Includes Adalbert Stifer's Preface to Many-Colored Stones, Granite and Limestone; Annette von Droste-Hulshoff's The Jews Beech; Jeremias Gotthelf's The Black Spider; Franz Grillparzer's The Poor Musician; and Eduard Morike's Mozart on the Way to Prague.

Carlyle's biography of Schiller is still valuable, both for its insights into Schiller's life and for Carlyle's peculiar relationship to Schiller and German literature in general. In an age that has, by and large, forgotten the great idealist poet, this earliest biography provides good reason for a reacquaintance with a noble personality and distinguished achievement.

When on May 15, 1918 a French lieutenant warned Henry Johnson of the 369th to move back because of a possible enemy raid, Johnson reportedly replied: "I'm an American, and I never retreat." The story, even if apocryphal, captures the mythic status of the Harlem Rattlers, the African-American combat unit that grew out of the 15th New York National Guard, who were said to have never lost a man to capture or a foot of ground that had been taken. It also, in its insistence on American identity, points to a truth at the heart of this book--more than fighting to make the world safe for democracy,...