List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1. The Life and Work of Aby Warburg in its Hamburg Context
Chapter 2. Aby Warburg's "Hamburg Comedy": The Personal Concerns and Professional Ambitions of a Young Scholar
Chapter 3. Political Symbolism and Cultural Monumentalism: Hamburg's Bismarck Memorial, 1898-1906
Chapter 4. Collective Memory Failure: The Mural Decoration of Hamburg's City Hall, 1898-1909
Chapter 5. A Moment of Calm in the Chaos of War: Willy von Beckerath's "Eternal Wave," 1913-1918

Conclusion

Bibliography
Index

Mark A. Russell is an Assistant Professor at the Liberal Arts College of Concordia University, Montreal. He holds degrees from the University of Toronto and a Ph.D. from Cambridge University. His work on culture in Imperial Germany has appeared in The Historical Journal, The Canadian Journal of History and German History.

Aby Warburg (1866-1929), founder of the Warburg Institute, was one of the most influential cultural historians of the twentieth century. Focusing on the period 1896-1918, this is the first in-depth, book-length study of his response to German political, social and cultural modernism. It analyses Warburg's response to the effects of these phenomena through a study of his involvement with the creation of some of the most important public artworks in Germany. Using a wide array of archival sources, including many of his unpublished working papers and much of his correspondence, the author demonstrates that Warburg's thinking on contemporary art was the product of two important influences: his engagement with Hamburg's civic affairs and his affinity with influential reform movements seeking a greater role for the middle classes in the political, social and cultural leadership of the nation. Thus a lively picture of Hamburg's cultural life emerges as it responded to artistic modernism, animated by private initiative and public discourse, and charged with debate.