Prussia of the Senses
William W. Hagen
Friedrichs Größe: Inszenierungen des Preußenkönigs in Fest und Zeremoniell 1740–1815. By Thomas Biskup. Frankfurt: Campus Verlag. 2012. 361 pp., €34.90 (paperback). Gefühlspolitik: Friedrich II. als Herr über die Herzen. Ute Frevert. Göttingen: Wallstein 151 €16.90 (hardback). ‘Es ist nicht bequem, Gefühle wissenschaftlich zu bearbeiten’. Sigmund Freud, Das Unbehagen der Kultur (1930) (Frankfurt/Main: Fischer Bücherei, 1953), p. 91 In the present day of historiography’s ‘emotional turn’, Prussian feelings are stirring hearts and minds. Biskup asks how Frederick II—pre-rationally, compulsively—fashioned his own greatness. Frevert writes Frederick’s love people, theirs him. Coinciding with these inquiries, December 2012 American Historical Review (AHR) hosted a six-voiced symposium on ‘The Study Emotions’, while 2011 witnessed publication Frevert’s Emotions History: Lost Found (Budapest: Central European University Press). What secrets, we may wonder, might emotional theory practice reveal about each other?1
German History