Traveling between Worlds

German-American Encounters

Edited by Thomas Adam and Ruth Gross

In Traveling between Worlds, six authors explore the 
connectedness between Germans and Americans in the nineteenth 
century and their mutual impact on transatlantic history. Despite 
the ocean between them, these two groups of people were linked 
not only by the emigration from one to the other but also by 
ongoing interactions, especially among their intellectuals.

Christof Mauch's introduction examines the history of the German-American exchange and of cultural exchanges in general. Focusing on various aspects of the German-American relationship, Eberhard Bruning, John T. Walker, Thomas Adam, Gabriele Lingelbach, Andrew P. Yox, and Christiane Harzig examine the cultural and communicative exchanges that occurred both between the two countries and within them. Topics such as travel, cultural interpretation, ideological and intellectual transfer, the immigrant experience, and German-American poetry are all considered.

Traveling between Worlds demonstrates that exchange was facilitated and maintained by ordinary individuals such as teachers and scholars, immigrants and natives, and held implications that last to this day. _________________________________________________________ THOMAS ADAM, co-editor of this volume, who received his Ph.D. from the University of Leipzig, teaches German and transatlantic European history at the University of Texas at Arlington. Co-editor RUTH GROSS, who holds a Ph.D. from Yale University, serves as head of the department of foreign languages and literatures at North Carolina State University.

Number Thirty-six: Walter Prescott Webb Memorial Lectures

What people are saying about this book

"This volume is an intriguing document for the new state of intercultural studies with regard to German-American history. Full of new discoveries in the realms of art collecting, poetry, women's standing, universities, social politics, and everyday life, the book illuminates the Atlantic not as the barrier but rather the bridge between the people of two nations. It sets clear parameters for the step from merely tracing cultural relations (and stereotypes) to an understanding of the transatlantic world as an ever-changing web of human interconnections. The essays complement each other in their reflection of both the ethnic traditions of the German- Americans and the intercultural encounters of the elites in the nineteenth century, raising new interest in the specifics of travels across the Atlantic and providing a new context to the much- debated facts of German emigration and American isolationism." —Frank Trommler, University of Pennsylvania

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Traveling between Worlds

1-58544-478-2
cloth
$29.95s

LC 2005025900 6x9. 204 pp. 3 b&w photos. 2 line art. 1 table. 3 illus. American History.
MAY 2006