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This is the first complete biography of Ernst Kantorowicz (1895-1963), an influential and controversial German-American intellectual whose colorful and dramatic life intersected with many of the great events and thinkers of his time. A medieval historian whose ideas exerted an influence far beyond his field, he is most famous for two books - a notoriously nationalistic 1927 biography of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II and The Kings Two Bodies (1957), a classic study of medieval politics.

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"Ernst Kantorowicz, one of the most interesting and influential historians of the twentieth century, has found his ideal biographer in Robert Lerner, who as a medievalist is well versed in the many branches of Kantorowicz´s scholarship. Drawing on unique sources, including important collections of unpublished letters and interviews with people who knew Kantorowicz, Lerner presents a lively, vivid picture of the historians life and writings."--Eckhart Grünewald, author of Ernst Kantorowicz and Stefan George

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Robert E. Lerner is professor emeritus of history at Northwestern University, where he taught medieval history for more than forty years. The author of many books, he is a fellow of the Medieval Academy of America and the American Academy in Rome, and a former member of the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton.

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