The German Genius

Bradford, Life and Letters , p. 72.
26. A recent biography describes Humboldt in this way: it is “quite possible that no other European had so great an impact on the intellectual culture of nineteenth-century America.” Aaron Sachs, The Humboldt Current: A European Explorer and His American Disciples (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
27. Herbert Scurla, Alexander von Humboldt: Eine Biographie (Düsseldorf: Claasen, 1982), pp. 188–191. See also Hermann Klencke, Lives of the Brothers Humboldt: Alexander and William , trans. Juliette Bauer (London: Ingram, Cooke & Co., 1852).
28. Scurla, Alexander von Humboldt , pp. 51–57.
29. Ibid., pp. 102ff.
30. Gerard Helferich, Humboldt’s Cosmos (New York: Gotham, 2004), p. 21. Humboldt was himself called “the second Columbus.” Scurla, Alexander von Humboldt , p. 415.
31. Dictionary of Scientific Biography , VI, p. 550.
32. Scurla, Alexander von Humboldt , pp. 138f.
33. Ibid., p. 178. According to Aaron Sachs, he inspired four great American explorers: J. N. Reynolds, Clarence King, George Wallace Melville, and John Muir. Sachs, Humboldt Current , passim.
34. For Humboldt’s ideas about Kosmos and Volksbildung , see Nicolaas A. Rupke, Alexander von Humboldt: A Metabiography (Frankfurt and Berlin: Peter Lang, 2005), pp. 38–43.
35. Helferich, Humboldt’s Cosmos , p. 23.
36. Scurla, Alexander von Humboldt , pp. 206–207.
37. For a discussion of the wider importance of Alexander von Humboldt, see: Rupke, Alexander von Humboldt , pp. 162–218.
38. C. W. Ceram, Gods, Graves and Scholars (London: Book Club Associates, 1967), p. 228.
39. Ibid.
40. Arthur John Booth, The Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1902), p. 173. Grotefend’s own account has been translated into English in A. H. L. Heere, Historical Works , vol. 2 (Oxford, 1833), p. 337. See also Denise Schmandt-Besserat, Before Writing , vol.1, From Counting to Cuneiform (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1992).
41. Ceram, Gods, Graves , p. 230.
42. Ibid., p. 231.
43. Ibid., p. 233.
44. Hugh Smith, On Clausewitz: A Study of Military and Political Ideas (Basingstoke: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2005), p. viii. Peter Paret says much of it is common sense. Peter Paret, Understanding War: Essays on Clausewitz and the History of Military Power (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992), p. 117.
45. Paret says the advent of nuclear power has made the problems that Clausewitz addressed even more important than in his day. Paret, Understanding War , p. 96.
46. Smith, On Clausewitz , p. ix.
47. Ibid., p. 3.
48. Wilhelm von Schramm, Clausewitz: Leben und Werk (Esslingen am Neckar: Bechtle, 1981), pp. 140ff.
49. Schramm, Clausewitz , pp. 363ff.
50. Being director of the war academy concentrated his mind on the general staff. Major von Roder, Für Euch, meine Kinder! (Berlin, 1861).
51. Smith, On Clausewitz , p. 25. Carl von Clausewitz, “Bemerkungen über die reine und angewandte Strategie des Herrn von Bülow,” Neue Bellona 9, no. 3 (1805): 271.
52. Schramm, Clausewitz , pp. 557ff. Smith, On Clausewitz , p. 25.
53. Smith, On Clausewitz , p. 27.
54. Ibid.
55. Ibid., p. 44.
56. For his appreciation of history, see Hans Delbrück, “General von Clausewitz,” in Historische und Politische Aufsätze (Berlin: Walther & Apolant, 1887).
57. Schramm, Clausewitz , pp. 135–158 and 220–255. And see Michael Eliot Howard, Clausewitz (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1983).
58. Smith, On Clausewitz , pp. 65–66.
59. Schramm, Clausewitz , p. 181. Smith, On Clausewitz , p. 130.
60. Smith, On Clausewitz , p. 134.
61. Ibid., p. 237.
62. Ibid., p. 238.
63. Ibid., p. 239.
    C HAPTER 8: T HE M OTHER T ONGUE, THE I NNER V OICE, AND THE R OMANTIC S ONG
     
1. Kai Hammermeister, The German Aesthetic Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 62–86. See also Friedrich von Schlegel, The Aesthetic and Miscellaneous Works , trans. E. J. Millington (London: Bell, 1875). In the nineteenth century, Friedrich Max Müller, a German Orientalist who became the first professor of comparative philology at Oxford, said this: “If I were asked what I consider the most important discovery of the nineteenth century with respect to ancient history of mankind, I should answer by the following short line: Sanskrit Dyaus Pitar = Greek Zeùs= Latin Juppiter = Old Norse Tyr.”
2. Manfred Frank, The Philosophical Foundations of Early German