“In Magnificent Rebels, her new history of the Jena Set, the German-British historian Andrea Wulf advances the argument that the very birth of modern individuality . . . took place in those houses and narrow streets, in those taverns and university lecture halls. It is a bold claim. The remarkable thing about the book is that Wulf not only stands it up but in the process weaves a thrilling page-turner of a story . . . Wulf brings her account to life with a phenomenal eye for visceral detail in letters and other accounts from the time, recalling her 2015 masterpiece The Invention of Nature, about Alexander von Humboldt” – New Statesman
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