WORLD best list: non-fiction books of the month August 2022

AThe list of recommendations with the greatest distribution in the German-speaking area is published monthly here. Media partners are “Literarische Welt”, “NZZ”, RBB Kultur and Radio Österreich 1. Experts choose ten non-fiction books of the month from the humanities, natural sciences, social sciences and economics. Worthwhile in August:

1. Fritz Breithaupt

The narrative brain. What our neurons tell. Suhrkamp, 368 pages, 28 euros

How important are stories to the human brain? The cognitive scientist Fritz Breithaupt gives a clear answer by declaring homo sapiens to be “homo narrans”.

2. Rainer Herr

Of love and sorrow. The Institute for Sexual Science 1919 – 1933. Suhrkamp, 681 pages, 36 euros

The institute was opened in Berlin’s Tiergarten in 1919 and had the purpose of treating the subject of sexuality in its entirety. The medical historian Rainer Herr traces how long this approach was highly controversial.

3. Laurence C. Smith

World History of Rivers. How mighty rivers created empires, destroyed cultures and shaped our civilization. Translated by Jürgen Schroeder. Settlers, 448 pages, 26 euros

Most major cities were founded on the banks of rivers. In his world history of the great rivers, the environmental and geoscientist Laurence Smith draws attention to a generally underestimated culture-forming natural force.

4. Michel Leiris

Phantom Africa. Edited by Irene Albers. Revised and expanded new edition. Translated by Rolf Wintermeyer and Tim Trzaskalik. With an afterword by Hans-Jürgen Heinrichs. Matthes & Seitz, 967 pages, 68 euros

This diary of a trip to Africa is an ethnographic classic, although or precisely because its author, the French writer Michel Leiris, was highly controversial among ethnologists during his lifetime.

5. Anne Cheng

History of Chinese Thought. Translated by Ulrich Forderer. Felix Meiner Verlag, 628 pages, 78 euros

How does the superpower of the 21st century tick philosophically? This book takes you through 4000 years of Chinese mentality.

6. Armin Falk

Why it’s so hard to be a good person… and how we can change that. Answers from a behavioral economist. Settlers, 334 pages, 24 euros

Finally switch to green electricity, no longer use plastic cups, protect the climate and pay attention to animal welfare? Armin Falk explains why decent behavior is difficult for us.

7. Ines Geipel

Beautiful new heaven. From the military laboratory of the east. Klett-Cotta, 288 pages, 22 euros

Ines Geipel, former competitive athlete in the GDR, sheds light on space research in the Eastern Bloc and her experiments on the human body.

8. Astrid M. Eckert

Zone border area. West Germany and the Iron Curtain. Translated by Thomas Wollermann. Chr. Links Verlag, 560 pages, 30 euros

A clever and geographically original approach: West Germany is told in this history book from the vantage point of the area that immediately bordered on the East Zone and the GDR.

9. Franziska Davies / Katja Makhotina

Open wounds of Eastern Europe. Travel to places of remembrance of the Second World War. wbg Theiss, 286 pages, 28 euros

Germany is considered the “world champion of coming to terms with the past”, but many German crimes on Polish, Belarusian and Ukrainian soil are still largely unknown. This book enlightens.

10. Anna Sauerbrey

change of power. How a new generation of politicians is changing the country. Rowohlt Berlin, 320 pages, 22 euros

Anna Sauerbrey portrays politicians of the new generation who are now setting the course: Annalena Baerbock, Robert Habeck, Christian Lindner, Marco Buschmann, Lars Klingbeil, Kevin Kühnert and others. Anne Spiegel, also included in the book, has already left the cabinet.

Extra recommendation of the month:

Prof. Dr. Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger (Rector of the Wissenschaftskolleg, Berlin) recommends:

Peter Geimer: The colors of the past. How history becomes images. CH Beck, 304 pages, 38 euros

Pictures make history. History painting and battle panoramas, photographs, films and digital animations – pictorial media create an illusion of immediacy, as if the past itself could be brought back to life. But: “The past is unobservable.” The Berlin art historian Peter Geimer describes precisely and with aplomb how the technical development of visual media has created the deceptive impression that the difference between present and past could be overcome.

Photography played a key role in this, the attention to detail of which was taken as a model by the history painters of the 19th century and whose apparent authenticity was dramatically enhanced by coloring. The reader learns the means by which images unfold their uncanny power of seduction – and is perhaps a little more armed against it. (Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger)

The jury for the “Non-Fiction of the Month”:

Tobias Becker, “Spiegel”; Manon Bischoff, “Spectrum of Science”; Natascha Freundel, RBB Culture; Eike Gebhardt, Berlin; Daniel Haufler, 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; 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.