[QUOTE=fantasyfan;2581122]I'm not nearly as far along as most of you. But just yesterday I ran across “Province, Nation, and Empire in Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks” published in German Studies Review, Oct. 2006 by Todd Kontje, University of California. The abstract gives a good summary of the main lines of thought in the piece:

“Buddenbrooks depicts the decline of the Hanseatic city-state . . . and the rise of the German National-state . . . . Buddenbrooks also reflects the development of global trade and overseas colonies, particularly in the trans-Atlantic realm. Mann’s novel . . . thus engages the panoply of fears that accompanied the process of German nationalization in an age of empire, including anxiety about the collapse of traditional social hierarchies, the inversion of gender roles, and the danger of racial contamination.”


Thanks a lot for that background Fantasyfan. I did in fact see a lot of that in Buddenbrooks.