At this point we recommend the non-fiction books of the month. The media partners are “Die Literarische Welt”, RBB Kultur, “NZZ” and Radio Österreich 1. Experts from an independent jury select ten titles from the fields of humanities, natural sciences, social sciences and economics. In November the following applies:
1. Andreas Reckwitz:
Loss. A fundamental problem of modernity. Suhrkamp, 464 pages, 32 euros.
Sociology is booming again. Here is an almost encyclopedic analysis of the question of why our faith in progress has eroded so radically. Reckwitz talks about the “modern paradox”. Read a detailed review of the book here.
2. Eva Illouz:
Explosive modernity. Suhrkamp, 447 pages, 32 euros.
Emotions have become fashionable – even as a scientific object. Sociologist Eva Illouz asks whether feelings are just a private – or even political – matter. Read a detailed review of the book here.
3. Jens Bisky:
The decision. Germany from 1929 to 1934. Rowohlt Berlin, 640 pages, 34 euros.
The failure of the Weimar Republic and why it concerns us today. Bisky combines clarity with deep analysis.
4. Anselm Schubert:
Christ (m/f/d). A gender story. CH Beck, 396 pages, 32 euros.
The church history professor from Erlangen explains how gender issues have been discussed in many ways in the history of Christianity. Read how gender ideas influence the church here.
5. Wolfram Eilenberger:
Spirits of the present. The final years of philosophy and the beginning of a new Enlightenment 1948–1984. Velcro crush, 496 p., 28 euros.
Thinkers are best in a four-pack: Using the examples of Adorno, Susan Sontag, Michel Foucault, and Paul K. Feyerabend, Eilenberger demonstrates why the history of philosophy only becomes illuminating through constellations. Read a portrait of the Eilenberger method here.
6. Aleida and Jan Assmann:
Community spirit. The sixth, the social sense. CH Beck, 262 pages, 25 euros.
For a long time, enlightenment was thought of only as individual maturity, but this is not enough, Aleida and Jan (†) Assmann explain in their brief history of ideas on empathy, which presupposes that a functioning democracy cannot exist without social cohesion . Read the interview with the Assmanns, who received the German Book Trade Peace Prize in 2018, here.
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