Ever since the appearance of Edward Said's seminal Orientalism in 1978, one of his exclusions has triggered the curiosity of the scholarly world. If Said's study centered on the works of French and English Orientalists, the readers are left in the dark as to the methods and opinions of their German colleagues. Marchand's German Orientalism is a first detailed account of their work. Though the writer's focus is placed on the period 1820 to 1918, she adopts a long historical perspective. Indeed, Marchand argues that the efforts of the German scholars can be understood as a part of an ongoing Christian humanist discussion with its origins in Reformatory study of the Bible. It is also her contention that we cannot speak of a single German “orientalism” set against a cultural “Other,” but of a plethora of opinions and interpretations used at various aims. Methodologically, she consciously abstains from the “discourse analysis” that has dominated much of this field, and instead explores the “practice” of academic studies. German Orientalism is not just a study of opinions, but also of the “cultural milieux” (xxiii) within which oriental scholarship originated. Therefore, the main sources to her study consist not only of theses and scholarly articles but also of a range of biographies and of material relating to the German academic scene.

Marchand successfully uses the concept of generational differences to organize her account. After a first chapter in which the study of oriental languages is located within the quest for the pure Christianity of the Reformation, Marchand highlights the new impetus gained by the early nineteenth-century Romantics. The philosopher/poet Friedrich Schlegel here becomes a central figure. In his idyllic vision, the Orient became an antidote toward the increasing materialism and this-worldliness of contemporary Europe. Schlegel's vision of the Orient leads up to the groundbreaking scholarship of another Romantic, Friedrich Creuzer. The publication of his Symbolic und Mythologie der alten Völker (1810–1812) provoked intense scholarly debate; the Creuzer Streit became a turning point which left its mark on all those, at that time mostly Old Testament scholars, pursuing the academic study of the Orient. After the turmoil surrounding Creuzer's magnum opus a new generation took the lead. Marchand identifies this as the “positivist” generation bent on “fact finding” and minute philological studies. But this was also a group of scholars who successfully fought a two-front war. On the one hand, they struggled to make the study of oriental languages and historical cultures an independent scholarly discipline, shaped on Alexander von Humboldt's ideal of Wissenschaftlichkeit, trying to escape its traditional role as an ancillary theological discipline. On the other hand, they were also deeply affected by the rivalry with their more visible, and decidedly more prosperous, fellow scholars, the Classicists. The legacy of the “positivist” generation was eventually left to more flamboyant heirs: in Marchand's terminology, the “furious Orientalists.” If their predecessors had valued privacy and invisibility, these students of the Orient immensely increased public awareness of the revolutionary potential inherent within their field of study. To a considerable degree they pointed at the interconnections, and indeed the floating boundaries, between classical antiquity and oriental civilization. In a Germany where the educated elite juxtaposed Bildung with proficiency in classical Greek, their argument shocked bourgeois prejudice and good sense. But it was their questioning of the uniqueness of biblical revelation that created the greatest stir. With the expanding knowledge of ancient Assyrian and Babylonian civilizations, the message and the ideas of Old Testament prophets and lawgivers seemed not so exceptional any more. “Babel und die Bibel” turned into a question which haunted the public, well beyond the academic scene, around the turn of the twentieth century. In the last three chapters of Marchand's book, the question of the relation between Orientalist knowledge and the actuality of a German empire in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is addressed. Marchand stresses here the continued—even in the light of a rising demand of Orientalist expertise (which meant for those who listened to this Siren's call a departure from traditional German scholarly ideals) to aid in the governance of conquered lands—complex and contradictory views of the merits and defects of oriental civilizations.

It is understandable that anyone working at such a complex and extensive field as Marchand has to impose strict delimitations in order to successfully conclude the investigation. However, it is to be regretted that German Orientalism adopts a rather narrow definition of the term “Orientalist.” The center of attention is “men and women who did actually learn eastern languages or devote themselves to intense study of eastern cultures” (340). Marchand's work becomes a study of well-reputed, however not uncontroversial, members of the academic craft, and large groups of possible claimants to the title are excluded. Especially for the early period, before the arrival of the Wilhelmine empire, others, such as missionaries and diplomats, writing from an informed perspective of the Orient, could have been made the subject of study. Such an inclusion would have, for example, generated valuable contrasts between the interpretations circulating within the academy and notions held by the public at large. Even when working with the “production” of knowledge, such a perspective needs to be included in order to understand the dynamic of the scholarly milieu.

German Orientalism is an essential and engaging work that deserves to be read by all students of European intellectual history. Marchand's account successfully establishes the complexity and ambivalence of the German academic understanding of the Orient. Her longue durée perspective in combination with her astute contextualizations will undoubtedly leave a lasting impact on all future endeavors into this fascinating field.