Einsamkeit und Freiheit

Aby Warburg (1866-1929) was an influential figure in the academic development of interdisciplinary studies during the early years of the twentieth century, and Hans Hönes’s excellent new biography charts the contributions and contradictions of Warburg’s life and work. Born into an immensely rich banking family in Germany, Warburg nevertheless resisted the expectations associated with his Jewish family background and, despite his grandmother’s hope that he might become a rabbi, opted to carve out for himself a career in humanities scholarship.