Isaiah Berlin's "The Roots of Romanticism"

[Sneak]

I am currently working my way through this compilation of Berlin's lectures on Romanticism in the west and how Romanticism has influenced all of human cognition throughout a multitude of cultures. I would love to develop my throughts on these lectures with anyone else who has either read the book, has some familiarity with Romanticism in its various forms, or simply has some insight on the intellectual trends of western human culture in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. I'll appreciate any contribution even vaguely related to these topics.

[mal4mac]

Berlin says (p.1) that Romanticism is "the largest recent movement to transform the lives and the thought of the western world". Do you think this is correct?

[Sneak]

Sorry It took me so long to find this again, I thought I was receiving email updates from the site.
If you still haven't had your question answered I certainly do believe Romanticism to have had profound effects on our modern world. Berlin argues that the origins of Romantic thought date back to the Holy Roman Empire, or early Germany, in which there was a sort of cultural jealousy of the achievements of neighboring nations. The Germans hated the French after suffering losses from Napoleonic wars, and a surge of nationalism and unspoken embarrassment were understood by all Germans before and then through German defeat after WW1. It was a dark side effect of these romantic notions of nostalgia, of a longing for a redeemed Germany, of pure nationalism and pride in ones customs and traditions, that led an economically drowning Germany to elect Adolph Hitler as their Führer and savior. Obviously the result of this election led Germany to nearly conquer the world, and forever change the state of the human race as we know it.
There are many good products of Romanticism as well, including some of the most profound recent works of literature and art, both that fall under the banner of either romanticism or some movement inspired by the Romantics of the 1700s and 1800s.
So yes, in short. I do believe Romanticism to be one of the most influential, if not profound, movements to have been conceived in the western world since the revitalization of neo-classic notions that led followers of Isaac Newton to the Enlightenment period of the 17th and early 18th centuries.