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I finished reading Dueling: The Cult of Honor in Fin-de-Siecle Germany, by Kevin McAleer. I finished the book months ago and this post has sat in my drafts unreviewed since then until now because by all the petty things you might ever pray to, this book was bad. This book was not good. This book was the kind of book that shitposting was actually invented for.
If you absolutely must read a book on dueling in Germany in the mid-1800s to early 1900s, I hope you have found some other options. This book is not at all good.
The author notes in his introduction that he finds the idea of dueling romantic and that he thinks if he had been alive back then, he would have dueled. Yes. Yes, he would, because dozens of people would have challenged him.
Folks, I am an easy sell when it comes to histories of dueling. I will read dry academic articles. I will read the footnotes. This book would be so much better if it were merely dry. Dry can be informative! This book is full of errant failures of logic, bizarre intrusions of full brooding capital letters for nouns like Truth and Beauty, and a sort of constant underwash of misogyny like the taste you might get if you accidentally poured yourself a mug of coffee in the morning without realizing there was half an inch of last night's mediocre lemonade still drying out in the bottom of the mug.
Normally I try to charitably attribute this kind of mix of the subject matter and the narrative tone to a sort of accidental mixing that has occurred when the unpleasant notes of the past have swirled, like unset watercolors, into the ink of the narrative framing. In this case the author explicitly told us, in the text, that he sought out this research because it felt like his kind of thing. So. Mixing = canonically intentional in this case.
Nonetheless, and quite disturbingly, the book actually was quite useful for the purpose for which I read it, which was to help me imagine how scientific societies full of epic douchecanoe bros wearing the scientific society equivalent of feather-bedecked science fedoras might conceptualize their dueling habits. That is, however, a real specific sort of purpose. This is not a general use book is what I'm saying here.
So. This book exists. You could conceivably read a copy if you find it. You have been warned.
If you absolutely must read a book on dueling in Germany in the mid-1800s to early 1900s, I hope you have found some other options. This book is not at all good.
The author notes in his introduction that he finds the idea of dueling romantic and that he thinks if he had been alive back then, he would have dueled. Yes. Yes, he would, because dozens of people would have challenged him.
Folks, I am an easy sell when it comes to histories of dueling. I will read dry academic articles. I will read the footnotes. This book would be so much better if it were merely dry. Dry can be informative! This book is full of errant failures of logic, bizarre intrusions of full brooding capital letters for nouns like Truth and Beauty, and a sort of constant underwash of misogyny like the taste you might get if you accidentally poured yourself a mug of coffee in the morning without realizing there was half an inch of last night's mediocre lemonade still drying out in the bottom of the mug.
Normally I try to charitably attribute this kind of mix of the subject matter and the narrative tone to a sort of accidental mixing that has occurred when the unpleasant notes of the past have swirled, like unset watercolors, into the ink of the narrative framing. In this case the author explicitly told us, in the text, that he sought out this research because it felt like his kind of thing. So. Mixing = canonically intentional in this case.
Nonetheless, and quite disturbingly, the book actually was quite useful for the purpose for which I read it, which was to help me imagine how scientific societies full of epic douchecanoe bros wearing the scientific society equivalent of feather-bedecked science fedoras might conceptualize their dueling habits. That is, however, a real specific sort of purpose. This is not a general use book is what I'm saying here.
So. This book exists. You could conceivably read a copy if you find it. You have been warned.
