Modern German Thought from Kant to Habermas - (Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture) by Henk de Berg & Duncan Large (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

German-language thinkers such as Kant, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud are central to modernity. Yet their reception in the English-speaking world has largely depended on translations, a situation that has often hampered full engagement with the rhetorical and philosophical complexity of the German history of ideas. The present volume, the first of its kind, is a response to this situation. After an introduction charting the remarkable flowering of German-language thought since the eighteenth century, it offers extracts - in the original German - from sixteen major philosophical texts, with extensive introductions and annotations in English. All extracts are carefully chosen to introduce the individual thinkers while allowing the reader to pursue broader themes such as the fate of reason or the history of modern selfhood. The book offers students and scholars of German a complement to linguistic, historical, and literary study by giving them access to the wealth of German-language philosophy. It represents a new way into the work of a succession of thinkers who have defined modern philosophy and thus remain of crucial relevance today.

Review Quotes

[A]n excellent resource for putting the German language back into the study of German thought, and this effort alone is worthy of praise and attention. . . . [A]n immensely effective tool for learning important but difficult texts. [The book] would be especially valuable as a course book in a graduate-level or an advanced upper-division undergraduate course. [It] also has much to offer to scholars who are interested in reading the included thinkers in the original language or are seeking an in-depth look at one of the selected texts.--FOCUS ON GERMAN STUDIES

[An] excellent collection . . . . [The introduction] is probably the best short account of the development of modern German philosophy. . . . This thought-provoking introduction should be required reading for all the critics of "obscure" and "impenetrable" German as well as any student of German language, literature, thought, and history. . . . Henk de Berg and Duncan Large have produced an excellent guide to modern German philosophy: one could not wish for a more helpful and stimulating volume.--JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN STUDIES

The philological work on display here is accurate, insightful and extremely useful for teaching. . . . This volume will be a valuable teaching collection for courses on German thought. . . . The current reviewer will certainly be using it in his second year survey course on German thought, which is the highest form of recommendation.--DEUTSCH LEHREN UND LERNEN [Angus Nicholls]

Henk de Berg and Duncan Large have had the inspired idea to put together a reader of important philosophical texts in the original German, together with introductions and annotations. Their collection can play an important role in helping the anglophone reader to break free from dependence on translations and to engage the original texts. The selections are carefully chosen and helpfully introduced, and cover a wide swath of modern German thought. One hopes that this valuable initiative will be the first of many such volumes.--Robert B. Pippin, Evelyn Stefansson Nef Distinguished Service Professor of Social Thought and Philosophy, University of Chicago