"It draws on a profound knowledge of European literature, its argument is coherent from beginning to end, it is compellingly written."--Times Higher Education Supplement. While in Weimar, Goethe wrote literature which gave his country an artistic and intellectual center and contributed to its subsequent unification. T.J. Reed's study traces this development in the face of social and political difficulties and in the context of German cultural history. Through close analysis, he weaves the careers of individual writers of the age into the broader pattern of historical events.