New York Times Book Review
"Easton deftly fills in the rich cultural context of Kessler's many realms."


The Economist
"In the first full biography in English, Laird Easton describes Kessler's life in detail and well."


Harper's magazine
"[Kessler's] life seems to have been written by Thomas Mann, whose fate in many ways ran parallel."


Book Description
20 b/w photographs The life of Count Harry Kessler (1868-1937), the famous Anglo-German art patron, writer, and activist, offers a vivid and engrossing perspective on the tumultuous transformation of art and politics that took place in modern Europe between 1890 and 1930. In the first half of his career Kessler was one of the most ardent and well-known champions of aesthetic modernism in Imperial Germany, becoming a friend and patron to pioneering artists and writers of his day, most notably French sculptor Aristide Maillol, Belgian architect Henry van de Velde, English theater designer Gordon Craig, and Austrian poet and playwright Hugo von Hofmannsthal and, in his capacity as director of the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Weimar and vice-president of the German Artists League, served as a spokesman and lightning rod for embattled modern art. In the aftermath of the First World War, in which he served as a soldier, propagandist, and secret agent, Kessler embarked on a public career as a committed internationalist and pacifist, a stance that led ultimately to his exile from Germany upon the Nazi seizure of power. Making use of the recently discovered portions of Kessler's extensive diaries, one of the most remarkable journals ever written, Laird Easton explains the reasons for this startling metamorphosis, showing for the first time the continuities between Kessler's prewar aestheticism and his postwar politics and highlighting his importance within the larger history of the rise of modern art and politics. This lively narrative, the first English-language biography of Harry Kessler, provides a rich and fascinating portrait of the man whom W. H. Auden called "a crown witness of our times."


From the Back Cover
"A richly contextualized portrait of a key Weimar figure, who deserves to be better known. Easton is a lively writer."-Martin Jay, University of California, Berkeley "Provocative and original . . . . The Red Count should be welcomed by a growing number of cultural historians interested in reassessing the politics of European modernism and in current debates about the trajectory of German political culture and cultural politics in the decades before the rise of fascism."-Kevin Repp, Yale University "Extremely well-written. Easton's prose is fluid, colorful, and eminently readable."-Marion Deshmukh, George Mason University


About the Author
Laird M. Easton is Associate Professor of History at California State University, Chico.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The life of Count Harry Kessler (1868-1937), the famous Anglo-German art patron, writer, and activist, offers a vivid and engrossing perspective on the tumultuous transformation of art and politics that took place in modern Europe between 1890 and 1930. In the first half of his career Kessler was one of the most ardent and well-known champions of aesthetic modernism in Imperial Germany, becoming a friend and patron to pioneering artists and writers of his day, most notably French sculptor Aristide Maillol, Belgian architect Henry van de Velde, English theater designer Gordon Craig, and Austrian poet and playwright Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and -- in his capacity as director of the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Weimar and vice-president of the German Artists League -- serving as a spokesman and lightning rod for embattled modern art. In the aftermath of the First World War, in which he served as a soldier, propagandist, and secret agent, Kessler embarked on a public career as a committed internationalist and pacifist, a stance that led ultimately to his exile from Germany upon the Nazi seizure of power.

Making use of the recently discovered portions of Kessler's extensive diaries, among the most remarkable journals ever written, Laird Easton explains the reasons for this startling metamorphosis, showing for the first time the continuities between Kessler's prewar aestheticism and his postwar politics and highlighting his importance within the larger history of the rise of modern art and politics. This lively narrative, the first English-language biography of Harry Kessler, provides a rich and fascinating portrait of the man whom W. H. Auden called "a crown witness of our times."

SYNOPSIS

20 b/w photographs
The life of Count Harry Kessler (1868-1937), the famous Anglo-German art patron, writer, and activist, offers a vivid and engrossing perspective on the tumultuous transformation of art and politics that took place in modern Europe between 1890 and 1930. In the first half of his career Kessler was one of the most ardent and well-known champions of aesthetic modernism in Imperial Germany, becoming a friend and patron to pioneering artists and writers of his day, most notably French sculptor Aristide Maillol, Belgian architect Henry van de Velde, English theater designer Gordon Craig, and Austrian poet and playwright Hugo von Hofmannsthal and, in his capacity as director of the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Weimar and vice-president of the German Artists League, served as a spokesman and lightning rod for embattled modern art. In the aftermath of the First World War, in which he served as a soldier, propagandist, and secret agent, Kessler embarked on a public career as a committed internationalist and pacifist, a stance that led ultimately to his exile from Germany upon the Nazi seizure of power. Making use of the recently discovered portions of Kessler's extensive diaries, one of the most remarkable journals ever written, Laird Easton explains the reasons for this startling metamorphosis, showing for the first time the continuities between Kessler's prewar aestheticism and his postwar politics and highlighting his importance within the larger history of the rise of modern art and politics. This lively narrative, the first English-language biography of Harry Kessler, provides a rich and fascinating portrait of the man whom W. H. Auden called "a crown witness of our times."

FROM THE CRITICS

Economist

W.H. Auden called him probably the most cosmopolitan man who ever lived. Aesthete, patron, diplomat, diarist, peace campaigner, defender of the Weimar republic and exile from Nazism, this ultra-sophisticated German count belongs to a type that probably no longer exists: a moneyed and cultivated amateur whose brains and background brought him effortless access to politics, society and intellectual life in any capital where he set foot. In the first full biography in English, Laird Easton describes Kessler's life in detail and well.

New York Times Book Review

Easton deftly fills in the rich cultural context of Kessler's many realms.

Count Harry Kessler, German diplomat, aesthete, patron of the arts, publisher, biographer, diarist, librettist, collector of art and books, army officer, and museum director, was, in W.H. Auden's opinion, 'probably the most cosmopolitan man who ever lived.' His life seems to have been written by Thomas Mann, whose fate in many ways ran parallel. Easton's (The Red Count can be enjoyed as both cultural history and ironic tragedy.

Times Literary Supplement

From Laird M. Easton's Life of Kessler, told in an exemplary fashion, there is much to learn about what went wrong at such a crucial period of German history. And about the danger inherent in a belief in the improving power of culture.

New York Review of Books