"Under these 360 semi-independent princelings [of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806] life was easy-going, static, unadventurous. A cultured aristocracy flourished with gentlemanly inefficiency. The economic standards of living were low from our viewpoint, but really high compared with those of the earlier seventeenth century. From this mellow atmosphere, so rich with accumulated tradition, ripened the very finest fruits of German culture. Even the pettiest courts vied at attracting creative intellects. The court of the tiny Duchy of Weimar was simultaneously graced by Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, Jean Paul, and Herder. This is more cultural greatness in a feeble state of a few square miles than the whole modern German state and most modern power states can boast."
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Academics from the United StatesHistorians from the United StatesPolitical authors from the United States20th-century poets from the United StatesConservatives from the United States
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Peter Viereck
Peter Robert Edwin Viereck (August 5, 1916 – May 13, 2006) was an American poet and professor of history at Mount Holyoke College. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1949 for the collection Terror and Decorum. In 1955 he was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Florence.
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