Robert E. Lerner

Ernst Kantorowicz was one of the most influential medieval historians of the twentieth century, and one whose life more than merited a biography of his own: a bisexual dandy born into a wealthy Jewish family, a veteran of the First World War who began his academic career as part of a reactionary, homoerotic group of romantic nationalists, wrote a best-selling biography of the Emperor Frederick which became a cultural lodestone for Nazis during the 1930s, fled to the U.S. just before the outbreak of the Second World War, and became a professor at Berkeley where he hosted boozy, erudite dinners and was one of the lead activists to push back against the anti-Communist loyalty oaths of the 1950s.

Robert Lerner was well-placed to write this biography—himself a well-known medievalist, he draws on personal conversations and correspondence with many people who knew Kantorowicz personally. I find it hard to imagine this biography ever being surpassed. Yet despite the depth of Lerner's research, Kantorowicz himself remains an elusive subject, a bundle of contradictions (generous, witty, and determined to live life to the full, he was also a thorough-going misogynist and a snob) whose ideological shifts are difficult to track or categorise. Still, I finished the book rather thinking that that is how Kantorowicz himself would have wished it.… (altro)