fiction

The podcast hosts Maja Beckers and Alexander Cammann © Marzena Skubatz for ZEIT ONLINE

Summer is ending and autumn is beginning with many new non-fiction books that will spark discussions. In America, Samuel Moyn has already done that: With his book Liberalism against itself The historian of ideas attacks famous classics of liberal thought after 1945, from Hannah Arendt and Isaiah Berlin to Karl Popper and Judith Shklar. They are all to blame for the rise of Trump and the current weakness of Western democracy – because the liberalism of these thinkers was one-sided. Is Moyn right in his attack?

The world of the super-rich is usually well protected from the gaze of average earners. Journalist Julia Friedrichs has now managed to take a look on board the luxury yachts and behind the walls and hedges around all the large villas: her research looks at statistics as well as at the everyday lives of the super-rich, at the good or bad conscience that follows immense wealth. The privileges are just as much a part of the existential crises of this elite, while the author looks for answers as to how a society that wants to be fair can get obscene inequality under control.

The “First Movement” this time comes from the book by Barbara Bleisch, Midlife: It’s about the midlife crisis that has been lamented so often – but this time it’s completely different than usual. The philosopher Bleisch explains in an original way why these “best years” can actually be pretty easygoing and also offer a surprising number of new opportunities.

As a classic, our hosts recommend Hannah Arendt with two newly discovered texts that are included in the volume About Palestine They show the world-famous thinker from a little-known side: as a politically alert contemporary who was already thinking about solutions to the Middle East conflict in the 1940s and 1950s. And unfortunately these thoughts are still highly relevant today.

© ZEIT ONLINE

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References:

Barbara Bleisch: Midlife. A philosophy of the best years, Hanser, 272 pages, 25 euros

Samuel Moyn: Liberalism Against Itself. Intellectuals in the Cold War and the Emergence of the Present, translated by Christine Pries, Suhrkamp, ​​303 pages, 30 euros

Julia Friedrichs: Crazy Rich. The secret world of the super-rich, Berlin Verlag, 384 pages, 24 euros

Hannah Arendt: On Palestine, translated by Mieke Hiegemann, Piper, 272 pages, 22 euros