Frontmatter 1
Contents 5
Preface 7
Introduction 11
Introduction 47
1.1 Nations, the national state and cosmopolitanism 53
1.2 The universal and the national 55
1.3 The reconciliation of cosmopolitanism and the national state? 68
1.4 The tradition of the ideal 75
Conclusion 78
Introduction 81
2.1 Prelude 84
2.2 Staatsräson according to Meinecke 87
2.3 The tragic character of Meinecke's Staatsräson 98
Introduction 113
3.1 Staatsräson as a 'solution' 114
3.2 The statesman's conscience 124
Conclusion 132
Introduction 135
4.1 The individualizing view 139
4.2 Pietism and Neoplatonism 145
4.3 Reason and Unreason 151
4.4 Traditionalism and historicism 153
4.5 The prelude to Meinecke's historicism 157
4.6 Science or world view 162
Conclusion 172
Introduction 175
5.1 Polarities and harmony 180
5.2 Meinecke's Umdeutung of Goethe 192
5.3 Goethe and the daemonic 196
5.4 Harmony and dissonance 200
5.5 Meinecke and the crisis of historicism 204
Conclusion 221
Introduction 225
6.1 A controversial study 231
6.2 A catastrophic synthesis 234
6.3 Nature, chance, fate 239
6.4 Kultur as cure 245
6.5 Apotheosis 252
Conclusion 260
Final conclusions 263
Bibliography 271
Index 296