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A fascinating story of how a book could be used and especially abused over two thousand years, as enemies saw it aspresenting Germans as brutish and barbarian, while German nationalisticpride extracted a quite different message of a nation that was simple, virtuous, and pure.... beautifully told byChristopher Krebs. --Christopher Pelling, editor of "Greek Tragedy and the Historian"
Krebs writes with panache, a vocabulary that puts many native speakers of English to shame, and a Tacitean predilection for epigram. [...]this is the first substantial treatment in English, and the first to condense so much into a single, accessible narrative. --Christopher Whitton, Times Literary Supplement
Krebs writes with panache, a vocabulary that puts many native speakers of English to shame, and a Tacitean predilection for epigram. [...]this is the first substantial treatment in English, and the first to condense so much into a single, accessible narrative. --Christopher Whitton, Times Literary Supplement
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A dramatic detective story.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The Roman historian Tacitus' book Germania is the only purely ethnographic study from classical antiquity known to have been preserved for posterity. Tacitus spoke of the Germanic tribes' loyalty, their purity of blood, their strength but also of their lack of culture.
The author Christopher Krebs (a classics professor at Harvard) claims that not only did Tacitus probably not even visit the Germanic tribes he wrote about but that the book as it has been handed down to us has been corrupted due to its continual copying by hand, leading to errors. Also, Tacitus' characterisation of the Germanic tribes was a stereotype of the noble savage used by ancient Roman writers on almost every people they fought against but of whom they knew little of. To create a profile of their opponents obviously made them easier to understand--and defeat.
Krebs provides us with the tale of the hunt for the manuscript of Germania by Italian humanist scholars such as Poggio Bracciolini (1380 - 1459), who made extensive enquiries into getting his hands on the scroll, but to no avail. The advent of printing meant that the first translation of the book into the German language received a large readership in sixteenth century German-speaking lands and led to the wide dissemination for the first time of the legend of the Germans' racial purity and valour.
The Nazis predictably adored Germania and claimed it as their bible, particularly Heinrich Himmler. It was this (mis)use of Tacitus' work that led to the Italian historian Arnaldo Momigliano to write after the Second World War that Germania was amongst "the one hundred most dangerous books ever written" (Studies in Historiography, pp. 112-113).
Krebs has written a readable and well-sourced book but he is a bit to ready to condemn those he does not agree with and has the annoying modern day habit of referring to 100 AD as 100 CE (and BCE for BC).
The author Christopher Krebs (a classics professor at Harvard) claims that not only did Tacitus probably not even visit the Germanic tribes he wrote about but that the book as it has been handed down to us has been corrupted due to its continual copying by hand, leading to errors. Also, Tacitus' characterisation of the Germanic tribes was a stereotype of the noble savage used by ancient Roman writers on almost every people they fought against but of whom they knew little of. To create a profile of their opponents obviously made them easier to understand--and defeat.
Krebs provides us with the tale of the hunt for the manuscript of Germania by Italian humanist scholars such as Poggio Bracciolini (1380 - 1459), who made extensive enquiries into getting his hands on the scroll, but to no avail. The advent of printing meant that the first translation of the book into the German language received a large readership in sixteenth century German-speaking lands and led to the wide dissemination for the first time of the legend of the Germans' racial purity and valour.
The Nazis predictably adored Germania and claimed it as their bible, particularly Heinrich Himmler. It was this (mis)use of Tacitus' work that led to the Italian historian Arnaldo Momigliano to write after the Second World War that Germania was amongst "the one hundred most dangerous books ever written" (Studies in Historiography, pp. 112-113).
Krebs has written a readable and well-sourced book but he is a bit to ready to condemn those he does not agree with and has the annoying modern day habit of referring to 100 AD as 100 CE (and BCE for BC).
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
6 reviews
19 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Wide-ranging, wittily written
1 July 2011
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I read the NYT review, which I liked, but didn't buy the book at first.
Then I came across this interview with the author:
[...]
So I bought it and finished reading it last night: it's a great story of how a short text, read and re-read, used and misused, came to shape German identity. I hadn't been familiar with many of the intellectuals and politicians (though there is also Montesquieu, Herder, and other more famous ones), but it got never boring. There are some memorable and witty lines here too. And what the Nazis ended up making of the Germania, is really chilling and weirdly fascinating.
Then I came across this interview with the author:
[...]
So I bought it and finished reading it last night: it's a great story of how a short text, read and re-read, used and misused, came to shape German identity. I hadn't been familiar with many of the intellectuals and politicians (though there is also Montesquieu, Herder, and other more famous ones), but it got never boring. There are some memorable and witty lines here too. And what the Nazis ended up making of the Germania, is really chilling and weirdly fascinating.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Fascinating (if a bit academic) story of a book, its use and misuse
11 Oct 2011
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
Suppose a millenium from now historians found a lost copy of Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America about the early days of the American republic. What would be the reaction of our decendants? Would they embrace the book wholeheartedly as the definition of American character? Would it be just a quaint relic of a long-lost era?
That is the question I kept in mind as I read Christopher Krebs' A Most Dangerous Book: Tacitus's Germania from the Roman Empire to the Third Reich. Krebs traces the book, actually a tract of less than 30 pages, from the hand of Roman historian Tacitus to the hands of Nazi leaders in the Third Reich. To borrow a phrase, Tacitus would spin in his grave at the knowledge of the uses and misuses of his work throughout history. Written at a time when what we think of as modern Germany was a collection of tribes, Tacitus finds both brutality and nobility in this loose federation of people.
Tacitus' words might have forever been lost to history if not for the work of mideval scholars and humanists who brought the Roman's book to light 1,000 years or so after it was written. From that point on, Germania was a text seemingly made of putty whose meaning could be stretched and shaped to meet the demands of whoever controlled it. Want feudal Germans to take part in a Crusade? Then play up the tales of their forefathers banding together to defend against their enemies. Want to rail against the German character? Then stress the passages that mention human sacrifice by the early Germanic tribes.
By the time the Third Reich came to power, Heinrich Himmler, head of the dreaded SS, desperately searched for ancient copies of Germania at the same time he was putting some of the book's darker passages in action: that the German volk did not interbreed nor even welcome outsiders. From such observations as this made by a Roman historian who never visited the area of which he wrote and gathered his information second hand, Nazi attacks against "outsiders" were justified.
Though this is a fairly short book (especially since the last third of the book is given over to footnotes), it is also aimed at an academic audience. Because of this it's easy to get lost among the always shifting cast of characters. Unless you have some grounding in mideval European history it's easy to loose track of the various scholars, clergy, humanist phiolosophers, forgers, popes and others who play a role in the story. Despite the occasional difficulties for a non-academic, I would advise sticking with it. A Most Dangerous Book makes for fascinating reading of history as well as a cautionary tale on how meanings become elastic in the hands of those who strive to stretch them to meet their own agenda.
That is the question I kept in mind as I read Christopher Krebs' A Most Dangerous Book: Tacitus's Germania from the Roman Empire to the Third Reich. Krebs traces the book, actually a tract of less than 30 pages, from the hand of Roman historian Tacitus to the hands of Nazi leaders in the Third Reich. To borrow a phrase, Tacitus would spin in his grave at the knowledge of the uses and misuses of his work throughout history. Written at a time when what we think of as modern Germany was a collection of tribes, Tacitus finds both brutality and nobility in this loose federation of people.
Tacitus' words might have forever been lost to history if not for the work of mideval scholars and humanists who brought the Roman's book to light 1,000 years or so after it was written. From that point on, Germania was a text seemingly made of putty whose meaning could be stretched and shaped to meet the demands of whoever controlled it. Want feudal Germans to take part in a Crusade? Then play up the tales of their forefathers banding together to defend against their enemies. Want to rail against the German character? Then stress the passages that mention human sacrifice by the early Germanic tribes.
By the time the Third Reich came to power, Heinrich Himmler, head of the dreaded SS, desperately searched for ancient copies of Germania at the same time he was putting some of the book's darker passages in action: that the German volk did not interbreed nor even welcome outsiders. From such observations as this made by a Roman historian who never visited the area of which he wrote and gathered his information second hand, Nazi attacks against "outsiders" were justified.
Though this is a fairly short book (especially since the last third of the book is given over to footnotes), it is also aimed at an academic audience. Because of this it's easy to get lost among the always shifting cast of characters. Unless you have some grounding in mideval European history it's easy to loose track of the various scholars, clergy, humanist phiolosophers, forgers, popes and others who play a role in the story. Despite the occasional difficulties for a non-academic, I would advise sticking with it. A Most Dangerous Book makes for fascinating reading of history as well as a cautionary tale on how meanings become elastic in the hands of those who strive to stretch them to meet their own agenda.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
A history of the role of a Roman classic
2 May 2012
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
It may be hard to believe, but the author makes the search for the Annals as interesting as a mystery story. He also succeeds in showing how a "classic" portrayal of the Germans based on no real first- hand knowledge is used perniciously by generation after generation of Germans culminating in the self- serving distortions of the Nazis.
It is a serious book, but a compelling read.
It is a serious book, but a compelling read.
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