For centuries, Europe's eastward gaze has been wary if not hostile. Medieval man envisaged grotesque beings at the world's edge and scanned the steppes and straits on the immediate horizon for the Asian or Arab hordes that might swarm across them. Through the Crusades, the early modern era, and the age of imperialism, Europeans regarded the Eastern subject as requiring both -discovery- and conquest. Conveniently, the -Oriental- came to represent fanaticism, terrorism, moral laxity, and inscrutability, among other stereotypes. The list of German literary works that reinforced negative cliches...