Heinrich Mann, once counted among the most important literary figures in Germany, is known to most English-speaking readers only as the brother of Thomas Mann, or in connection with Marlene Dietrich and the film "The Blue Angel," which was based on one of his novels. Only a few of his novels and stories and virtually none of his hundreds of provocative essays are available in English. But he deserves special attention for the window his work provides onto the intellectual, social, and political history of Germany, especially Germany's struggle with the question of democracy in the early twentieth century. In his essays and novels, Mann exposed Germany's resistance to democracy well before the First World War, and especially during the Revolution of 1918/19 and the Weimar Republic he made the education of the German people to democratic values and a democratic form of government the center of his life and work. Professor Gunnemann's book is the first work in English that explores Heinrich Mann's work in detail. Special attention is given to the history of the reception of Mann's works in Germany, which is also a history of that nation's self-understanding.
Karin Verena Gunnemann is professor of German at Agnes Scott College in Atlanta.