cover image Berlin and Its Culture: A Historical Portrait

Berlin and Its Culture: A Historical Portrait

Ronald Taylor. Yale University Press, $55 (432pp) ISBN 978-0-300-07200-6

A potentially rich topic is given an ultimately thin treatment in this cultural history. Taylor, emeritus professor of German at the University of Sussex, is the author of Literature and Society in Germany, 1918-1945 and of The Romantic Tradition in Germany, so it's not surprising that two of the highlights of this book are his discussion of Romanticism's early years in Berlin, complete with a concise overview of its philosophical underpinnings, and his treatment of Weimar literature. Nazi culture is also examined, though not in any depth. Finally, his lengthy section on postwar culture (up to 1990) offers an interesting comparison of East and West. In his preface, Taylor states that ""[n]obody's interests would have been served... by a catalogue of names and works."" But often it seems to be just that, a list of the names of architects, decorative artists, writers, painters, sculptors and eventually filmmakers. In a city so given to professional and communal organizations, there is disappointingly little about groups like the Monday Cub, the Glass Chain or Der Tunnel uber der Spree or the coffeehouses--i.e., the cultural milieu. And in a related problem, there is little analysis of the reasons that--at least until Weimar--artists often fled Berlin in preference for Leipzig or Dresden or Vienna. If Taylor had addressed these larger issues, then the small repetitions that are perhaps inevitable when dividing history into eras--the Grunderjahre, the Biedermeier years, Weimar, etc.--would have been easier to overlook. (Jan.)