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THE

HISTORIAN

studying

people's

religious beliefs. He

posits

that not everyone

had

a religious con-

version

in the sixteenth century that

would

make them convinced Protestants. Rather,

he suggests,

it would

be

better

to

analyze the ways in which people were

changed by

the new forms of

religious

worship

that were

imposed from

above.

What were the

politics of

reform

and reformation? How did the politics change the religious

beliefs

and practices of the

majority

of the

English? How

did

the

people, either elite or

common,

negotiate

religious change

and use it for their own purposes? All

of

his ques-

tions are

interesting. At

the beginning

and

end

of each

section

of his book, if

not at

the

beginning and end of each chapter, he informs the

reader

of why the revisionists

(i.e.,

Scarisbrick,

Haigh, and Duffy)

have

it

wrong.

This

reviewer

found

the

format

annoying and

at

times

wondered

if the

author

was simply setting up straw men to

demolish.

Perhaps

he

would

have

served

himself

better to show that

the revisionists

did

not

look

at

the entire

picture,

rather than

repeat

how

wrong

they

were.

Ethan H.

Shagan

is

the first

author

recently

to

emphasize

that

the

Reformation

was

framed by Cromwell, Henry VIII,

and

Edward VI's councils in

terms

not of heresy and

true

belief,

although preachers

may have used that language,

but

in terms

of political

obedience. How

did

the English,

a

people schooled in obedience, react to this change?

The

author

believes that any conservative

reaction and opposition to the

imposition

of

the royal supremacy or reform was doomed

because the

Catholics were

divided

among themselves-e.g., only a small group of

people objected

to

the royal supremacy,

and the Pilgrimage of Grace did not have

unified goals. He then

examines

how

the

people

took part

in,

and

profited from, the dissolution

of

the monasteries

and

chantries

and what

the

latter

did

to their belief in purgatory and intercessory prayer.

The

author does

occasionally say things that led

this

reviewer

to

wonder

if he

understands

some of the religious material.

In

commenting on a parish

protest

over

the

changes

of 1536,

he relates the story

of a

young

man who stuck a piece of pudding

in

a priest's

mouth, rendering him

ritually

unclean and preventing him from per-

forming

his

duties (58).

The

issue is

not

whether the priest

was ritually impure

or

not the

6

nly

instance of ritual impurity

from

medieval religion that

comes

to mind

is

childbirth, and even that

is

open to

discussion-but breaking a fast imposed by

both tradition and

canon

law.

Receiving

communion after breaking

the

fast was

a

mortal

sin.

In

analyzing the

differences

between Catholic

and Protestant

positions

on

the

effect

of the death of

Jesus

on original sin and postbaptismal actual

sin,

the

author

discusses

Catholics

and

venial sin,

but

not

mortal

sin.

Despite such reservations, the

book should be

read

by

anyone interested in the reli-

gious history

of Tudor England.

Xavier University John J. LaRocca

Hitler and

the

Power

of

Aesthetics.

By

Frederic Spotts. (Woodstock

and New

York:

Overlook

Press, 2003. Pp.

xxii, 456. $37.50.)

892


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BOOK

REVIEWS

the

real

legitimation

of his

achievements

as

a

statesman

Hitler,

1973,

p. 528).

Echoing

this

view,

Frederic

Spotts,

a

former

American

career diplomat,

argues

that Hitler

was convinced

that

the ultimate

objective

of

political

effort

should

be

artistic

achievement

(xi).

The

author

relies

primarily

on

published

and

unpublished

sources

that document

Hitler's

comments

on art

and

on the

diaries

and

memoirs

of

Joseph

Goebbels

and

others

from

Hitler's

former

entourage.

For

specialists,

the

book

covers

familiar

terrain.

Still,

the

work

is

valuable

for

both

the

general reader

and

scholars

because it

is the most

comprehensive

and

competent

single-volume

summary

of

Hitler's

artistic

views

and

his attempts

to

implement

them

during

the

Third

Reich.

Spotts

agrees

with

contemporary

observers,

like Albert

Speer, and

biographers,

such

as

Joachim

Fest,

that

Hitler

was interested in

power

only

as

a

means

for

achiev-

ing

his cultural

ambitions

(15).

The

author

concentrates

on Hitler's

efforts to

create

a

culture-state

in

which

Germans

were

to

listen

to music

he

liked, attend

operas

he

loved,

see

paintings

and

sculptures

he

collected

and

admire

the

buildings

he

con-

structed

(401).

Spotts

describes

his taste

in

the

visual

arts

and

music

as reactionary.

However,

in

architecture,

Hitler

was

an

eclectic

functionalist

who

eventually

accepted

modern

technology,

including

skyscrapers.

The

author

recounts

in great

detail

Hitler's

unsuccessful

efforts

to

create quality

Nazi

music, paintings,

and

sculp-

tures.

Hitler

was

able

to denigrate

modern

art and

purge

Jews

from the

artistic

world

in

Germany,

but

he

realized

himself

that the

Nazi

era produced

no

great

painters.

And

even though

he

did less

harm

to music

than he

did to

painting

or

sculpture,

there

was

no

music

revolution

either.

In time,

Hitler hoped

that the

Bayreuth

Wagner

festivals

would

Wagnerize

Germans.

Hitler

failed

to produce

great

Nazi

works

in music

and

the

visual

arts,

but according

to

Spotts,

he had

at least

the

minimal

ability and

the

maximal

power to

construct

the buildings

he wanted

(335). But

his

major

urban

reconstruction

plans

were

not

realized

except,

perhaps,

in

the

Autobahn

(highways),

which the

author

claims

Hitler

saw as

aesthetic

monuments

(386).

Spotts's

discussion

of Hitler's

artistic

tastes and

plans

is illuminating

and

interest-

ing,

but he

does

not offer

a satisfactory

explanation

of how

genocide

and

culture

were

connected

in

Hitler's

mind.

The author

acknowledges

that

Hitler's

two

major

goals

were

racial

genocide

and

the establishment

of

a

state

in

which the

arts

were

supreme

(30).

And

he

notes

that

race

established

an

indivisible link

between

his cultural

and

political

views

(16).

Yet

Spotts maintains

that

racial

genocide

and the

military

dom-

ination

of

Europe

did

not

grow

out of

his aesthetic

ideals

(11).

Still,

the reader

is

left

with

a valuable

discussion

of Hitler's

artistic

visions, and

that, of

course, was

the

author's

primary

goal.

Mississippi

State University

Johnpeter

Horst

Grill

Univer-

893


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COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

TITLE: [Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics]

SOURCE: Historian 66 no4 Wint 2004

WN: 0436002994070

The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article and it

is reproduced with permission. Further reproduction of this article in

violation of the copyright is prohibited. To contact the publisher:

http://www.troyst.edu/organization/phialphatheta

Copyright 1982-2004 The H.W. Wilson Company. All rights reserved.

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