This is a new edition of one of the great books of the latter half of the 20th century. Magris, an Italian professor of German at the University of Trieste, is an exemplar of that dying breed, the humanist scholar who is not afraid to venture out of the academy into the rough old world where the rest of us live - in the 1990s he was briefly a Senator in the Italian parliament. In Danube, he makes a journey down that tremendous river, the spinal fluid of Mitteleurop, from source to sea, meditating along the way on history, literature, politics, seeking to answer the question as to what exactly it means to be a European, and finding a variety of answers. A wise, funny, learned, and above all, a heartening book.