{"id":589,"date":"2011-11-11T18:59:35","date_gmt":"2011-11-11T18:59:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/news\/specialcollections\/?p=589"},"modified":"2011-11-11T18:59:35","modified_gmt":"2011-11-11T18:59:35","slug":"589","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/2011\/11\/11\/589\/","title":{"rendered":"Weltgeschicte in Umrissen (1931) is the Featured Book of the Month for November 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Weltgeschichte in Umrissen:\u00a0Federzeichnungen eines Deutschen\u00a0(World history in outline.\u00a0\u00a0Pen and ink drawings of a German) <\/em>was first published in 1897. The book\u00a0was a\u00a0detailed study of world history up until\u00a0the end\u00a0of the nineteenth century.\u00a0 The book was well received and\u00a0proved to be quite\u00a0popular\u00a0as it\u00a0was reprinted several times in the following\u00a035 years.<\/p>\n

The author of\u00a0Weltgeschichte in Umrissen <\/em>was\u00a0the Prussian nobleman Maximilian\u00a0Graf Yorck von Wartenburg.\u00a0 Yorck was born in 1850\u00a0into an aristocratic family from Silesia, a region\u00a0in Central Europe whose lands\u00a0encompassed portions of Germany, Poland, and the\u00a0Czech Republic.\u00a0 Yorck lived on a country\u00a0estate and was taught by tutors until the death of his father, after which the family moved to Berlin.\u00a0 His schooling continued until 1870 when it was disrupted by the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War.\u00a0\u00a0 Yorck entered the military as a cadet in the 16th Uhlan Regiment and began a lifetime of military service.\u00a0\u00a0He fought in several famous battles (e.g. Vionville and Le Mars), and\u00a0returned after the war for formal military training.\u00a0\u00a0After graduating from the\u00a0Prussian War Academy, Yorck served as a military attache\u00a0in Vienna and later in\u00a0St.\u00a0Petersburg.\u00a0 He rose to the rank of colonel in the General Staff.\u00a0 While serving in the military, Yorck taught at the Prussian War Academy and authored four books on military history. In 1900, he was posted to China with German expeditionary forces sent by Kaiser Wilhelm to quell the Boxer Rebellion.\u00a0 Not long after his arrival in China, Yorck died from an accidental carbon monoxide poisoning.<\/p>\n

The Binghamton University Libraries copy of Weltgeschicte in Umrissen<\/em> was published in 1931.\u00a0 It is a rather unremarkable copy:\u00a0 a full green cloth binding that has been rebacked with matching green buckram.\u00a0 The front cover and spine are simply decorated in green with titles and author stamped in black.\u00a0 Hundreds of libraries own various editions of the book, numerous copies of it are available for purchase from various booksellers, and the 1897 first edition has been digitized by Google from the Harvard University library and has been uploaded to the internet for free use to all readers.<\/p>\n

What makes the Binghamton University Libraries copy special?\u00a0 It\u2019s the identical stamps that are on the book’s front paste-down and on the title page that separate this book from other editions.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The stamps\u00a0 are from the German Air District Command VII (Luftkreis-Kommando VII) library.\u00a0 The Luftkreis-Kommando VII was created in 1937 and its headquarters was based in Hanover, Germany.\u00a0 For an eighty year old book, it is in remarkably good condition although its spine has been repaired and rebacked with green buckram.\u00a0 The question remains:\u00a0 how did the book move from a World War II German air base to an upstate New York university library?\u00a0 The Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS) of ALA devoted an entire pre-conference to the exploration of movement of books and collections:\u00a0 Ebb and Flow: The Migration of Collections to American Libraries<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 This preconference focused on\u00a0the movement of collections from the four corners of the earth into American repositories. The Binghamton University Libraries has owned this copy of Weltgeschichete in Umrissen<\/em> for at least\u00a0three decades, but there is no information in the catalog record as to how or why the book arrived at the university.\u00a0 A\u00a0 small mystery, and for those interested in learning more about how books move from continent to continent, please click on the above preconference link. And, for those who are interested in viewing the book, it is currently housed in the Libraries’ Special Collections department.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Weltgeschichte in Umrissen:\u00a0Federzeichnungen eines Deutschen\u00a0(World history in outline.\u00a0\u00a0Pen and ink drawings of a German) was first published in 1897. The book\u00a0was a\u00a0detailed study of world history up until\u00a0the end\u00a0of the nineteenth century.\u00a0 The book was well received and\u00a0proved to be quite\u00a0popular\u00a0as it\u00a0was reprinted several times in the following\u00a035 years. The author of\u00a0Weltgeschichte in Umrissen was\u00a0the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,11],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-589","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-books","7":"category-featured-book"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}