In 1911, Kuno Francke, professor of German at Harvard and an officially recognized spokesman of Wilhelminian Germany for cultural affairs, edited a multivolume pendant to President Eliot's “Five-Foot Shelf” of World Literature. Francke's presentation of all of German culture is still to be found in almost every college, university, and public library in America. The volumes are never checked out. Even a casual browser in the library stacks cannot but be struck by their datedness. The trauma of two world wars, wars, in which the U.S. viewed Germany in all of its manifestations as the enemy, is part of the reason. But even more it is Francke's hidden agenda that marks their age.