2023-08-01 16:39:08
This is where the monthly recommendation list with the widest distribution in German-speaking countries appears. Media partners are “Die Literarische Welt”, RBB Kultur, “NZZ” and Radio Österreich 1. Experts from an independent jury select ten non-fiction books of the month from the humanities, natural sciences, social sciences and economics. Worthwhile in August:
1. Nikolai Epplee:
The uncomfortable past. Dealing with state crimes in Russia and elsewhere. Suhrkamp, 599 pages, 30 euros
Advertisement
Buy The Inconvenient Past online
The Putin regime will have to face up to its crimes against the state at the latest before history has come, just like other states before it. The Russian political scientist Nikolai Epplée looks at global examples for his book. Also Germany. Read a detailed review here.
2. Eve of Redecker:
freedom to stay. S. Fischer, 160 pages, 22 euros
Advertisement
Buy “Freedom of Stay” online now
Freedom of speech or freedom of opinion are terms that everyone knows. The philosopher and publicist Eva von Redecker wants to establish a new concept of freedom: the “freedom to live in a place where we could stay”. Her considerations relate to places that are affected, for example, by wars or the consequences of climate change.
3. Michael Frank:
One hundred Saturdays. Stella Levi and the Search for a Lost World. Rowohlt Berlin, 336 pages, 24 euros
Advertisement
Buy “One Hundred Saturdays” online now
The focus of this book is Stella Levi, now 100 years old, who grew up in the Jewish quarter of La Juderia on the island of Rhodes. In the fall of 1943, the Germans occupied the island and deported Levi to Auschwitz. She survives – and starts a whole new life in the United States, where Michael Frank, a regular contributor to leading American media, met her. A book about a life between Sephardic tradition and modernity, Orient and Occident.
4. Ulrike von Hirschhausen / Joern Leonhard:
Empires. A global history 1780 – 1920. CH Beck, 736 pages, 49 euros
Advertisement
Buy Empires online now
Empires determine world politics, yesterday, today and probably also tomorrow. This book helps to better understand the structures and functions of imperial claims to power. The two historians (Hirschhausen teaches in Rostock, Leonhard in Freiburg) look at the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, Habsburg and Russia, among other things.
5. Habbo Knoch:
In the name of dignity. A German story. Hanser, 479 pages, 29 euros
Advertisement
Buy “In the Name of Dignity” online now
Habbo Knoch is a historian at the University of Cologne. In this book, he looks at the abstract promise with which the German Basic Law begins in its concrete interpretations since 1949. Initially it was about distance from the Nazi dictatorship, but later other concerns related to dignity came along, such as sexual equality. Read more about recent interpretations of the Basic Law here.
6. Cynthia Fleury:
This is where bitterness lies buried. About resentment and its healing. Suhrkamp, 314 pages, 28 euros
Advertisement
Buy “Here Lies Buried Bitterness” online
The author is a French philosopher and psychoanalyst. Accordingly, she directs her attention to social insults that underlie resentment and feelings of hatred. Read a detailed book review here.
7. Bernhard Jussen:
The Gift of Orestes. A history of post-Roman Europe 526 – 1535. CH Beck, 480 pages, 44 euros
Advertisement
Buy “The Gift of Orestes” online now
The Frankfurt historian Bernhard Jussen wants to abolish the term “Middle Ages”. This epoch is a completely wrong construct. But what should the age be called instead? He makes a surprising suggestion: “Millennium of the Turtle Dove”. Read a detailed book review here.
8. Monika Dommann:
Material flow. A history of logistics at the places of its standstill. S. Fischer, 288 pages, 28 euros
Advertisement
Buy “Material Flow” online now
People have been waiting for this book since 2021 when a container ship got stuck in the Suez Canal in a visually stunning way, and since there was repeated talk of disrupted supply chains as a result of the corona pandemic. The Zurich historian Dommann takes an intelligent look at all sorts of infrastructure elements of globalization: warehouses, packaging, Euro pallets and “just in time” standards.
9. Henrike Lähnemann / Eva Schlotheuber:
Outrageous women. The network of nuns in the Middle Ages. Propylaea, 224 pages, 26 euros
Advertisement
Buy “Outrageous Women” online now
This book sheds light on an epoch in which we were only interested in monks for a long time. With Henrike Lähnemann (historian in Oxford) and Eva Schlotheuber (Düsseldorf) the nuns have their say: From their diaries and letters we learn how the women in the cloister thought, believed and loved. Read more about women in the Middle Ages here.
10. Elizabeth Duval:
After Trans. Sex, Gender and the Left. Wagenbach (small cultural studies library), 224 pages, 24 euros
Advertisement
Buy “After Trans” online now
More and more people do not identify with the gender they were assigned at birth. The Spanish philosopher, born in 2000, discusses the social discrimination of fluid genders, the heated climate of debate and the limits of gender self-determination. She considers the continued existence of the binary social order to be realistic.
The extra recommendation
In addition to the ten tips from the jury, there is a recommendation from a guest every month. This time by Prof. Dr. Christoph Türcke. He taught philosophy at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig until 2014 and recommends:
Hans-Ernst Schiller: The reality of the general. Social forms of objective reason: value, technology, state and language. Westphalian steamboat, 370 pages, 40 euros
“At a time when only racism and exclusion are perceived as fundamental social evils, but no longer the fundamental forms of socialization, on the terms of which exclusion and inclusion, devaluation and appreciation are carried out, it is all the more urgent to realize that the basic social evils sit much deeper: in the overall context to which modern value formation, technological development, state development and their linguistic forms of representation have become entangled. A thorough, extremely factual reflection on what is essential, for which we are in danger of becoming blind because of its permanent presence.” (Christoph Türcke)
The jury of non-fiction books of the month
Tobias Becker, “Spiegel”; Natascha Freundel, RBB Culture; Eike Gebhardt, Berlin; Knud von Harbou, publicist, Feldafing; Prof. Jochen Hörisch, University of Mannheim; Günter Kaindlstorfer, Vienna; Otto Kallscheuer, Sassari (Italy); Petra Kammann, “Feuilleton Frankfurt”; Jörg-Dieter Kogel, Bremen; Wilhelm Krull, The New Institute, Hamburg; Marianna Lieder, freelance critic, Berlin; Lukas Meyer-Blankenburg, SWR 2 Knowledge; Prof. Herfried Münkler, Humboldt University; Gerlinde Pölsler, “Moth”; Marc Reichwein, WORLD; Thomas Ribi, “Neue Zürcher Zeitung”; Prof. Sandra Richter, German Literature Archive Marbach; Wolfgang Ritschl, ORF; Florian Rötzer, “Krass & Concrete”; Norbert Seitz, Berlin; Anne-Catherine Simon, “Die Presse”, Vienna; Prof. Philipp Theisohn, University of Zurich; Andreas Wang, Berlin; Harro Zimmermann, Bremen; Stefan Zweifel, Switzerland.
#nonfiction #books #releases #August #extra #recommendation