Like a sponge thrown into water
Subtitle: Francis Lieber's European travel journal of 1844-1845
By: by one of the nineteenth-century's most influential minds ; edited by Charles R. Mack and Ilona S. Mack.
Contributors: Mack, Charles R., 1940-; Mack, Ilona S. 1943-
Publisher: University of South Carolina Press for the South Caroliniana Library
Published: 2002
Place of publication: Columbia
Language: eng
Number of pages: 193
Subjects: Lieber, Francis, 1800-1872 -- Travel -- Europe.; Political scientists -- United States -- Biography.; German Americans -- Biography.; Europe -- Description and travel.
Genres: Biography.
Description: ""I live the life of a long dried sponge thrown into water," enthused the celebrated intellectual Francis Lieber (1798-1872) in a letter from Paris to his friend, the future Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner. In that letter, Lieber, a scholar well known on both sides of the Atlantic, described his joyous return to Europe in 1844 after two decades teaching and working in the United States. During his ten-month sabbatical, Lieber gloried in Europe's people, places, art, theater, and diversity.

With passionate attention to detail, he not only wrote letters to his friends but also chronicled his travels in a diary. Lieber's previously unpublished account of these months, including passages translated from their original German, offers a fast-paced and exciting picture of the European culture and political milieu of the 1840s. The diary provides insights into the remarkable person who kept it."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [177]-179) and index.
"A lively tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Austria, and Bohemia : with observations on politics, the visual and performing arts, economics, religion, penology, technology, history, literature, social customs, travel, geography, jurisprudence, linguistics, personalities, and numerous other matters."
"Transcribed from the autograph manuscript preserved in the Collections of the South Caroliniana Library at the University of South Carolina."