Barry Emslie: 3 books

German history never loses its fascination. It is exceptionally varied, contradictory, and raises difficult problems for the historian. In a material sense, there have been a great many Germanies, so that it was long unclear what "Germany" would amount to geopolitically, while German intellectuals...

Richard Wagner and the Centrality of Love is a bold book which argues that Wagner's music dramas cannot be understood if treated separately from his essays, his life, the intellectual and artistic climate of his day, and the broader history of Germany. Wagner attempts a range of reconciliations that...

In this book, Emslie establishes that narrative explanations are to be preferred over non-narrative in the humanities. They are more truthful in two senses. They both correspond more closely to reality and allow inference as to normative values. This is particularly the case when aesthetics are added to the mix.