Cultural history of the modern age

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The Cultural History of Modern Times is a large-scale and multi-volume essay by Egon Friedell on the history of Western culture from the end of the Middle Ages to the eve of the First World War . The work was published in three volumes by Beck in Munich from 1927 to 1931 (after contacting another publisher) .

Character of the work

It cannot be regarded as a historical monograph insofar as Friedell himself declared that he did not use any of the historical scientific methods which he initially discussed and rejected. The work is systematically structured, but rather ideal-type , with pointedly emphasized individual features and although it contains quotations, these are not - as is usual in the scientific field, indeed required - backed up with references to sources. Nonetheless, the book has been preceded by extensive studies, but the authors are only mentioned on occasion. The work is therefore kept very subjective and follows certain basic theses of Friedell, one of which is already hinted at in the detailed subtitle: The crisis of the European soul from the black plague to the First World War .

From the very first few sentences the reader realizes that he is not looking at an ordinary historiographical work, and he is immediately drawn into Friedell's world of thought:

Countless stars, shining thoughts of God, blessed instruments on which the Creator plays wander through the infinite depths of space. They are all happy because God wants the world to be happy. There is only one among them who does not share this lot: only people arose on him. How did that happen? Has God forgotten this star? Or has he bestowed the highest glory on him by giving him the freedom to struggle up to bliss on his own? We do not know it. Let us try to tell a tiny fraction of the story of this tiny star. (P. 3)

The work is of interest to today's readers for the following reasons:

Friedell is sometimes highly emotional in his assessments, hymnically in his approval and extremely polemical in his rejection. He virtually attests to Baruch de Spinoza being insane, while the section on Shakespeare turned into an ode in prose.

structure

The work is divided into an introduction, five books and an epilogue. The books are divided into chapters, for further orientation of the reader all marginalia are included in the table of contents that Friedell uses as further subdividing section headings. This gives the extensive (approx. 1500 printed pages) work an appropriately large table of contents (over 10 printed pages) and enables - especially those already familiar with it - to quickly find the text passages they are looking for. From a historical point of view, the structure resulting from the titles (and subtitles) of the main parts is hardly surprising:

  • Introduction: What does it mean and at what end does one study cultural history? (approx. 50 printed pages)
  • First book: Renaissance and Reformation - From the Black Plague to the Thirty Years War (from 1349 to 1618, seven chapters, approx. 350 printed pages)
  • Second book: Baroque and Rococo - From the Thirty Years 'War to the Seven Years' War (1618 to 1756, three chapters, approx. 250 printed pages)
  • Third book: Enlightenment and Revolution - From the Seven Years War to the Congress of Vienna (1756 to 1815, three chapters, almost 300 printed pages)
  • Fourth book: Romanticism and Liberalism - From the Congress of Vienna to the Franco-German War (1815 to 1870, three chapters, a good 300 printed pages)
  • Fifth book: Imperialism and Impressionism - From the Franco-German War to the World War (1870 to 1914, two chapters, a good 200 printed pages)
  • Epilogue: Fall of Reality (approx. 30 printed pages)

What is striking in this structure is the almost exclusive use of events from the political part of history, which one may not necessarily expect from a cultural history: This table of contents gives little indication that Friedell's work is by no means a traditional orientation towards the respective catastrophes ( mostly wars, but - see above - also epidemics). In addition (this is why page numbers are also mentioned above) Friedell has clearly tried to deal with the individual epochs, which are shortened one after the other (this is of course not Friedell's invention), in approximately the same text volumes. The large number of chapters in the first book may indicate that Friedell also deals here with topics that he himself expressly does not include in the modern era (but in the Middle Ages).

Relation to other works of the author

There is no special reference to his cultural history of antiquity (two parts, a third about the Roman period), as the author himself says in a preliminary remark to the first volume ( cultural history of Egypt and the ancient Orient ) (and in a delicious way his Past as a cabaret artist not denied):

“This 'cultural history of antiquity' has no direct relation to my three-volume 'cultural history of the modern era': [...] it is laid out and executed according to a different method. One can therefore just as well read this work before that one as the one before this one, but also only this or only that and even both side by side; and neither can you read either of them "

expenditure

  • Egon Friedell: Cultural History of the Modern Age . Munich 1989 (edition in one volume; 3rd edition 1996) - ISBN 3406409881
  • Egon Friedell: Cultural History of the Modern Age . Verlag CH Beck, Munich 2007 (edition in one volume; 2nd edition 2008) - ISBN 9783406564628

Parallel studies

A number of large-scale studies between the two world wars that developed a similar ambition also showed similar traits in their design. Examples are The Fall of the West by Oswald Spengler , On the Process of Civilization by Norbert Elias or A Study of History by Arnold Toynbee .

See also

Web links