Umwelt und Umweltgestaltung: Leibniz’ politisches Denken in seiner Zeit, ed. Friedrich Beiderbeck, Irene Dingel and Wenchao Li

Abstract

Emperor Leopold I confided in the Elector Georg Ludwig of Hannover on 17 May 1700 that Leibniz was a ‘highly experienced, discreet and qualified man’. The remark referred to Leibniz’s political experience and it was testimony to the remarkable recognition he achieved as a non-noble even from the highest authority in the Holy Roman Empire. He was also the most extraordinary polymath. And he was one of the international intellectuals of his day who exchanged letters with some 1,100 individuals scattered across the whole of Europe; indeed, in 2007, his correspondence alone was recognised as part of the world documentary heritage and added to the register of the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme. Even gaining an overview of his prolific output is difficult and the sheer volume of writing in virtually every category is daunting. The Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften started publishing his complete works in 1923 and the work is still ongoing under the management of the Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften and the Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, with offices in Berlin, Hanover, Münster and Potsdam. The challenge is Herculean: the project will ultimately include some 60,000 items. Roughly 200,000 pages of manuscript are preserved in Hanover alone.