After a long struggle, Jewish emancipation was formally completed in Germany in 1871, when Wilhelm I abolished religious discrimination across the entire Reich. Yet the very same decade witnessed a new wave of antisemitism, one more vicious and virulent than anything before. At its centre was what is known as ‘The Berlin Antisemitism Controversy’. How can this rise of antisemitism be explained when further liberal reform was expected? Can it help us understand the tide of antisemitism that...

Philosophy of Life explores the intellectual movement called Lebensphilosophie, which flourished in Germany from 1870 until 1920. Author Frederick C. Beiser focuses on its most prominent members: Friedrich Nietzsche, Wilhelm Dilthey, and Georg Simmel. Lebensphilosophie appeared at a critical movement in Western culture; it was a response to several important cultural developments of the late 19th century: atheism, relativism, historicism and pessimism. The Le...