Researching Karl Neumann

Karl Friedrich Neumann (28 December 1793 – 17 March 1870) was a German orientalist.

Neumann was born, under the name of Bamberger, at Reichsmannsdorf, near Bamberg. He studied philosophy and philology at Heidelberg, Munich and Göttingen, became a convert to Protestantism and took the name of Neumann. From 1821 to 1825 he was a teacher in Würzburg and Speyer; then he learned Armenian in Venice at the San Lazzaro degli Armeni and visited Paris and London.

In 1829 he went to China, where he studied the language and amassed a large library of valuable books and manuscripts. These, about 12,000 in number, he presented to the royal library at Munich. Returning to Germany in 1833, Neumann was made professor of Armenian and Chinese in the university of Munich. He held this position until 1852, when, owing to his pronounced revolutionary opinions, he was removed from his chair. Ten years later he settled in Berlin, where he remained until his death in 1870.

Neumann's leisure time after his enforced retirement was occupied in historical studies, and besides his "Geschichte des englischen Reichs in Asien" (Leipzig, 1857, 2 volumes), he wrote a history of the United States of America, Geschichte der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika (Berlin, 1863-1866, 3 volumes).

His other works include:*Versuch einer Geschichte der armenischen Literatur (Leipzig, 1836)*Die Völker des südlichen Russland (1846, and again 1855)*Geschichte des englisch-chinesischen Kriegs (1846, and again 1855)He also issued some translations from Chinese and Armenian:*The Catechism of the shamans, or, The laws and regulations of the priesthood of Buddha in China (1831).*Vahram's Chronicle of the Armenian Kingdom in Cilicia, during the time of the Crusades (1831); translation of Vahram of Edessa (fl. c. 1303-1330).*History of the pirates who infested the China Sea from 1807-1810 (1831).The journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (London, 1871) contains a full list of his works.

He studied classical philology, ancient history and church history at the University of Leipzig, later continuing his education at the University of Tübingen. In 1880 he received his doctorate at Leipzig with a dissertation on the anti-Christianity writings of Emperor Julian ("Prolegomena in Juliani imperatoris libros quibus impugnavit Christianos"). Following graduation, he worked as an assistant in the university library at Halle. In 1880 he became an associate professor at the University of Strasbourg, where he gained a full professorship in 1890. In 1909/10 he served as university rector.

Beginning in 1793 he studied cameralistics at the University of Jena. From 1796 he spent several years as a teacher of commercial sciences on the Danish island of Als, then in 1802 relocated to Bohemia as head of a cotton factory in Josefsthal-Kosmanos. He made the acquaintance of Franz Josef von Gerstner, who in 1807 appointed him to the Polytechnic Institute in Prague, where from 1808 to 1817, Neumann worked as a professor of chemistry. In 1817 he was named Kommerzialrat (counsellor of commerce), and from 1817 to 1826, he served on the board of commercial and factory inspections.