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The list of recommendations with the greatest distribution in the German-speaking area appears here every month.
The media partners are LITERARISCHE WELT, WDR 5, "NZZ" and Austria 1. Experts select ten non-fiction books (not specialist books) from the humanities, natural sciences, social sciences and economics.
Thinkers, dogs and poets are particularly worth reading in January.
1. Axel Schildt:
Media intellectuals in the Federal Republic.
Edited and with an afterword by Gabriele Kandzora and Detlef Siegfried.
Wallstein, 896 pp., € 46.
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The Opus Magnum, also the legacy of the Hamburg historian who died in 2019, is a comprehensive treasure trove full of people, media and intellectual currents that shaped West Germany from 1945 to the machinations of the student revolt.
A basic work.
2. Michael Maar:
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The snake in wolf's clothing.
The secret of great literature.
Rowohlt, 656 p., 34 €.
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What is the secret of good style, how does language become literature?
In fifty portraits, from Goethe to Gernhardt, from Kleist to Kronauer, Maar unfolds a history of German literature.
3. Christopher Clark:
Prisoners of time.
History and Temporality from Nebuchadnezzar to Donald Trump.
Translated by Norbert Juraschitz.
DVA.
336 pp., € 26.
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With his thesis of the “sleepwalker”, Clark had reopened the debate about German guilt for the First World War.
Now he is devoting himself to the phenomenon of power.
In his studies he discovered an amazing connection from Babylon via Bismarck to China.
4. Josef H. Reichholf:
The dog and his person.
How the wolf domesticated himself and us.
Hanser, 224 pp., € 22.
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The dog was once a wolf.
At some point, however, he got closer to people.
Ten thousand generations later he was a dog.
A book about a special living being that became a mirror for us.
5. Wilhelm Heitmeyer et al:
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Right Threat Alliances.
Signatures of the threat.
Suhrkamp, 325 pp., € 18.
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In this study, right-wing extremism researcher Wilhelm Heitmeyer, together with Peter Sitzer and Manuela Freiheit, shows how terrorist cells encounter right-wing thinkers and anti-system milieus that threaten our open society at its core.
6. Marcia Bjornerud:
Time awareness.
Geological thinking and how it could help save the world.
Translated by Dirk Höfer.
Matthes & Seitz, 245 pp., € 28.
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Marcia Bjornerud is Professor of Earth Sciences and Environmental Studies in Wisconsin.
Her book conveys a deep sense of the earth's rhythm by telling of mountain formation, but also of ocean and atmospheric changes.
7. Eva von Redecker:
Revolution for life.
Philosophy of the new forms of protest.
S. Fischer, 316 pp., € 23.
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Eva von Redecker asks what unites activists from Black Lives Matter, Fridays for Future and NiUnaMenos in their engagement against racism, climate catastrophe and violence against women.
A socio-philosophical analysis using critical theory.
8. Christoph Möllers:
Degrees of freedom.
Elements of a liberal political mechanism.
Suhrkamp, 343 pp., € 18.
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Degrees of freedom is a term from mechanics.
Möllers, Professor of Public Law and Legal Philosophy at the HU Berlin, uses it to write a book full of clever thoughts about the classic opposition between the individual and the community.
9. Caroline Fourest:
Generation offended.
From the language police to the thought police.
Translated by Alexander Carstiuc, Mark Feldon and Christoph Hesse.
Edition Tiamat, 200 pages, € 18.
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An important book about the wrong ways of the identitary left - and their fatal alliances with the way of thinking of religious fundamentalists.
10. Hamed Abdel-Samad
For love of Germany.
A warning call.
DTV, 224 pages, € 20.
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Germany has a tradition of enlightenment - and one of inhumanity.
The publicist Hamed Abdel-Samad, who grew up in Egypt, writes about the dangers of the recently increasingly narrow-minded and anti-enlightenment ethics in Germany.
The extra recommendation
This month it comes from Ursula Münch (Professor of Political Science at the University of the Federal Armed Forces in Munich and Director of the Academy for Political Education).
she recommends
Torben Lütjen: America in the Cold Civil War.
How a country loses its center.
wbgTheiss, 208 pp., € 20.
“The book in line with the change of office in the USA: Why did the country of all places, which seemed immune to ideological excesses, split politically?
Lütjen analyzes the changes in the media landscape and shows that populism is deeply rooted in US political culture.
And he doesn't shy away from the surprising comparison between Donald Trump and Wilhelm II.
Even if his fear of a possible civil war is unlikely to come true: This volume explains why Joe Biden and Pamala Harris can hardly succeed in reconciling the United States. "(Ursula Münch)
The jury of the non-fiction books of the month
Tobias Becker, “Spiegel”; Kirstin Breitenfellner, “Falter”, Vienna; Manon Bischoff, “Spectrum of Science”; Eike Gebhardt, Berlin; Daniel Haufler, Berlin; Prof. Jochen Hörisch, University of Mannheim; Günter Kaindlstorfer, Vienna; Otto Kallscheuer, Sassari, Italy; Petra Kammann, “FeuilletonFrankfurt”; Jörg-Dieter Kogel, Bremen; Wilhelm Krull, The New Institute, Hamburg; Marianna Lieder, freelance critic, Berlin; Prof. Herfried Münkler, Humboldt University; Marc Reichwein, WORLD; Thomas Ribi, "Neue Zürcher Zeitung"; Prof. Sandra Richter, German Literature Archive Marbach; Wolfgang Ritschl, ORF; Florian Rötzer, "Telepolis"; Norbert Seitz, Berlin; Anne-Catherine Simon, “Die Presse”, Vienna; Prof. Philipp Theisohn, University of Zurich; Andreas Wang, Berlin; Michael Wiederstein, getAbstract, Lucerne; Harro Zimmermann, Bremen; Stefan Doubt, Switzerland