Life and Times of Stein, Or, Germany and Prussia in the Napoleonic Age Volume 4 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1879 edition. Excerpt: ... been later compiled by others (Ekkard, Hahn, Jung, Gruber, Scheidt); he had also produced the Annales Imperii Occidentis, covering the period from 768-1005, and pronounced by a good authority to be "a master-work which leaves all earlier performances far behind it." But the divisions of Germany, the impossibility of raising money or procuring effective co-operation for any national purpose, had prevented Leibnitz from adding to his other laurels that of being the legislator for the department of history and at the same time Germany of the honour of taking the lead of all nations in this department. In spite of Leibnitz she was now behind and not before France and Italy. His Annales Irnperii Occidentis actually remained unpublished until they were presented to the world (1843-I846) by no other than Stein's biographer and the Editor of 'the Monumenta Germaniae, Pertz. How then shall Therese learn the history of her country? Here we have the motive which led Stein to set in motion again his redoubtable organising talent and to summon all the learning of Germany to a vast work of research which will probably occupy a century. He writes to the Bishop of Hildesheim (date not given): Since my retirement from public afiairs I have been animated by the wish to awaken the taste for German history, to facilitate the fundamental study of it, and so to contribute to keep alive a love for our common country and for the memory of our great ancestors. It was also my purpose to endeavour that the multitude of documents dispersed by the revolution of the year 1803 might be carefully' collected and preserved from destruction; this however depends principally upon measures taken by the Governments and cannot be accomplished by the...