The origins of modern academic autobiography: Felix Meiner's Die Wissenschaft der Gegenwart in Selbstdarstellungen, 1921-1929

This essay examines Felix Meiner's Die Wissenschaft der Gegenwart in Selbstdarstellungen ('Present-Day Knowledge in Self-Portraits', twenty-eight published volumes published between 1921 and 1929), particularly its two volumes of historians' autobiographies, as a paradigm through which we may understand the history of scholarly autobiography and the conditions under which academics turn to first-person writing. It also explores the cultural, political and sociological context of the volumes' publication and marketing.