The Italian author Roberto Saviano sits opposite me, four meters away in a black armchair. In the side scenes hidden behind the curtains stands a black-clad large man on each side – with his hands crossed, armed, constantly on the lookout.
Is President Macron the reason why the yellow vest has taken to the streets of Paris, or are the people wearing yellow vests just generally thoroughly bored by a guardian French state?
My namesake Truls Øhra's new book, The History of Power (478 pages, Solum Bokvennen), is a thorough and revealing review of the abuse of power unlike solidarity communities. Let me start with a first point:
Documentary of the Month: Peter Mettler's new feature film, Becoming Animal also has a philosophical depth, where it allows Canadian eco-philosopher Davis Abram to play an important role.
FEMICID: Murders of women do not only occur structurally and not only based on misogynistic motives – they are also largely trivialized or go unpunished.
MEMORIES: Nostalgia has been made into a commercial product that makes the past a constant and pressing presence. Do we really belong in a past tense? Memories are today produced, preserved and managed by commercial actors, by cultural products – which, to say it with Marx, are fetishized. Pop cultural products of the past are recycled, made into collectibles and picture books for the coffee table, sold as retro designs.
THE CLIMATE CRISIS: This book makes all other climate literature seem dangerously anthropocentric. We obviously haven't been very good at monitoring the earthly paradise.
INTELLIGENCE: In the United States, 18 different U.S. agencies at the government level are engaged in intelligence activities. In 1996 there were 6 million decisions to declassify material – by 2016 this had grown to 55 million!
GERMANY: How 'war-ready' should a country be? With a number of top positions in international politics, crisis management and security, security expert Carlo Masala is regarded as an undeniable authority in the field.
Michel de Montaigne is called the first modern man. His Essays from 1580 constitutes a watershed in our self-understanding. Now the work finally comes in a complete Norwegian translation.