C.H.Beck Spring 2023

In his speeches, Putin draws on confusing historical narratives and arguments. Martin Schulze Wessel argues that if we want to know what Putin’s motives are, we must also look at Russia’s unresolved identity problem, which stems from its imperial past: the curse of empire. This book explores the closely intertwined histories of Russia, Poland and Ukraine since the era of Peter the Great, in the context of international politics. It shows how Russia’s expansionism into Ukraine since the 18^th century and the partitioning of Poland have produced path dependencies, a cultural legacy whose impact is still felt today. This is not only about imperial claims to power, but also about an ideologically charged East-West conflict which has been developing ever since the 19^th century, and in which Germany was, for a long time, on Russia’s side. After 1945, Germany freed itself from the curse of empire and embraced the West. Russia has yet to walk this path.

*Historical explanations of Russia’s war of aggression

*The imperial past continues to have an impact

*Moscow’s westward expansion since the 18^th century, and its consequences

*Putin’s anti-Western attitude and its roots in Russian history

*What Germany managed after 1945, Russia has failed to do: the turn away from empire

*By a leading expert on the history of Eastern Europe

André Hille’s novel ‘Season of Stones’ tells the story of a single day from morning to midnight, a day full of work, errands, interactions, arguments, thoughts, feelings and memories. A day full of tension. Every day contains a whole life, with its highs and lows, events and encounters, and the images and thoughts they evoke. Confronted with the children’s desires and personalities, which are tenderly and lovingly described, the narrator remembers his own difficult childhood in the East, and asks himself what it means to be a good father and where the conflict with his wife Levje springs from. Thoughtful and moving, disarmingly honest, sometimes angry, then funny again, written with an almost magical precision, ‘Season of Stones’ is an unforgettable contemporary novel.

*‘Me and Levje in a house, an unusual amount of love between us, a plan to move, to start again.’

*An unflinching look at the reality of family life

*The story of a single day from morning to midnight

*A precise, thoughtful, disarmingly honest and tender contemporary novel

When and how did fiefdoms emerge? What was their function in the Middle Ages? What did the relationship between feudal lords and vassals look like? In this book, Steffen Patzold looks at almost 1000 years of the history of the feudal system and provides an accessible summary of everything we need to know – and also the things we cannot know.

His gift for precise observation, his urbanity and his subtle humour make this memoir by the head of the house of Wittelsbach a real pleasure to read. Reflected in this highly personal account are almost ninety years of life: the Duke’s schooldays, key moments in world history, experiences behind the bar of a jazz club, meetings with heads of government (with whom the protagonist sometimes escaped to the pub without their respective bodyguards noticing), passionate rendezvous with modern art, work trips with the ‘trade union’ of the modern aristocracy, a love of nature and of Bavaria, cultural and political debates (often heated ones), private moments – and throughout it all an awareness of his responsibility for the house of Wittelsbach at the heart of society.

*The gentleman from Nymphenburg – the unusual life of Duke Franz of Bavaria

*90^th birthday on 14 July 2023

*An aristocratic art-lover looks back on ninety years of politics, society, art and culture

*A sober eyewitness to world events and a firm believer in democracy tells the story of his life

Roman society had various ways of excluding undesirables – from banishment to deportation. This book traces the spatial aspects of these punishments and how they are discursively constituted.

‘Under Vladimir Putin, Russia – which is actually the largest country in Europe – has left Europe. Once again an Iron Curtain has descended on the continent. When I travel to Russia I am usually stopped at the airport. The border official keeps hold of my passport and talks at length to his superior on the phone. A man in a dark suit, probably secret service, comes to fetch me and takes me to a basement room. In it is a desk, an old box-spring mattress, broken chairs, dust in the corners. I have to answer questions: Where do you live? What do you think about the military operation? What is the purpose of your visit to Russia? I give brief answers, and wonder: are they ever going to let me into the country? And are they going to let me out?’ - Michael Thumann

*‘Putin has destroyed his life’s work – the “stabilising of Russia”. His unbridled destructiveness is now directed against Ukraine as well as his own country – and potentially the world.’

*Russia’s descent into dictatorship and the path to Putin’s imperialist war – a compelling combination of journalistic reportage and political and historical analysis

*Michael Thumann is one of the last German correspondents still living in Moscow

*The book is based on numerous meetings and exclusive conversations with key figures in Russian politics and society

From the summer of 1942 onwards, the ‘White Rose’ resistance group denounced the Nazi regime in its leaflets and called for an end to the war. On 18 February 1943, Hans and Sophie Scholl were caught distributing the group’s sixth pamphlet at Munich University. The group were exposed, and none of them survived. Drawing on the latest research, Robert Zoske gives a haunting account of what motivated the members of the group, the sources of their Christian and humanist beliefs, and why their courageous actions are still an important legacy for us today.

The growing internal opposition currently being experienced by democratic systems shows that more and more people are perceiving these demands as intolerable, and that the crisis of democracy is also a crisis for community, for our tolerance of others, and for our ability to come together. In this context, constitutional lawyer Sophie Schönberger asks which demands and promises are fundamental to the ‘we’ that is a vital component of any democracy, how the ‘I’ and the ‘you’ can come together to form a ‘we’ in contemporary society, and how democracy as a form of government and a way of life can be made compatible with the coming together and drifting apart of individuals.

*‘Hell may be other people. But beyond hell, which is ultimately bearable, yawns the anti-democratic abyss.’

*Highly topical

*What has caused the loss of faith in democracy?

*Democracy needs social interaction

*A contribution to the debate on the crisis in our community

Sua Eccellenza Montebello, suffragan bishop of Naples, is faced with a mystery of a very different kind. For his birthday he has received a valuable gift: a unique edition of the Legenda Aurea, at one time the most widely read book of the Middle Ages, which features lots of saint’s legends. But his copy also contains four extraordinary drawings, which could trigger an earthquake in church politics in the Vatican. No sooner have he and his people arrived in Rome to investigate, than more mysterious deaths occur. Montebello and Bariello are clearly obstructing the interests of church dignitaries, economic potentates and mafia bosses alike. For a long time, these individuals have made sure they do not go short of blessings. The suffragan bishop and the inspector realise that anyone who gets in the way of these powerful groups soon goes to meet their maker.

*‘Do-gooders, clerics and people raking in money, all involved in contemporary but also in historical intrigues – like Dan Brown, but much more intelligent.’ Rose-Marie Gropp, faz.net

*It’s not just the building of a new underground line that could rock the foundations of the Vatican

*Reformer pope Laurentius in severe danger

*Commissario Bariello and suffragan bishop Montebello fight against invisible enemies in their own ranks

For a long time it was considered absurd that all people - really all! - were supposed to be equal. Hedwig Richter shows how this revolutionary idea came up and gradually took root, also in Germany. Especially here it was so radically rejected and became the norm again as naturally as nowhere else. Anyone who is afraid of the new authoritarian men today should read this wonderfully lightly written, optimistic book, which shows us the Trumps and Erdogan's of this world as grotesque last survivers.

Low participation in elections makes the alarm bells ring: disenchantment with democracy! But from the beginning, special efforts - from alcohol to money to state coercion - were needed to get people to vote. A better indicator of democratisation is therefore the way the human body is treated: the abolition of serfdom and corporal punishment, increasing prosperity, the humanisation of work, equal treatment of the sexes. Hedwig Richter tells the story of democracy as a chronology of mistakes, coincidences and learning processes with the breach of civilisation by the Holocaust in its center. Her vivid, refreshing book focuses on Germany, because it is precisely the German affair with democracy that makes it clear how internationally binding the paths to freedom, equality and justice are.

At the height of the civil war, there is a knock on the door at the Château de Montaigne. A man has been attacked, and begs to be let in. Little by little his companions arrive. Montaigne smells a rat: a devious ambush! But he lets everybody in with generous hospitality. The lord of the castle’s naivety softens the heart of the ringleader, who gives the signal to withdraw. War forces people to adopt unusual survival strategies. With this episode, Montaigne recommends ‘naturalness’ in one’s behaviour at the same time as clever dissimulation. This is also the strategy he uses in his essays: whether he is writing about friendship, marriage, good conversations, bringing up children, or his illnesses, eccentricities and obsessions, he always comes across as completely guileless, and yet he is playing with his readers. Until now, people have drawn conclusions about Montaigne’s life from his writings, which are beguilingly authentic. Volker Reinhardt takes the opposite approach, and uses Montaigne’s life as a starting point to help us better understand his essays: as a philosophy for survival in times of violence which still speaks to us today.

*‘I want people to see me in all my simplicity, natural and ordinary, without affectation or artificiality.’ - Michel de Montaigne

*A new portrait of Montaigne: the mayor, diplomat and politician in the context of his time

*A new understanding of the ‘Essays’: a philosophy for survival in times of violence, which is still relevant today

*Compellingly written by a leading expert on the 16^th century

Fabian Geier and Sebastian Rosengrün, philosophers at a prestigious university for digital pioneers, answer the most important questions about digitalisation in an adept and entertaining way. Their book provides an enjoyable introduction to the technological, social and political dimensions of our digital world – and also invites us to reflect on it in a philosophical way.

*A podcast-style crash course in the digitalised aspects of our lives

Israel was a kingdom in northern Jerusalem and also the self-chosen name of a people who worshipped the god Yahweh. Bernd U. Schipper tells the story of this kingdom and people from the end of the second millennium B.C. to the Roman era, based on archaeological and other non-Biblical sources. His study thus encompasses cities, events, temples and cults in Israel which do not feature in the Bible. A must-read for anyone who wants to learn about the history behind Biblical stories, based on the latest historical research.

Art theory – the critical reflection on art – has its foundations in Greek antiquity. The history of art theory as a theory of the visual arts, however, begins in the early modern period, with Leon Battista Alberti and Albrecht Dürer being key exponents. With the early art criticism of the 18^th century and the move towards addressing a wider audience, the discussion went in a new direction. It diversified even further on the threshold of the modern era, when artist’s manifestos emerged and an abstract, philosophical and scholarly approach to art set in. In the second half of the 20^th century, the political dimension of art was emphasised by Theodor Adorno among others, and by a new critical theory. This broad panorama of diverse views, theories and ways of thinking will be the new standard reference work for anyone studying art.

*The first coherent overview in a single volume

*A comprehensive survey of art theory

France is one of the oldest nations in Europe, and has a fascinating and eventful past. Matthias Waechter, an expert on France who teaches in Nice, traces this history from the Middle Ages to the present day, and explains what is unique about the development of France. He paints a concise and illuminating portrait of Germany’s closest neighbour, gives an introduction to the politics, culture and society of different epochs, and explains how France became what it is today.

‘Lock up everyone who needs to be locked up,’ ordered Party Secretary Chen Quanguo when he moved from Tibet to Xinjiang. ‘Break their roots!’ It is estimated that around a tenth of the Uighur population was subsequently interned in overcrowded ‘re-education’ camps. Omnipresent facial recognition cameras and spy apps monitor the population’s every move – a high-tech gulag. Mathias Bölinger has interviewed a number of eyewitnesses, and by drawing on their stories and on the latest leaks, he shows how the constant fear, arrests, trials and physical and psychological torture are wearing people down. He explains how China’s mistrust of the Muslim Turkic peoples in the west has been radicalised in waves, from the age of empire to the Cultural Revolution to the Xi Jinping era, and which political constellations and ideologies are fuelling the oppression. The West is quick to pass judgement, but very reluctant to follow through with consequences. This profound book, based on years’ worth of research in China and beyond, is a harrowing reminder not to let this issue slip down the agenda.

‘The images from Xinjiang are disturbing. They reinforce what we have long known: that there are serious human rights abuses going on in Xinjiang.’ German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, 24 May 2022

*A shocking report on the situation in Xinjiang

*Based on the author’s own research on the ground, on interviews with Uighurs living in exile, and on analysis of explosive leaks

*German companies situated next to ‘re-education camps’: the background to dubious choices of location

*The author is a sinologist and journalist who reported from China until the end of 2021

No doctrine has had a deeper impact on Chinese thought and Chinese history than Confucianism. Hans van Ess gives a vivid description of the life of Confucius, who was born around 2500 years ago, and explains his fundamental ideas in an accessible way. He then traces the history of this intellectual tradition right up to the present day, and explains its religious, philosophical and political aspects.

Empires have returned to our world. Russia’s war against Ukraine, and China’s new power politics, are reminiscent of the imperial expansionism of great powers between the end of the 18^th century and the First World War. But what do we mean when we talk about empires? This book tells their story in a new way, by looking at encounters between people under colonial conditions. It focuses on the key challenge faced by empires: how to handle ethnic diversity. It questions the logic of imperial actions and explains how colonised people dealt with conquest, control, integration and exploitation, exposing courses of action and dynamics of violence which are not revealed in simple contrasts between rulers and ruled. The result is a contemporary history of empires in the world of the long 19^th century.

‘Russia’s war against Ukraine, and China’s new power politics, are reminiscent of the imperial expansionism of great powers between the end of the 18^th century and the First World War.’

*Empires: how they worked, what they achieved and where they failed

-         The British Empire

-         The Habsburg Empire

-         The Ottoman Empire

-         The French colonial empire

-         And references to other empires

*A comparative global history

*The experiences of the colonised and their spheres of action

*Empires have returned to our world

The spectrum ranges from essays critical of the regime to texts supportive of the state and the Party, all published in the period between the global financial crisis and the present day. Each selected text offers a significant contribution to understand key problems in Chinese politics and society. For meaningful future debates about developments in the People’s Republic of China, we need to know what is being discussed in China itself, what the central arguments are in key discourses, and where these arguments fit into the broader panorama of Chinese history and politics.

After the letter ‘K’, the Medieval Latin Dictionary continues with the letters ‘S – Z’. The gap ‘L – R’ is currently being filled in complementarity by the UAI partner project NGML (Novum Glossarium mediae Latinitatis), which works on linguistic material based on Latin texts from 800 to 1200, for the pan-European region; the ‘L – pontentificus’ section has already been printed.

Over the course of its history, Venice has been much more than just the city of dreams and death as which it is known today. In its heyday, the city in the lagoon was not only one of the richest but also one of the most powerful cities in the world, and behaved for centuries in the style of a major European power. Arne Karsten gives a clear, knowledgeable account of the city’s political, economic and artistic fortunes – from its modest beginnings to the fall of the Republic of Venice in 1797, and how it ‘rose from the ashes’ as a unique city of culture.

Nico Bleutge gives voice to these questions and forges his own unique rhythm from them. Poems about beginnings, about language before language, and about the relationship between memory and presence. Time lengthens and contracts in the play of sounds: ‘This gnawing, twisting together / of clouds, begin: not one / syllable to stand, compress / everything within’. The shimmering title sequence follows hawks and starlings beside the Tiber. Here, vocabulary meets magic words. We see cracks in the images that resemble the cracks in the landscape. And memory feeds in seemingly incidental details. Like the sound of breathing, which is always there but which you don’t notice until you turn your attention to it. With a keen feeling for language, Nico Bleutge explores the gaps in our perception and shows us the power of words, sonorous, sensual, simultaneously concrete and imaginary.

‘Before articulating a message, these poems are all music, in the finest tradition.’ Jochen Jung, DIE ZEIT

*New poems from Nico Bleutge about joy and loss

*Poems about beginning, about memory and presence

*‘This sparkling and glittering of the poetic texture has become the hallmark of the poet Nico Bleutge.’ Michael Braun, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, on ‘nachts leuchten die schiffe’

Since the 18^th century, the idea of an ‘ancient’ Roman advanced civilisation and its intellectual ‘rebirth’ 1000 years after its ‘fall’ has encouraged the historical imagination to make a strong link between the two eras, and branded the period in between ‘the Middle Ages’ – a strange concept which nevertheless still enjoys wide currency today. In this richly illustrated book, Bernhard Jussen makes clear how little can now be explained by this traditional method of interpreting the past, and the extent to which it is almost obstructing the current need for explanation. In seven chapters, he provides a fresh, well-written and detailed introduction to a revision of the history of Latin Europe.

*A new interpretation of the period hitherto defined as the Middle Ages

*This book revises the definition of 1000 years of history

*Bernhard Jussen questions received wisdom

*Looks at the birth of civil society

*With 50 colour illustrations

With his prizewinning book ‘The Russia Complex’, Gerd Koenen wrote the definitive work on the peculiar pull which Germany and Russia exerted upon each other in the 20^th century. The interplay between superiority and inferiority complexes, fascination and phobia, gave rise to deadly totalitarian regimes but also to brilliant cultural achievements. Today, this unusual special relationship has once again become the subject of public debate and criticism. Koenen’s book about the Germans and their relationship with the ‘East’ explains the historical context. A new afterword addresses the subject in the light of what has happened since 24 February 2022.

*‘In his brilliantly written study, Koenen shows how German intellectuals and idealogues engaged with Russian culture and politics in the first half of the 20^th century.’ - ZEIT Geschichte

*‘Seldom has the ambivalence in Germany’s relationship with Russia been so starkly illustrated.’ - Heinrich August Winkler, Süddeutsche Zeitung

*Gerd Koenen sheds light on the ambivalent relationship between Germany and Russia

*With an up-to-date afterword on the situation in Ukraine

*‘Koenen’s Russia Complex sets itself apart with its in-depth research, illuminating photographic material and sparkling style.’ - Micha Brumlik, Neue Zürcher Zeitung

*The Germans and the East – a new edition of this definitive work

Forty years in the saddle, all over the Ottoman Empire and beyond, from Vienna to Mecca, from the Caucasus to the Nile: Evliya Çelebi was a true globetrotter. Klaus Kreiser, in this first ever translation into German, offers us a colourful selection from ‘The Book of Travels’, whose sometimes realistic, sometimes fantastical and exaggerated descriptions of cities, fortresses, people, customs and curiosities are still capable of captivating readers to this day.

‘Remarkable discovery of a Turkish travel account,’ wrote the Orientalist scholar Josef von Hammer in 1814. He was talking about the ‘Seyahatname’ – ‘The Book of Travels’ – by Evliya Çelebi, which has been of great interest to researchers ever since. The enlightened traveller from Istanbul, with his insatiable curiosity, visited most of the provinces and hundreds of the cities of the Ottoman Empire and its neighbours, and described them in an entertaining and meticulously detailed way. He returned from Mecca and Medina as a haji. He stood on the walls of Crete as a muezzin during the war against the Venetians. In the same role he accompanied the Ottoman legation to Vienna in 1664, and his account of the trip paints a gorgeous, in places satirical, panorama of the city and its Kaiser. His description of Egypt is on a par with Napoleon’s ‘Description de l’Égypte’. Klaus Kreiser’s careful selection from the vast treasure trove of ‘The Book of Travels’ is drawn from all ten volumes, and gives an expert overview of the greatest travel account of the 17^th century if not the whole of world literature.

*‘Praise be to Allah that we can eat. The abstemious infidels do, however, have incredible scholarship.’ Evliya Çelebi after his visit to Vienna

*The 17^th-century world from the point of view of a Muslim

*One of the greatest travel accounts in world literature

*Fully accessible in German for the first time

*Sensitively translated and knowledgeably annotated by a leading expert

Wellershaus grew up in the middle-class district of Hamburg-Volksdorf with her white mother and her white grandparents. Her father had lived on a cocoa plantation in Equatorial Guinea as a child, and moved to the Costa del Sol in the 1960s. As a Black German woman splitting her time between Hamburg and Malaga, and between her parents’ lives, she came to perceive foreignness as a complex construct. She went to university in London and then became a journalist, living with her traditional nuclear family in the gentrified part of Berlin’s Pankow district. Today she belongs to the privileged middle class, and simple narratives of belonging no longer apply. In her book, Wellershaus looks at contexts in which foreignness does not reveal itself at first glance – friendships, family, working relationships, relationships between neighbours – at first hand. She writes about undecided biographies and complex identities, and links other people’s perceptions of the world with her own. This enables her, in inimitable fashion, to broaden the horizons of contemporary identity politics.

*‘A family life split between Hamburg, Malaga and Malabo: in between is the place where my self combines with the complex experiences of others.’

*An important broadening of the horizons of contemporary identity politics

*About the various forms of exclusion in our super-diverse society – and what binds us together in spite of them

*For readers of Alice Haster’s ‘Was weiße Menschen nicht über Rassismus hören wollen…’ and Kübra Gümüşay’s ‘Sprache und Sein’

This book gives an overview of historical and current lines of conflict in the field of nuclear energy, and helps the reader understand current debates. It begins with the development of nuclear energy and its military and commercial applications, then looks at geopolitical and institutional aspects and issues relating to the energy sector. It ends with two issues that are the subject of heated debate in Germany and beyond: the phasing out of nuclear energy, which is explained here in the European and the global context, and the problem of how to dispose of highly radioactive waste.

In recent decades, few people have researched the German-Russian web of historical experiences, power-political interests and ideological fever dreams in greater depth than Gerd Koenen. In the light of this new war, which throws up many old questions, he embarks on an investigation that takes us from the cynical partnership of the Hitler-Stalin pact to the friend-or-foe propaganda of our own times, and from the founders of ‘Memorial’ to Putin’s spin doctors. Personal meetings and nuanced analyses come together to produce a long-term diagnosis of a country suffering from deep insecurity, whilst at the same time wanting to be seen as a world power on a par with China and the USA.

*‘Gerd Koenen is incredibly intelligent, but he never gives the impression of thinking he knows everything.’ Thea Dorn

*A thoughtful analysis from Russia expert Gerd Koenen

*Russia in the never-ending cycle of history – Gerd Koenen analyses Russia’s path to war

Grillmeier moves around the camp, the port and the north of the island, and travels to other areas on the European border, shining a light on the state of emergency there. At the heart of the book are the refugees themselves. Grillmeier tells their tragic stories, and reproduces numerous conversations in which refugees are given a chance to speak. She shows what life in the camps does to them, as well as reflecting on how life on the island is affecting her: while Grillmeier, as an observer, can come and go as she pleases, the refugees have no choice. The book also focuses on the criminalisation of humanitarian aid, the dismantling of press freedom, the burden placed on the local population, and the cynicism of politicians in Brussels and Athens. Grillmeier paints a shocking picture of the hollowing-out of the rule of law at the edges of the European Union, to which we have closed our eyes for too long.

‘This book is written from the perspective of an observer who was able to come and go as she pleased. It is dedicated to the people in Moria and all along Europe’s borders who spoke to me about their lives.’

*Life and death at the edges of Europe – notes by a young journalist

*Franziska Grillmeier’s first-hand report on the everyday reality for refugees at Europe’s external borders: in 2018 she herself moved to the island of Lesbos

*A stark and moving report on the fate of the nameless people at the edges of Europe

*Franziska Grillmeier was a member of the research collective working on the television programme ‘Das neue Moria’ for ‘ZDF Magazin Royale’

*For all readers of Navid Kermani’s ‘Entlang den Gräben’

*The author has a big following on Twitter, is a regular guest on talk shows, and is available for events

How did it come to this? What was the role played by Gerhard Schröder as the SPD Chancellor and later gas lobbyist, with his extensive network of contacts in politics and industry? Why did CDU Chancellor Angela Merkel not pursue a more far-sighted course of action? Which social and political connections, which economic and strategic interests, caused Germany to come to rely on Putin, when even before his invasion of Ukraine he was waging war, suppressing opposition, curtailing people’s freedoms and abusing human rights? FAZ correspondents Reinhard Bingener and Markus Wehner reveal the ‘Moscow connection’ in German politics, and show how one of Germany’s worst foreign policy misjudgements since 1945 was made possible.

*Male friendships, personal dependencies and the failure of German politics – Putin’s successful ‘ - Operation Schröder’

*Hannover – Berlin – Moscow: a major investigation into Gerhard Schröder’s fateful network in politics and industry

*How shady honorary consuls, sinister contractors, ex-Stasi officers and naïve politicians pursuing a policy of détente led Germany to become dependent upon the Kremlin

*For readers of Catherine Belton’s ‘Putin’s Network’

This monograph analyses the semantic field predominantly used in Greek-Roman antiquity for wage labour, with a particular focus on the social position of workers.

With Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, the conflict that had been brewing between the two states since at last 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea, reached peak escalation. Since the 18^th century there has been an asymmetry in the relationship between these two closely connected peoples. This asymmetry was at its height in the 19^th century, when Russia refused to recognise the ‘Little Russians’ – as the Ukrainians were officially called at that time – as an independent nation with a history separate from that of Russia. This view has persisted in Russia to this day, and is also widespread in the West. But Andreas Kappeler tells the story of these unequal brothers as one of entanglements and disentanglements, helping us to better understand the most recent escalation.

*‘Andreas Kappeler’s overview of Ukrainian history is very helpful when it comes to understanding the current crisis.’ Konstantin Sakkas, SWR2

*‘An indispensable book about the background to the present situation: a masterful and concise account by one of our most renowned historians of Eastern Europe.’ - Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung

*‘An illuminating book and a must-read for anyone who wants to gain a better understanding of the conflict.’ - Cyrill Steiger, NZZ am Sonntag

*Spiegel Bestseller

*With a new chapter on the how the situation has developed since Russia’s annexation of the Crimea in 2014

*‘A book that might help to make the incomprehensible war in Ukraine slightly more comprehensible.’ - FOCUS

*Over 30,000 copies sold since February 2022

In this biography, Hofmann shows us the ‘whole’ Brandt, an extraordinary man whose politics can only be understood by knowing about his life.

In this knowledgeable and nuanced biography, Gunter Hofmann traces the stages of Willy Brandt’s life, showing the path taken by this young socialist from a disadvantaged background into exile and resistance, the gradual evolution of his political convictions, and the different stages of his career from Governing Mayor to Chancellor. His fellow travellers, including Julius Leber, Helmut Schmidt, Herbert Wehner, Egon Bahr and Günter Grass, are also featured. Above all, however, Hofmann makes clear, in a very personal way, how deeply Brandt has influenced our ideas about the nation we want to live in.

‘Then he kneels, he who does not need to, for all those who do need to.’ - Der Spiegel in 1970 on Brandt’s gesture at the Warsaw Ghetto memorial.

*The most ambitious new biography for 20 years

*Willy Brandt symbolises the moral progress of the nation as it confronts its own past

*Brilliantly written

The SS – the acronym is inextricably linked with the Holocaust, probably the greatest crime against humanity ever committed. All over the world, these two letters are synonymous with evil itself. But how exactly did the ‘Black Order’ become the enforcers of the Nazis’ racial fanaticism? Drawing on the latest research, Bastian Hain provides an introduction to the history of the Third Reich’s state protection corps, explaining how the organisation was formed, what its core beliefs were and how it selected its members, and looking at the crimes it committed.

‘By the grace of God’– the curious life of the Sun King

The ‘Sun King’ Louis XIV is the first, chronologically speaking, of three larger-than-life rulers who shaped French history in the modern era. Like Napoleon and Charles de Gaulle, he created a well of glory and power which the French national imagination is still drawing on to this day. But who was this man who set the tone for a whole era, who established absolutism, who put on a show of pomp and splendour (in the form of his palace at Versailles) the like of which had never been seen before, who cruelly persecuted the Huguenots and who terrorised Europe with wars of unprecedented brutality? In his last book, Johannes Willms paints a fascinating portrait of the man whose words ‘L’état c’est moi’ have become immortal.

‘He was no longer himself, but always performed this persona, the “Sun King”.’ -Johannes Willms

*Insights into life at court under Louis XIV

*The Palace of Versailles – a symbol of his ostentatiousness

*To increase his fame, the Sun King waged thirty wars – by the end, France was bankrupt

*By a major expert on French history – Johannes Willms’s last book

Eva Cancik-Kirschbaum gives a concise introduction to the history of one of the most important peoples in the ancient Orient. She describes the beginnings of the Assyrian culture in the third century B.C., the development of its society, economy, culture and religion, the origins of its empire, its powerful expansion, and finally its fall in the war against the Medes and the Babylonians in the late 7^th century B.C.

For over a thousand years, Aramaic was the lingua franca everywhere between the Indus and the Nile. More than that: through powerful networks of officials and scribes, it shaped politics, law, literature and religion in the ancient world. Important parts of the Old Testament are written in Aramaic; it was Jesus’s mother tongue; most rabbinical Jews were Aramaic speakers; and the Oriental Churches used Aramaic as the language of literature and the liturgy – some still use it to this day. In the 7^th century, Aramaic was finally replaced by Arabic, the language of the Koran, as the primary language of the Orient. The Aramaic language has been unfairly neglected in research and the public discourse. Holger Gzella’s fascinating overview reveals a ‘forgotten global empire’ which lives on in world religions to this day.

*‘Talitha koum!’ – ‘Little girl, I say to you, get up!’

*Aramaic words spoken by Jesus according to Mark 5,41

*The forgotten lingua franca between India and North Africa

*1500 years of the cultural history of the ancient world, from a new perspective

*Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Islam: how Aramaic shaped world religions

*Aramaic is still spoken today in Western Anatolia and parts of Syria

Erich Kästner was in Nuremberg, as were Erika Mann, John Dos Passos and Martha Gellhorn, Willy Brandt and Markus Wolf. Augusto Roa Bastos came from Paraguay, Xiao Qian from China. In the courtroom they looked the criminals in the face, and in the press camp at the castle they tried to put the unsayable into words. The microcosm of Faber Castle brought together Holocaust survivors, people returning from exile, communists, representatives of Western media organisations, war correspondents and flamboyant star reporters. And the experience of looking into the abyss of history as they reflected on guilt, sin and justice, not only changed them as people but also changed the way they wrote.

*A unique gathering of writers, journalists and reporters

*Erika Mann, Erich Kästner, Willy Brandt, John Dos Passos, Martha Gellhorn and many others

*When world literature met world history – the summit at Faber-Castell Castle

Innovator, Enlightenment philosopher, writer, journalist, political animal, expert judge of human nature: Christoph Martin Wieland, Weimar’s intellectual godfather, was all of these things. He and Lessing were the central figures of the German Enlightenment. It was thanks to Wieland that the novel became a recognised literary genre in Germany; he also wrote the first German opera, and his erotic epic poems introduced a new tone to German poetry. He published ‘Der Teutsche Merkur’, one of the most important literary and political magazines in Europe at the time, and almost as a sideline he shaped the genre of political journalism with his texts about the French Revolution and Napoleon, whose dictatorship he foresaw early on and whom he met in Weimar in 1808. There are many reasons to revisit Wieland. Jan Philipp Reemstma’s major biography, the product of decades of research, gives us the opportunity to do just that.

*Long-awaited: the major Wieland biography by Jan Philipp Reemtsma

*Germany’s first author

*The first Wieland biography for seventy years

*The man who invented ‘Weimar’

*Major Wieland exhibition on the Wieland estate at Oßmannstedt near Weimar, curated by Jan Philipp Reemtsma

This book gives an exciting introduction to the history and culture of the Lombards, who had a significant impact on the fortunes of Italy during the 6^th, 7^th and 8^th centuries. It looks at the origins and identity of the Lombards, the consolidation of their power, their legal system, their writing and their language, but also at internal and external conflicts and finally at their downfall in the struggle against the Franks under Charlemagne. The book also touches on the legacy of the Lombards: various traces of their presence remain, including in the name of the Italian region of Lombardy.

Artificial Intelligence is being talked about all over the place but rarely does anyone ever mention that these smart bits of machinery were never coming onto the scene simply to take away the dreary or dangerous jobs. From the start they were used to pose hypotheses as to how the human mind works, an electronic mirror presenting a distorted picture in which a human being can learn more about what intelligence is and what it isn’t.

In its earliest stages those working in AI research believed that it was necessary simply to give an accurate description of how humans think in order to be able to build smart machines. Seventy years later disillusionment has set in. The greatest challenges are not the chess games or the creation of geometric figures, more the hard to grasp human concepts such as flexibility, creativity, understanding and judging about a situation before responding appropriately.

*‘Manuela Lenzen debunks common myths and explains everything we need to know about AI right now.’ Dana Heide, Handelsblatt

*Why so-called ‘intelligent algorithms’ still have problems

*What constitutes natural intelligence?

*Since the publication of her long-seller ‘Künstliche Intelligenz’, the author has been a sought-after expert on this subject

Stock bulls for the monthly auction, cows and pigs in the fields, horses pulling the plough, a kitchen garden, the farm profitably run by parents, children and workers: the rural life of the 1950s seems closer to the Middle Ages than to our own time. But then everything changed: once-affluent and respected farmers, despite all their efforts to modernise, were suddenly seen as impoverished and backward; their children smelt of the stables, and felt ashamed. The Catholic Church provided ways out of the farming world with new youth work. The welfare state helped with training and the handing-over of farms. By the 1970s, the rural world had changed completely. And this change happened so quietly that people look back on it now with incredulity: ‘My God, I lived through that, and now it seems like something from another century.’ Ewald Frie asked his ten siblings, born between 1944 and 1969, how they experienced this period. His brilliantly written book brings the era to life with an unerringly laconic quality.

*When farming life came to an end – the end of an era

*A family lives through the disappearance of farming life in the 1950s and 1960s

*Effectively weaves together the family’s own experiences and the historical context

*A compelling and moving book written in rich and vivid prose

*For readers of Christiane Hoffmann’s bestseller ‘Alles, was wir nicht erinnern’

When thirty-year-old Maria Callas performed the role of Medea at the Scala, Franco Zeffirelli was rendered unable to move. Something momentous had happened. ‘The world of opera had changed. Now there was a new way of measuring time: B.C. and A.C. – before Callas and after Callas.’ Maria Callas was particularly successful in tragic roles. She combined an almost uncanny technical perfection with an intensity of expression that moved people deeply. The rifts and contradictions she lent to a Tosca or a Norma, however, also shaped her own life. Eva Gesine Baur explores her difficult family background, the fierce determination that powered her rise to the top, and the years when she was at the height of her fame. She looks at the conflicts that plagued Maria Callas, the scandals that surrounded her, and the men in her life – from her husband to Aristoteles Onassis to Pier Paolo Pasolini. The drama of her life and her tragic art went hand in hand. They are what made her great, but ultimately lonely, and unforgotten to this day.

‘There is a singer there called Maria Callas and she sings and acts as if she had several devils and angels inside her.’ - Ingeborg Bachmann, 1956

*100^th birthday on 2 December 2023

*The dramatic life of Maria Callas

*Captivating from the first page to the last

*A book about one of the greatest singers of her century, and what made her so unique

This clear introduction, which draws on the latest research, describes Anne Frank’s short life, the circumstances in which the family went into hiding, and what we know about their betrayal, deportation and Anne Frank’s death in the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen. This short reference work also explains the importance of the diary as a historical source, as a piece of world literature and as a legacy to us all.

From the first democracy in Athens to the United Nations, a golden thread runs through world history. It combines humanity’s expectations of itself with its expectations of politics. Socrates believed that there could only be a just social order if free people were ruled by free people. Plato enumerated the virtues and obligations of the state and, like Aristotle, offered a wealth of insights which are still relevant to this day. With the humanity to which all human beings are entitled (and for which all human beings are also responsible in their own actions), a new and ultimately global dimension to the political emerges. But in his tour through the history of philosophy, Gerhardt also turns his attention to the opponents of democracy. At the end of the book, he assesses the chances of humanity ever being able to create the kind of democratically organised global community without which we will be unable to solve the increasingly acute problems our future holds.

*Democracy and humanity – the history of a philosophical relationship

*Lays the philosophical foundations of democracy

*A response to the authoritarian challenges of the present day

*By one of Germany’s most important philosophers

Confucius’s ‘Analects’, one of the most famous works in Chinese literature, remains a mystery in many ways. Who composed the maxims? Were they all created by Master Kong Qiu himself, who lived in the state of Lu around 500 B.C.? Until now, it was widely thought that the ‘Analects’ were a collection of more or less comprehensible aphorisms which came together by accident. Hans van Ess, however, shows that their meaning is clearest if we assume they are in fact all part of one carefully composed text, and if we take account of their historical context and their subject matter. For the first time in the German language, he looks beyond the Christian and humanist discourse of ‘goodness’, ‘virtue’ and ‘rituals’ which even more recent re-translations have relied on, and gives us a new understanding of a work which was actually about sensibility, character and politeness. His instructive annotations explain the translation and shed new light on the teachings of Confucius.

‘The noble mind takes other opinions into account, but does not simply agree. The small mind simply agrees, but does not take other opinions into account.’ - Confucius, Analects (13,23)

*Confucius rediscovered: without the Christian idealist language of previous translations

*For the first time, the historical context of all the maxims is reconstructed

*An important contribution to an understanding of Chinese culture

*By a leading international Confucius expert

Guns that have been used so many times they no longer shoot straight, planes, helicopters and tanks that are unfit for use, defence projects that take longer and longer and swallow up more and more money – over the past few years, the operational capability of the German military has been getting steadily worse. But this is just a symptom of a deeper problem. After the Cold War, Germany established a comfortable position for itself in the world – a world that seemed to be coming together in peace, and in which our security seemed assured. But this presumed safety turned out to be an illusion. Without pulling his punches, Carlo Masala takes stock of our current situation and explains how we can become more resilient in social, economic, political and military terms. Because if we do not take intelligent, strategic action, we will no longer be able to hold our own in the new world order.

*Spiegel Bestseller author

*The new book by Carlo Masala

*How safe is our critical infrastructure?

*What needs to change if we are to hold our own in the world order – a frank stock-take

*Carlo Masala is a regular guest on talk shows

*Over 105,000 followers on Twitter

When we think of Germany in the 20^th century, we think of two world wars, a failed democracy, Hitler’s dictatorship and the Holocaust, a country divided for forty years. But we also think of a welfare state, prosperity, liberalisation and globalisation, a successful democracy and the longest period of peace in European history. Ulrich Herbert’s work is a brilliant portrayal of a turbulent century, and sets a new standard for contemporary history. In an afterword to the new edition, the author takes stock of recent developments since the book was first published almost ten years ago.

‘A magnificent book, an intellectual pleasure.’ - Victor Mauer, Neue Zürcher Zeitung

*‘One of Germany’s best historians.’ - Saul Friedländer

*New edition with updated afterword

*Awarded the Bavarian Book Prize

*With an updated epilogue

*‘The focus and intensity with which Herbert approaches this monumental material… is impressive.’ - Michael Wildt

This book gives a lively and concise overview of Islamic art from its beginnings to modern times. It outlines not only the fundamentals found in the whole of the Islamic world but also the diverse regional traditions that shape the richness of Islamic art. Lorenz Korn explains ‘aniconism’ in Islam and its effects on art, and introduces us to the various categories of Islamic art, from calligraphy and decorative arts to the illumination of manuscripts, from the architecture of palaces and burial monuments to the many different forms of mosque.

At center stage are the global events that changed the course of world history, global places that became the main hubs of exchange, and global topics and structures like colonialism and racism. We travel in spirit to Africa and America, to India and Indonesia, to Russia, China, and Japan, and through Europe, which first had to catch up in terms of its civilizational development. Wolfgang Behringer describes the important contexts and tells the stories of the individuals who experienced and shaped this period. His book portrays the world history of a great epoch for our own time and is also a true pleasure to read.

Since it was first published in 1977, the encyclopaedia itself has changed many times to keep pace with developments in our ethical debates and orientations. It has been thoroughly revised for this eighth edition. Many entries – including those on abortion, discrimination, ways of life, solidarity, technology, conservation and renunciation – have been updated, and important new entries have been added, including on volunteering, the limitations of ethics, artificial intelligence, intersexuality, conservatism, sustainability, the public sphere, populism, the ethics of taxes, and trust.

*A completely updated edition of the classic encyclopaedia

*With entries on many new subjects, such as:

Volunteering

Artificial intelligence

Intersexuality

Sustainability

The public sphere

The ethics of taxes

Since the nineteen nineties, and with state support, the ‘big tech’ companies in China swiftly have become the drivers behind the country’s dynamic and growing digital economy. At first they adapted products and business models from overseas but then started to make their own way. Millions of Chinese citizens were to discover new opportunities for ID design and exchange of ideas, whether via online discussion platforms, games or blogs. This level of enthusiasm for technology drowned out warning voices pointing to evidence of the destructive consequences of digitalisation and extensive misuse of data by the state. Around the time of the summer Olympics 2008, China’s leaders started to restrict the amount of international data flow, officially blocked Twitter and Facebook in their country, and systematically invested in their own digital technologies. This process picked up further speed under Xi Jinping and the so-called new ‘cold war’ with the United States. So who are today’s central players to be found on China’s digital route to the future? How dependent are they on the state? And what kind of potential lurks within the new technologies for internal dissemination and democratisation? China expert, Kristin Shi-Kupfer, shines light on the subject.

*China’s rise to become a digital superpower

*Baldu, Alibaba and Tendent: how the private Chinese digital giants cope with overweening state power

*The first comprehensive study of China’s IT engineers and software developers, activists and civil rights campaigners, bloggers and hackers

Even with simple questions – let alone the really big ones – it’s rare to find one clear answer that clarifies and resolves everything. There are often several possible answers, all equally valid. This means that with every fact we establish, more questions arise, and the answers to those questions generate yet more questions: mankind is destined to keep asking questions forever. By doing so we gradually amass knowledge, and we can enjoy this acquisition of knowledge our whole lives, because it is never finished. The process of finding answers and thereby generating further questions – so that the asking of questions never comes to an end – is at the heart of science. Ernst Peter Fischer takes an entertaining approach to the huge variety of questions human beings ask themselves.

*‘The thing is this: everything that endures arises from questions. Think of the question asked by every child: what does the wind do when it’s not blowing?’ Erich Kästner

*Here are seven of over seventy-seven questions answered by Ernst Peter Fischer in his new book:

Why is the sky dark at night?

Why do the stars twinkle and not fall out of the sky?

Why are leaves green in the summer and why do they turn such bright colours in the autumn?

What do animals see when they look at things we perceive as red, green or blue?

Why do we get tears in our eyes when we’re ‘crying with laughter’?

What contains more protein – egg white or egg yolk?

And why does every answer to a question throw up new questions?

No other order is more shrouded in legend than ‘The Poor Knights of the Temple of King Solomon’. Jürgen Sarnowsky gives a knowledgeable account of the order’s eventful history, from its beginnings in the 12^th century and its involvement in the Crusades to its violent dissolution in 1312. He also looks at the huge historical impact of the Templars, who, through the role they played in the Crusades, helped to shape world history. The third edition of this short standard work draws on the latest research.

History does not repeat itself – so we cannot simply take solutions from the past and apply them to the present day. But history does provide us with a vital reservoir of political illustrative material. It shows which constellations led to which outcomes, and it reveals patterns and recurring problems. Anyone who wonders how the war in Ukraine will end should make use of this reservoir. Because there is hardly anything in world history as common as wars. Historically, what has driven people to continue fighting wars? How have windows for diplomacy opened up? What has led to lasting peace, and what to fragile peace? And why have the final stages of war often been the most bloody? The path to peace has frequently been a long and winding road, repeatedly delayed and interrupted. The longer a war lasts, the more victims there are over the months and years and the more complex and contradictory this path is. And even once a treaty is signed, the real work of peace has yet to begin.

• How do wars end? History holds answers

• The lessons we can learn from the wars of the past

• Examples from world history, focusing on the 19th and 20th centuries

• Trenchant and knowledgeable theories about the different directions we can take in times of war

The Limes, once the frontier of the Roman Empire, is now one of the largest archaeological monuments in the world, and features as such on the UNESCO World Heritage List. This book provides a clear and expert account of the development of the Limes, its functions, structures and systems, but also of the lives of the Roman legionnaires and civilians at the edges of the Roman Empire.

In Istanbul, that historic megacity between East and West, Lee learns that her grandmother’s former companion and occasional lover, the journalist and agent Georg Naumann, is still alive, now well over a hundred years old. What links him to Helene and perhaps even to Lee? In this exciting, multifaceted novel we experience the violence of history, the power of love and Istanbul as a labyrinth and a refuge. Knowledgeable and sensual – the major new novel by Matthias Göritz.

*‘Taksim, ancient cistern, Taksim, starting point of a world, nowhere else is the Earth as round as it is here.’

*The story of a young American tracing the history of her Jewish grandmother, who fled from Germany to Istanbul

*A major, century-spanning novel about Istanbul

*Could “not-belonging” somewhere also be a solution?

Over 20 percent of all numbers start with 1, and so it is 1 – the number with which counting begins – that marks the beginning of this entertaining journey through the world of numbers. With 2, the world is divided into two parts, and in 3 it comes back together again. 4 is the number of orientation, 5 the number of nature, and with 6 order is finally instilled in the world. The seven wise men were actually twenty-two, and there is no logical reason why a week has seven days. For a long time 0 did not exist, and was long overdue by the time it was invented in India 2000 years ago. If the French Revolution had had its way, a day would have consisted of ten hours, each 100 minutes long, and each of those minutes would have lasted 100 seconds. Wild 13 destroys the perfect inner balance of 12 – but does that necessarily mean it is unlucky? With -1 we enter the realm of negative numbers. Their apparent paradoxes are perfectly illustrated by the following joke, which also features in this wonderfully fleet-footed book: A professor is standing outside a lecture theatre. He sees five students go in, and after a while six students come out. The professor thinks to himself: ‘If another one goes in now, the lecture theatre will be empty again.’

*‘A supremely accessible book and an essential one, even for people who have had nothing to do with numbers since school apart from checking their speedometer or their drinks receipts.’ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

*Albrecht Beutelspacher’s entertaining study of numbers

*The renowned mathematician and founding director of the Mathematikum museum in Gießen tells the most exciting stories about the most important numbers

*‘Zero, Infinity and Wild 13’ proves that every number is a key to the world… a fascinating book!’ Welt am Sonntag

Andersson takes us on the most beautiful and intrepid train journeys in the world, climbing aboard the icy Polar Express and the legendary Orient Express, bringing the Trans-Siberian Railway to life, discovering different parts of the world such as America, China and Sri Lanka by train, and stopping in Leipzig at the biggest terminus station in the world. As countless familiar and unfamiliar places roll past him as if in a dream, he meets a series of illustrious figures with incredible stories to tell. Andersson’s new book is a travelogue and a manifesto for train travel all in one. After reading it there’ll be no doubt in your mind: train is the best way to travel!

*‘If you pick up this book, don’t be surprised if you end up studying maps and making new holiday plans.’ - Theo Körner, Lesart

*Spiegel Bestseller author

*The book ‘Vom Schweden, der die Welt einfing und in seinem Rucksack nach Hause brachte’ has sold over 50,000 copies

*The most beautiful and intrepid train journeys in the world

The deep-seated motives behind this war can be found not only in the neo-Imperial fantasies of the autocrat currently in the Kremlin but also in deep transatlantic and internal European rifts of the past. These flames have been rekindled by the West’s own decades-long narrative and further fanned by the rise of illiberal, antidemocratic movements. Only last year the hurried withdrawal from Afghanistan punished, indeed exposed as a lie, any notion of the geographical West as a glowing community of defence and shared values. Expert in foreign and security policy, Constanze Stelzenmüller gives an analysis of what Putin’s war means for the west, and for Europe in particular. If we are to defend our open, liberal and mutually dependent democracies then we must get our own house in order, show responsibility for one another in Europe, in any alliance and in the world and become far more assertive towards autocratic powers like Russia and China.

*‘With his threat to use nuclear weapons, Putin has already committed a breach of civilisation. He has shattered one of our post-war norms.’

*Constanze Stelzenmüller on the ZDF programme ‘maybrit illner’

*How the West had already weakened itself prior to Putin’s war

*The motives of the Russian autocrat

*How we in Germany and Europe can better protect ourselves against Russia and China in the future

*A comprehensive analysis of foreign policy and security policy in our new era

*One of Germany’s most renowned experts on this subject

*The author is a regular guest on talk shows

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) was one of the most important artists of the 20^th century and produced a breathtakingly broad body of work. Imaginative and experimental, he turned his hand to almost every medium: painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics and stage decoration. The stylistic variability of his work is fascinating, as is the way it fits into his life story. Ina Conzen traces Picasso’s life and work, looking in particular at the way the artist was strategically portrayed by himself and those close to him as a creative genius.

On 8 November 1939, a bomb went off in Munich’s Bürgerbräukeller. It was supposed to kill Adolf Hitler while he was giving a speech. If the plan had worked, the Second World War and the whole of world history would have taken a different course. But the ‘Führer’ left the room early and survived. This book tells the story of the man who planned and carried out the deed completely alone: Johann Georg Elser.

The carpenter Georg Elser realised more quickly than most Germans that Hitler’s regime meant war and ruin. Therefore he decided to assassinate Hitler. He designed a bomb with a detonator (and his design was more technically accomplished than those of the officers in the military resistance) and hid it, unnoticed, in a pillar inside the Bürgerbräukeller. Today, Elser is almost as famous as Hans and Sophie Scholl and Count von Stauffenberg, the hero of the 20 July Plot. But until now, little was known about him as a person. This meticulously researched biography portrays the carpenter from Königsbronn in his social, historical and personal context. In this knowledgeable biography, Wolfgang Benz pays long-overdue tribute to a simple working-class man who understood the criminal nature of the Nazi regime and was determined to resist it, no matter what the consequences.

* The first major biography based on historical sources

* ‘Through my deed, I wanted to prevent even greater bloodshed.’ - Johann Georg Elser

*A long-overdue tribute

*World history would have taken a different course if Hitler had not survived the attack

On the evening of 8 November, Adolf Hitler burst into the Bürgerbräukeller brandishing a revolver, and declared the start of the national revolution. This revolution came to a swift end at noon the following day in a hail of bullets at the Feldherrnhalle. The man standing beside Hitler was killed, and Hitler himself fled and was later imprisoned. The putsch had failed. Nazi propaganda claimed that the National Socialist Party had been responsible for the putsch, and portrayed it as the sacrifice that had made the Third Reich possible. But at the time, the goal of the putsch had actually been quite different. Bavaria’s political and military leaders had been planning the fall of the Republic, the ‘march on Berlin’. With the ingenuity of a detective, Wolfgang Niess reveals a network of conspiracists and shows how Hitler actually ruined the whole endeavour. Poorly informed and mindful only of his own advantage, he pressed ahead and thwarted the plans of the Bavarian leaders and their co-conspirators in Berlin. Unintentionally, Hitler had given the democrats the opportunity to save the Weimar Republic when it had already seemed lost.

*100 years since the Beer Hall Putsch - the whole story

*‘A brilliantly written new interpretation of the Beer Hall Putsch.’ - Ian Kershaw

*The hidden history behind the Beer Hall Putsch

*The plans for a right-wing putsch in 1923 – revealed with sleuth-like skill

*How Hitler’s amateurish actions enabled the Weimar Republic to survive

*Just the tip of the iceberg – what really happened in Bavaria 100 years ago

*How Bavarian leaders planned the ‘march on Berlin’

The world is changing ever more rapidly: while the Covid pandemic exposed paradoxes both old and new, climate change became the focus of international attention thanks to the ‘Fridays for Future’ movement, and reactions to the murder of George Floyd reignited debates about identity politics in Europe and the USA, Russia’s war against Ukraine highlighted more clearly than ever the lines of conflict between authoritarian superpowers in the East on the one hand and Western democracies on the other. In this major study, Andreas Rödder shows how the complex world in which we live became what it is today. What becomes strikingly clear is that in our accelerated, digitalised and globalised world, having a historical perspective on contemporary dynamics is vital to an understanding of the present day.

*‘A remarkable book: innovative, exciting and indispensable.’ - Ulrich Herbert, Spiegel Bestseller author

*The long-awaited update to the Spiegel Bestseller ‘21.0’

*‘21.0’ has sold over 20,000 copies

*Explains digitalisation, capitalism, climate change, identity politics, terrorism

*A highly topical analysis

‘Political refugees have the right to asylum’, says the German constitution. A fine phrase, around which ever more restrictions and regulations are now springing up. This regulatory confusion is the symptom of a misguided refugee policy which rewards those who manage to cross Europe’s borders. Anyone who does not make it loses out. But Europe is not doing itself any favours by perpetuating this system. Using real case studies and statistical data, Ruud Koopmans explains why the current arrangement is hindering integration, posing a threat to domestic security, fuelling right-wing populism, dividing Europe and making us dependent on autocrats who open and close their borders with Europe at will. The so-called refugee crisis of 2015 is revealed to be a homegrown crisis in asylum policy. This lucid analysis, based on many years of research, ends with a pragmatic suggestion about how we can combine generous humanitarian asylum provision with measures to restrict illegal immigration. In this way we can both regain control and ensure that asylum policy does not remain a deadly lottery.

*Why the European asylum system is terminally ill:

-         It costs more lives than it saves

-         Only the strongest make it to Europe

-         Many people who are genuinely in need have no chance

-         Countries of first reception are left in the lurch

-         Integration is more difficult than first thought

-         It is fuelling right-wing populism

-         Europe is being divided, and is vulnerable to blackmail, by autocrats

*A fascinating proposal as to how things could be run differently

*What is going wrong with refugee policy, and how can we really help those in need?

Mathematics is like an oracle. Its revelations are as clear and precise as can be. But what they ultimately mean remains unclear. We might see them as instructions and nothing more: the world is becoming increasingly digitalised, and the practical importance of mathematics in our day-to-day lives is growing rapidly. But this would be to obscure the deeper significance of mathematics. Einstein expressed his astonishment that mathematics was so perfectly adapted to the objects of the world. David Hilbert, probably the most influential mathematician of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, is said to have responded to the news that one of his students had decided to give up studying mathematics in order to become a poet, by observing tersely: ‘Good, he did not have enough imagination to become a mathematician’. On closer inspection, mathematics is a great adventure in thought, sitting somewhere between the mind and the physical world.

*A clear and concrete guide to the world of mathematics

*Mathematics and philosophy – the not-too-dissimilar sisters

*What mathematics can do and how we can understand it

*Gordon Gillespie is a little different from most other authors of popular mathematics books in that he is also a philosopher