Jacob Burckhardt (1818–1897) has long been recognized as one of the most important historians of the nineteenth century. His principal works, The Age of Constantine the Great (1852) and The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860), and his posthumous Greek Cultural History (1902) and Reflections on History (1905), remain in print and continue to be read and studied with profit today. Indeed, the questions raised in his study of the Italian Renaissance still define how historians interpret this field of history.

The Swiss historian's enduring legacy is further reflected in the many excellent scholarly studies that have appeared in German, English and Italian over the past decade or so. Whereas much of this recent work has focused on Burckhardt's approach to history, Richard Sigurdson's new study is an attempt to analyze his underappreciated and undervalued political views. For those familiar with Burckhardt's work, this emphasis on his political thought might appear strange. Burckhardt, a citizen of the Swiss city-state of Basel, was not a political theorist, did not participate in politics or even like politicians, and did not write political history. In fact, his fame lies in his development of the discipline of cultural history. Some have therefore concluded that he represents the archetypal “apolitical” German.

Sigurdson's work neatly dissects this view, arguing that while Burckhardt did not offer a grand political theory, he was nonetheless an astute political thinker whose views not only provide insight into nineteenth-century political history, but also offer valuable lessons for today. The context for the study of Burckhardt's political thought is his penetrating critique of modernity. This was a defining feature of his famous works of cultural history and provides the foundation for his political and social thought. Appropriately, therefore, Sigurdson begins his study by examining Burckhardt's place in the history of nineteenth-century historiography, his relationship with the founder of modern historical writing, Leopold von Ranke, and the development of his unique brand of cultural history. Of special significance here is Burckhardt's great appreciation of the thought of the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, whose rejection of Hegelianism, philosophy of the Will, and condemnation of the idea of progress shaped his approach to cultural history and his understanding of politics.

The second part of the book examines Burckhardt's social and political thought and concludes with a pertinent comparison of Burckhardt and his Basel colleague, Friedrich Nietzsche. Both men were guided by a fundamental anti-modernism. Burckhardt maintained that there had been “an irrevocable break between the modern age and everything that came earlier” (176). This belief guided Burckhardt's political thought but meant that he could embrace wholeheartedly neither liberalism, the epitome of modernity, nor conservatism. Rather, he believed that these modern ideologies, in the context of the rise of the modern state, the development of industrial capitalism, and the emergence of mass society, emphasized power over culture. This threatened liberty and individuality, and destroyed cultural creativity, for Burckhardt the true expression of individual freedom. Like Nietzsche, Burckhardt consequently lamented the rise of the strong German state under Bismarck, believing it marked the end of German cultural creativity.

Today, Burckhardt's assessment of liberalism and modernity, especially his rejection of liberal democracy and mass society, appears hopelessly reactionary. However, his prophetic pronouncements about the ability of the terribles simplificateurs to manipulate the masses for their demagogic purposes proved to be accurate, as was his perceptive understanding of the contradictions of liberalism, namely the realization that liberalism could repress just as easily as it could emancipate. Likewise, his solutions smack of an elitism out of tune with current thinking and practice; his advocacy of ascetic and aesthetic retreat seems rather naïve, to say the least, in an age of mass politics.

Nonetheless his untimely thoughts provide insight into the complex and varied intellectual world of the nineteenth century and remain relevant today. Mass consumption, the reduction of life to “economic rationality,” the expansion of state power, and spiritual impoverishment in an age of material wealth should perhaps concern us as much as they did Burckhardt. Our good fortune, at least, is that Sigurdson has introduced a new voice to these ongoing discussions. His work is a very significant contribution, not just to the study of political thought but to nineteenth-century historiography and cultural history. Sigurdson's new, critical and comprehensive examination is the clearest and most concise analysis of Burckhardts politics to date.