As a graduate student, my mother had to take some German and her textbook was Deutsch für Amerikaner by C.R. Goedsche and Meno Spann, published in 1960. I’ve been leafing through it off and on. This week’s fiction in The New Yorker is all about people trying to express themselves in an intermediate German class,… Continue reading On the German standard of living (ca. 1960)
Category: History
Monks + cheese
An update on the curious case of mendicant friars and the moral dangers of collecting cheese (see this previous post): here is a story that appears in Geschichte der öffentlichen Sittlichkeit in Deutschland (History of public morality in Germany): http://</a Basically, a friar goes round the farms begging for cheese and eggs, and at one house… Continue reading Monks + cheese
Reformation Flame War
In honor of the 500th anniversary of Luther’s 95 Theses, here is my heavily redacted version of a Reformation-era dialogue by Hans Sachs, namely A dialogue on the hypocrisy of the religious and their vows, through which, despising the blood of Christ, they presume to become holy. in which Hans the cobbler and Peter the… Continue reading Reformation Flame War
“Five Germanys”
Recent events have inspired me to re-read Fritz Stern‘s book Five Germanys I have known (grammar nerds will note that it is “Germanys,” not “Germanies,” because the usual plural spelling rules don’t apply to proper names), specifically the middle section about nurturing, preserving, and defending liberal democracy. Reading this book ten years ago, I skimmed that… Continue reading “Five Germanys”
Nazi Summer Camp
In 2015 someone contacted me from Radiolab asking for help with research for the episode “Nazi Summer Camp“. This was quite a thrill because I’ve long been grateful to this fun and informative show for preventing my children from bickering on long car trips. What they wanted was a summary of one chapter of a German… Continue reading Nazi Summer Camp
The Lady in the Hymnal
I grew up in a mainline Protestant church, where my family always spent the organist’s intro to a given hymn checking on who wrote the words, who composed the music, what country they were from, and when they lived. If we spotted someone who was famous outside of church, like Haydn or Arthur Sullivan, there… Continue reading The Lady in the Hymnal