The Red Count: The Life and Times of Harry Kessler Volume 30 Paperback - 2006

First line

The assumption that the traits of ancestors somehow play an important role in shaping one's character was much more widespread in Kessler's day, with its imperfect knowledge of the genetics of inheritance, than in our own: Kessler himself liked to imagine he could trace both intellectual and physical characteristics of his friends to their ancestry.

From the rear cover

"A richly contextualized portrait of a key Weimar figure, who deserves to be better known. Easton is a lively writer."--Martin Jay, University of California, Berkeley

"Provocative and original. The Red Count should be welcomed by a growing number of cultural historians interested in reassessing the politics of European modernism and in current debates about the trajectory of German political culture and cultural politics in the decades before the rise of fascism."--Kevin Repp, Yale University

"A major addition to understanding the cultural contributions Germany made to the modernist impulse, especially in the years before 1914. Kessler's numerous activities, as delineated by the author, attest to the cosmopolitanism of many within Germany's urban, liberal elite. The Red Count is extremely well-written. Easton's prose is fluid, colorful, and eminently readable. " --Marion Deshmukh, George Mason University