German Orientalism in the Age of Empire: Religion, Race and Scholarship

Abstract

Nineteenth-century studies of the Orient changed European ideas and cultural institutions in more ways than we usually recognise. ‘Orientalism’ certainly contributed to European empire-building, but it also helped to destroy a narrow
Christian-classical canon. This book provides the first synthetic and contextualised study of German Orientalistik, a subject of special interest because German scholars were the pace-setters in oriental studies between
about 1830 and 1930, despite entering the colonial race late and exiting it early.
The book suggests that we must take seriously German orientalism’s origins in Renaissance philology and early modern biblical exegesis and appreciate its
modern development in the context of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century debates about religion and the Bible, classical schooling, and Germanic origins.
Introduces readers to a host of iconoclastic characters and forgotten debates,seeking to demonstrate both the richness of this intriguing field and its indebtedness to the cultural world in which it evolved.