Ernst Moritz Arndt was a patriot who rallied Prussia against Napoleon's westward expansion; he was also a passionate fighter for German national unity. His historical and political writings form the core of his literary output, but he was also an inspired poet and a competent educator. Major sources of strength throughout his long life were his reliance on the wisdom of nature, iron discipline, strong Lutheran convictions, and burning love for the nascent German nation. Convinced that rationalism, which had culminated in the anarchy of the French Revolution, would undermine the political willpower of his beloved Germans, he saw it as his life's mission to awaken them from their slumber, to mobilize their patriotic feelings against Napoleon, and to work toward the creation of a nation. To these ends he resurrected values such as national pride, religious faith, loyalty, and obedience, which had been discounted in a rationalistic...