author
Thomas F. A. Smith
b. 1875
A close observer of early-20th-century Europe, he wrote vividly about German life, ideas, and wartime attitudes from the perspective of someone who had lived and taught there. His books offer a period view of a world on the edge of upheaval.
1 Audiobook
What Germany Thinks; Or, The War as Germans see it
by Thomas F. A. Smith
About the author
Born in 1875, Thomas F. A. Smith was a writer whose known books include The Life and Literary Works of Mrs. Augustus Craven (1910), The Soul of Germany: A Twelve Years' Study of the People from Within, 1902–14 (1915), and What Germany Thinks; or, The War as Germans See It (1915).
The surviving record available online suggests that he was especially interested in Germany and its intellectual and political climate in the years leading up to the First World War. In What Germany Thinks, he is identified as a Ph.D. and a former English lecturer at the University of Erlangen, which helps explain the firsthand tone of his writing about German society.
Beyond those details, reliable biographical information appears to be scarce. What remains most clearly is his work itself: books that tried to interpret modern Germany for English-speaking readers at a tense and decisive moment in European history.