Ludicrous Book Summaries

I was wondering if anyone else had run across a publisher's book summary that had you scratching your head afterwards, still wondering what on earth they were trying to sell. I had merely done a book search on "art, romanticism" and ... well, here's my first one:

Romanticism, Aesthetics, and Nationalism, by David Aram Aram Kaiser, Marilyn Butler (Editor), James Chandler (Editor). Publisher: Cambridge University Press. Series: Cambridge Studies in Romanticism Ser., #34. ISBN: 0521022681 and ISBN-13: 9780521022682

"This study argues that our modern conception of the aesthetic sphere emerged during the era of British and German Romanticism from conflicts between competing models of the liberal state and the cultural nation. The aesthetic sphere is thus centrally connected to "aesthetic statism," which is the theoretical project of reconciling conflicts in the political sphere by appealing to the unity of the symbol. David Kaiser traces the trajectory of aesthetic statism from Schiller and Coleridge, through Arnold, Mill and Ruskin, to Adorno and Habermas. He analyzes how the concept of aesthetic autonomy shifts from being a supplement to the political sphere to an end in itself; this shift lies behind the problems that contemporary literary theory has faced in its attempts to connect the aesthetic and political spheres. Finally, he suggests that we rethink the aesthetic sphere in order to regain that connection."

At times like this, you just gotta love the Geiko Caveman: "Yeah, I got an answer to that: Uh, what?"

"Rethink the aesthetic sphere"? I'd rather they re-think the book summary, but maybe that's just me. No, really, Cambridge - what's the book about?

Originally published:  Sep. 30th, 2007 at 11:14 AM