, comprehensive and copiously illustrated overview of the full range of the photographer’s work. The book opens with a brief account of the immediate context of Annan’s career as a photographer: the astonishing florescence of photography in Victorian Scotland. Successive chapters deal with each of the main fields of his activity, touching along the way on issues such as the nineteenth-century debate over the status of photography — a mechanical practice or an artistic one? — and the still ongoing controversies surrounding the documentary photograph in particular. While the text itself is intended for the general reader, extensive endnotes amplify particular themes and offer guidance to readers interested in pursuing them further.

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Page Count

194

Publisher

Open Book Publishers

Published Date

ISBN 10

1783741279

ISBN 13

9781783741274

Geneva, Zurich, Basel

History, Culture, and National Identity

By: Nicolas Bouvier,Gordon A. Craig,Lionel Gossman

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Geneva, Zurich, Basel

History, Culture, and National Identity

By: Nicolas Bouvier,Gordon A. Craig,Lionel Gossman

Recognized by historians and politicians as a model for European unity, Switzerland is nonetheless a difficult country to understand as a whole. Whereas individual Swiss cities have strong identities in the international political, cultural, and economic arenas, the country itself seems to be less than the sum of its parts. To capture the elusive spirit of Switzerland, four eminent writers explore the roots of its political unity and cultural diversity in a series of urban portraits. Their observations make for both good storytelling and insightful social commentary. Nicolas Bouvier offers a quick-paced history of Geneva--the city John Calvin had envisioned as a radiating center of godliness, international in its scope and legal in its methods--the home of the Red Cross and the League of Nations and, since 1945, the location of numerous disarmament and diplomatic conferences. Gordon Craig examines Zurich, the city of the militant religious reformer Huldrych Zwingli, whose centralizing political zeal was harnessed by subsequent generations of Zurichers to lead Switzerland in its modernization. Today's economically powerful Zurich is analyzed in terms of its liberal past as a refuge for political activists and artists, and in terms of its current generational divisions on moral and cultural questions. Finally, Lionel Gossman explores the conciliatory Basel of Erasmus, showing how vigorous independence, resourcefulness, and remembrance of its humanist traditions shaped the city's culture and economy. Tying together important themes in the histories of these cities, Carl Schorske focuses his introduction on how Switzerland has capitalized on their cultural differences and refined the art of political negotiation to serve a wide range of civic interests. Originally published in 1994. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

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116

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1400863694

ISBN 13

9781400863693

Men and Masks

A Study of Molière

By: Lionel Gossman

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Men and Masks

A Study of Molière

By: Lionel Gossman

Originally published in 1963. Molière's plays rank among the great comic achievements in the history of the stage. Yet few attempts have been made to understand them as expressing the historical context of the author's time. Most frequently they have been interpreted from the point of view of purely literary history, while the characters have been seen as universal comic types. Lionel Gossman reappraises Molière's comedy in the light of historical experience and interprets it in terms of the conditions from which it emerged. He brings it into the mainstream of seventeenth-century French literature and shows that Molière was concerned with the same things that concerned Descartes, Corneille, Racine, or Pascal. Five comedies (Amphitryon, Dom Juan, Le Misanthrope, Le Tartuffe, and George Dandin) are studied in the first part of the book. A number of basic structures are found to be common to all of them, and these give the author his point of departure for the second part of the book. In the second part, Gossman examines Molière's position with respect to other major seventeenth-century French writers. The comic vision of Molière, Gossman argues, no less than the tragic vision of Pascal or of Racine, expresses a particular relation to the social structure of the time. The subject matter of Molière's comedy is thus, in the author's view, not universal human nature but the men and women of the society in which Molière lived. Indeed, Gossman goes on to argue that the development of society after Molière made it difficult, and in the end impossible, for later writers to see the world in the comic light that illuminated Molière's writing. Even in certain of Molière's own works, in fact, the comic vision shades into something close to Romantic irony.

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288

Publisher

JHU Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

142143086X

ISBN 13

9781421430867

The Passion of Max Von Oppenheim

Archaeology and Intrigue in the Middle East from Wilhelm II to Hitler

By: Lionel Gossman

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The Passion of Max Von Oppenheim

Archaeology and Intrigue in the Middle East from Wilhelm II to Hitler

By: Lionel Gossman

Born into a prominent German Jewish banking family, Baron Max von Oppenheim (1860-1946) was a keen amateur archaeologist and ethnologist. His discovery and excavation of Tell Halaf in Syria marked an important contribution to knowledge of the ancient Middle East, while his massive study of the Bedouins is still consulted by scholars today. He was also an ardent German patriot, eager to support his country's pursuit of its "place in the sun." Excluded by his part-Jewish ancestry from the regular diplomatic service, Oppenheim earned a reputation as "the Kaiser's spy" because of his intriguing against the British in Cairo, as well as his plan, at the start of the First World War, to incite Muslims under British, French and Russian rule to a jihad against the colonial powers. After 1933, despite being half-Jewish according to the Nuremberg Laws, Oppenheim was not persecuted by the Nazis. In fact, he placed his knowledge of the Middle East and his connections with Muslim leaders at the service of the regime. Ranging widely over many fields - from war studies to archaeology and banking history - 'The Passion of Max von Oppenheim' tells the gripping and at times unsettling story of one part-Jewish man's passion for his country in the face of persistent and, in his later years, genocidal anti-Semitism.

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Page Count

418

Publisher

Open Book Publishers

Published Date

ISBN 10

1909254207

ISBN 13

9781909254206

André Maurois (1885-1967)

Fortunes and Misfortunes of a Moderate

By: J. Gossman

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André Maurois (1885-1967)

Fortunes and Misfortunes of a Moderate

By: J. Gossman

Respected by his peers and hugely successful internationally in his own time, André Maurois is now hardly read. Moderate and conciliatory in everything, including his literary style, he appealed to the educated reader of his time, but did those very qualities prevent him from achieving lasting distinction and impact?

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Page Count

201

Publisher

Springer

Published Date

ISBN 10

1137402709

ISBN 13

9781137402707

Brownshirt Princess

A Study of the "Nazi Conscience"

By: Lionel Gossman

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Brownshirt Princess

A Study of the "Nazi Conscience"

By: Lionel Gossman

Princess Marie Adelheid of Lippe-Biesterfeld was a rebellious young writer who became a fervent Nazi. Heinrich Vogeler was a well-regarded artist who was to join the German Communist Party. Ludwig Roselius was a successful businessman who had made a fortune from his invention of decaffeinated coffee. What was it about the revolutionary climate following World War I that induced three such different personalities to collaborate in the production of a slim volume of poetry -- entitled Gott in mir -- about the indwelling of the divine within the human? Lionel Gossman's study situates this poem in the ideological context that made the collaboration possible. The study also outlines the subsequent life of the Princess who, until her death in 1993, continued to support and celebrate the ideals and heroes of National Socialism"--Publisher's description.

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217

Publisher

Open Book Publishers

Published Date

ISBN 10

1906924066

ISBN 13

9781906924065

Men and Masks

A Study of Molière

By: Lionel Gossman

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Men and Masks

A Study of Molière

By: Lionel Gossman

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288

Publisher

JHU Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

142143086X

ISBN 13

9781421430867

Medievalism and the Ideologies of the Enlightenment

The World and Work of La Curne de Sainte-Palaye

By: Lionel Gossman

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Medievalism and the Ideologies of the Enlightenment

The World and Work of La Curne de Sainte-Palaye

By: Lionel Gossman

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415

Publisher

JHU Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1421430843

ISBN 13

9781421430843

Thomas Annan of Glasgow

Pioneer of the Documentary Photograph

By: Lionel Gossman

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Thomas Annan of Glasgow

Pioneer of the Documentary Photograph

By: Lionel Gossman

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194

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Open Book Publishers

Published Date

ISBN 10

1783741279

ISBN 13

9781783741274

Geneva, Zurich, Basel

History, Culture, and National Identity

By: Nicolas Bouvier,Gordon A. Craig,Lionel Gossman

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Geneva, Zurich, Basel

History, Culture, and National Identity

By: Nicolas Bouvier,Gordon A. Craig,Lionel Gossman

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Page Count

116

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1400863694

ISBN 13

9781400863693

Thomas Annan of Glasgow

Pioneer of the Documentary Photograph

By: Lionel Gossman

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Thomas Annan of Glasgow

Pioneer of the Documentary Photograph

By: Lionel Gossman

In the wake of Glasgow's transformation in the nineteenth-century into an industrial powerhouse, the "Second City of the Empire," a substantial part of the old town of Adam Smith degenerated into an overcrowded and disease-ridden slum. The Old Closes and Streets of Glasgow, Thomas Annan's photographic record of this central section of the city prior to its demolition in accordance with the City of Glasgow Improvements Act of 1866, is widely recognized as a classic of nineteenth-century documentary photography. Annan's achievement as a photographer of paintings and a portrait and landscape photographer is less widely known. Thomas Annan: Photographer of Victorian Scotland offers a handy, comprehensive and copiously illustrated overview of the full range of the photographer's work. The book opens with a brief account of the immediate context of Annan's career as a photographer: the astonishing florescence of photography in Victorian Scotland. Successive chapters deal with each of the main fields of his activity, touching along the way on issues such as the nineteenth-century debate over the status of photography - a mechanical practice or an artistic one? - and the still ongoing controversies surrounding the documentary photograph in particular. While the text itself is intended for the general reader, extensive endnotes amplify particular themes and offer guidance to readers interested in pursuing these themes further.

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192

Published Date

ISBN 10

1783741287

ISBN 13

9781783741281

Towards a Rational Historiography

Transactions, American Philosophical Society (Vol. 79, Part 3)

By: Lionel Gossman

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Towards a Rational Historiography

Transactions, American Philosophical Society (Vol. 79, Part 3)

By: Lionel Gossman

This is a print on demand publication. Gossman maintains that underlying the argument that historiography cannot be subsumed under a poetics or a rhetoric (in the sense of a system of purely linguistic or literary tropes) is a larger claim, namely that a wide range of activities, from literary criticism, through legal debate, theology, ethics, politics, psychology, and medicine to the natural sciences, all constitute rational practices, even if there is considerable variation in the degree of formalism and rigor and in the type of argument most commonly employed in each of these different of fields of inquiry. Hence Gossman emphasizes the practice or process of doing history rather than the product. What appeals to him in the idea of reason as a practice is its open, liberal, and democratic character. Historiography as a rational practice supposes a community of participants rather than the "anomie" of a world in which every man is his own historian or, at best, the relation of hero and follower that appears to be implied by privileging the historical "text.

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