The organic class
Environmental campaign: The productivity of nature itself must be taken into account – other species, ecosystems, soil, the atmosphere and the sea. This was Bruno Latour's last book.
A treacherous saviour
India: Prime Minister Narendra Modi's staging of himself has been successful enough to keep him at the helm for years. Arundhati Roy delivers critique. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), founded in 1925, is the role model for Modi's ruling BJP party. The founders were inspired by German and Italian fascism.
Two testaments over life
Hell: Is it possible to simultaneously touch on four major themes, such as sin and evil, the desire for knowledge and conquest, relationships and competition, or the fear of death itself? Let me try in this essay – about Thomas Hylland Eriksen and Dante.
An Italian photo cavalcade
PHOTO: It would be almost fifty years before Paolo di Paolo's daughter found the pictures his father had taken, and confronted him with his hitherto unknown past as a (Italian) celebrity photographer.
In the direction of the totalitarian
PRE-FASCISM: Timothy Snyder's little textbook on tyranny – written for society "between Hitler and Stalin" – lies between patriotic obedience and political disobedience. The book is still current.
The danger of modified nature
ECOLOGY:With technological measures in all directions, researchers are faced with sky-high challenges. One of them is human ignorance linked to indifference.
A gigantic loss project
THE DISCLOSURES: For 20 years, US authorities lied about the war in Afghanistan.
Hitler's favorite director Leni Riefenstahl
FALSE OF HISTORY? Nina Gladitz challenges the notion that Leni Riefenstahl was an ingenious artist with poor political views. Her documentary about the filmmaker has been hidden in the German WDR archive since 1982. The reactions to Gladitz's book also show how difficult it is to seek truth and give the weakest in society a voice.
An ever-creeping feeling of loneliness
INSULATION: Acute loneliness affects both winners and losers. Daniel Schreiber visits a wealth of hermit literature – such as Thoreau's Walden and Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. But what does social withdrawal mean today – whether it is the occupational or pandemic condition?
The world's best Catholics?
CANADA: With the discovery of children's graves in Canada, the Canadians are arguably making the Irish rank as "the world's best Catholics". Children from First Nations were outright stolen, imprisoned in isolation, forced into a foreign culture, a foreign language, subjected to sexual abuse and general neglect.
Every war is a war against children
DIPLOMA: The life stories of Ich lebe reflect some of the worst war scenes we know from the last century.
«… Who steals, rapes, plunders, tortures and kills»
FRANCE: The French presidential candidate Eric Zemmour's conclusion after a number of "not a day without" statements is that France is about to be taken over by Muslims and feminists. The whole Zemmour figure is incomprehensible.
She could be Italy's next prime minister
ITALY: "I'm a woman, I'm a Christian, I'm a mother, I'm Italian, I'm on the right, I'm Giorgia." A book devoid of political analysis?
A place everyone wants to see, but no one wants to protect
VENICE: The high tide in Venice – up to 1,87 meters – is man-made, just as the large technical river barriers are described as a giant scam.
The hangover of colonialism
AFRICA: What is civilization, what is belonging, how much can a human being endure, and who are the wild, the heartless?
The military-industrial complex
MODERN TIMES CONVERSATIONS: From someone who should know the intricacies of foreign policy and geopolitics: Thorbjørn Jagland on military rearmament and enemy images – when it comes to the USA, Russia, China, Turkey and Libya.
French warriors and Norwegian soldiers in the Sahel
THEY HAD: No one in the Norwegian government can have read Nathaniel Powell's new book France's War in Chad: Military Intervention and Decolonization in Africa. Had they done so, they would never have sent Norwegian soldiers to the French military force Takuba in Mali.
Political propaganda, role mixing and politicians – Mussolini, Franco, Hitler, Pinochet, ...
DICTATORS: It is your network of contacts that shows who you are and that gives you a job.
Divorce is as common in Niger as in Norway
COMMUNITY BREACH: It is expensive to get married in Niger even though the bride price varies, and in the event of divorce, women are obliged to pay back the bride price.
The control of society and the unruly
LATE MOTHERS: People today are gaining more and more control over their surroundings – but are losing touch with the world. Where is the limit for measurements, quality assurances, quantifications and bureaucratic routines?
To what extent do you have to know in advance what you are looking for?
MEDIA: Profiling, information control, behavior-regulating nudges and the sale of personal data should prove to be the reality, rather than the realization of the internet as a publicist network.
The healing power of the community
RITUALS: The compulsion of neoliberalism to be on, to communicate, to make visible, to be busy, creates, according to Byung-Chui Han, reflex, narcissism, depression and an aggressive psychological emptiness.
Is renewable energy enough, when the planet's total energy needs are 15 TW?
ENERGY: We already have enough technologies to initiate a full transition to renewable energy sources. According to David Elliott, solar power also has a potential of a staggering 20 terrawatt – more than the world's total energy consumption
Everything is the fault of others
MASS MEDIA: Where the advertisement gave a feeling of well-being, desire and pleasure, the new media consumption gives the feeling of paranoia, anger and mistrust. Hate seller. Also on Capitol Hill.
On the dark side of truth
MEDIA: The struggle for truth – and thus for documentary – has become brutal. A new book analyzes how truth claims and digital culture shape our political realities.