Review: Michael C. Carhart, The Science of Culture in Enlightenment Germany

This is a book review of The Science of Culture in Enlightenment Germany, by Michael C. Carhart. It is an entertaining book. Its chapters are organized around a series of vignettes: Carsten Niebuhr on camelback negotiating with his Bedouin guides; feral French children skinning rabbits with their bare hands; English gentlemen in Syrian deserts; Captian Cooks lieutenants carving steaks from teh severed heads of war victims. In case you\u27ve lost your bearings, let me assure you that The Science of Culture in Enlightenment Germany is indeed about Enlightenment Germany. But as the structure of the chapters suggests, Michael Carhart wants to emphasize Germany\u27s myriad connections to the wider world. In other words, eighteenth-century German debates over culture and enlightenment were much more than merely German debates