Friedrich Meinecke, the German historian and political philosopher, was small in stature and somewhat frail but remained mentally very vigorous and intellectually prolific until his death at the age of ninety-two. His great charm and influence were due partly to his erudition, partly to his modesty, and partly to two conflicting tendencies in his thinking that he continually sought to reconcile.

One of these tendencies was his patriotism and loyalty to Germany's best traditions of the past. As a boy he had been thrilled by the sight of the victorious German troops marching home through the Brandenburg Gate after the Franco-Prussian War. Later he admired the skill with which Otto von Bismarck established the long-desired unification of his country and saw with pride Germany's industrial and commercial expansion into a great power. After studying under the Prussian nationalist historian J. G. Droysen, Meinecke became...