Wulf is an unconventional historian with an unconventional background, and her work reads much more like a narrative-driven piece of New Journalism than a theoretical entry from the Cambridge Studies series on philosophy. As revealed by the tagline of this book, The Invention of the Self, Wulf's new work is an exploration into the roots of modern conceptions of self-determination done through character studies of the Weimar classicists -- Goethe, Schiller, Fichte, and Kant in particular. I could see fans of narrative-driven nonfiction writers like Laura Hillenbrand or Roger Lowenstein enjoying Andrea Wulf in the same way.

While I am always happy to see new work focusing on the Weimar classicists, whose ideas serve as a stark contrast to dystopic forces from the brutality of the French revolution to the banality of corporate life today, I think I agree with this article writer about the weakness of Wulf's synopses. As compelling as Wulf's exposition is, it feels to me somewhat overpractical to constrain these powerful thinkers through the lens of a Socratic Know Thyself commandment in her emphasis on self-determination. Certainly there is a place for a feel-good, narrative-driven book like this, but I personally would point people towards the essays curated by Carroll, Giles, and Oergle in Aesthetics and Modernity or Leslie Sharpe's Cambridge Studies entry on Schiller for a drier but more thought provoking exploration of German Idealism and the valuable concepts it would spawn through the Frankfurt School in the twentieth century.