Book Review

Europe: Early Modern and Modern

This book by Maiken Umbach is a ground-breaking study of the eighteenth-century origins of German federalism, its relationship to the Enlightenment and the Holy Roman Empire, and its implications for later German history. Federalism refers to a movement of small principalities that arose in opposition to autocratic Prussia and Austria and their rivalry for hegemony in Germany. In contrast to American-style federalism, however, with its drive toward ever greater centralization, German federalism called for diversity within unity, "in practical terms a federation between autonomous and highly diverse states" (p. 5). Within that movement, Umbach identifies what he calls "a progressive 'federal Enlightenment'" (p. 5) that sought to achieve its goals within a Holy Roman Empire reformed along the lines of Enlightenment ideals, especially the practical, experimental English version of enlightenment. Umbach sees his "federal Enlightenment" exemplified by the remarkable Prince Leopold III Friederich Franz, ruler of the small state of Anhalt-Dessau bordering Prussia, and his estate at Wörlitz, with its carefully planned buildings and gardens, as a metaphor for the federalist political ideal of diversity within unity. Indeed, some of the book's most insightful pages provide a theoretically informed interpretation of the visual culture of Wörlitz, notably the design and ideological implications of the English gardens and such structures as the Gothic House, the Palladian Villa, and the "Studiolo." "By studying the visual articulation of such ways of thinking about the state," Umbach conjectures, "we can begin to uncover a side of German history which has too often fallen victim to simplistic dichotomies of modern and anti-modern, nationalist and particularist" (p. 200).

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