Non-Fiction

By Charlotte Beradt Translated by Damion SearlsPreface by Dunya Mikhail "Beradt offers us not a complex hermeneutics of totalitarianism but rather a quite straight forward picture of the psychological effects of propaganda and manipulation upon a populace. . . . How does one become a totalitarian subject? What—aside from the threat of violence—are the necessary conditions? These are questions Beradt’s dreaming people daren’t ask themselves in the cold light of day, but the queries reappear under cover of night." —Zadie Smith, New York Review of Books "A strange, enthralling book. . . . The Third Reich of Dreams is a collective diary, a witness account hauled out of a nation’s shadows and into forensic light." —Mireille Juchau, The New Yorker The hidden history of a nation sleepwalking its way into evil. Charlotte Beradt began having unsettling dreams after Adolf Hitler took power in 1933. She envisioned herself being shot at, tortured and scalped, surrounded by Nazis in disguise, and breathlessly fleeing across fields with storm troopers at her heels. Shaken by these nightmares and banned as a Jew from working, she began secretly collecting dreams from her friends and neighbors, both Jewish and non-Jewish. Disguising these “diaries of the night” in code and concealing them in the spines of books from her extensive library, she smuggled them out of the country one by one. Available again for the first time since its publication in the 1960s, this sensational book brings together this uniquely powerful dream record, offering a visceral understanding of how terror is internalized and how propaganda colonizes the imagination. After Beradt herself fled Germany for New York, she collected these dream accounts and began to trace the common symbols and themes that appeared in the collective unconscious of a traumatized nation. The fear of dictatorship was ever-present. Dreams of thought control, even the prohibition of dreaming itself, bore witness to the collapse of outer and inner worlds. Now in a haunting new translation by Damion Searls and with an incisive foreword by Dunya Mikhail, The Third Reich of Dreams provides a raw, unfiltered, and prophetic look inside the experience of living through Hitler’s terror. Hardcover152 pagesPrinceton University Press, 2025 5.5 x 8.5 inchesISBN 9780691243511History

The Third Reich of Dreams: The Nightmares of a Nation

By Megan Brandow-Faller “The strength of Brandow-Faller's study lies in its ability to yoke together disparate cultural realms-Secessionist Vienna and postwar American childhood, and vastly successful designers and pedagogues with those largely forgotten-to reveal surprising and fascinating points of connection.” ―Laura Morowitz, Associate Professor of Art History at Wagner College, New York “A deeply informed examination of three visionary art educators from Vienna-Franz Cizek, Emmy Zweybruck, and Viktor Lownfeld-and their profound influence on progressive art education in the United States.” ―Ellen Winner, Professor Emerita, Psychology & Neuroscience, Boston College “Insightful and compelling, this book draws on previously unexamined sources to explore how three educators disseminated, popularized, and commodified ideas of child art from the Vienna Secession to mid-century modernism.” ―Mary Ann Stankiewicz, Emerita Professor of Art Education, Penn State University Tracing the dissemination of Secessionist ideas of child creativity – from their origination in early-20th century Vienna through to their eventual commodification in postwar America – this book highlights the central role that visual art has played in child education and in nurturing creativity in elementary and preschool curricula. Taking the reader through the ideas of three artistic visionaries and their students – Franz Cižek, and Austrian-American émigrés Emmy Zweybrück and Viktor Löwenfeld – this book reveals how these ideas developed in postwar America through a focus on child-centered methods of 'learning by doing' in artistic practice. By centring the visual arts as a vital educational medium, we see how these teachings have been popularized as a means of nurturing creativity in childhood. Across three chapter length case studies, interspersed with three 'mini chapters' on the reception of each artist-educator's radical teachings in the American education system, Child Creativity and the Visual Arts provides new interpretations into the impact of these three luminaries' differing philosophies on a broader program of socio-political activism in the USA. Drawing on previously untapped archival and primary source materials, it blends deep material culture analysis with narrative elements to present a compelling account of the unrecognized influence of émigré art pedagogy on progressive, international art education. In doing so, it provides fresh transregional and thematic perspectives on early-1900s Vienna as a hotbed of creative and cultural experimentation and 'mecca' of progressive art education. Hardback264 pages | 70 color illustrationsBloomsbury, 20259 x 6 inchesISBN 9781350456792Viennese History, Secession

Child Creativity and the Visual Arts: From Secessionist Vienna to Postwar America

Original Price: $29.95 UP TO 20% ADDITIONAL SAVINGS FOR MEMBERS By Karolina Watroba This groundbreaking study of Franz Kafka’s legacy—to be published during the centenary of his death in 2024—explores Kafka’s life and influence in an entirely new and dynamic way. In 2024, exactly one hundred years after his death at the age of forty, readers all over the world will reach for the works of Franz Kafka. Many of them will want to learn more about the enigmatic man behind the classic books filled with mysterious courts and monstrous insects. Who, exactly, was Franz Kafka? Karolina Watroba, the first Germanist ever elected as a fellow of Oxford's All Souls College, will tell Kafka's story beyond the boundaries of language, time, and space, traveling from the Prague of Kafka's birth through the work of contemporary writers in East Asia, whose award-winning novels are, in part, homages to the great man himself. Metamorphoses presents a non-chronological journey through Kafka's life, combining literary scholarship with the responses of his readers throughout the last century. It is a both an exploration of Kafka's life and an exciting new way of approaching literary history. Hardcover254 pagesPegasus Books, 20246 x 1.1 x 9 inchesISBN 9781639366712Literary biography, literary history

Metamorphoses: In Search of Franz Kafka

By Daniel Brook "A well-informed life of a scientist worth remembering."—Kirkus Reviews "Jaunty… Brook succeeds in bringing his subject to fresh life, including a description of Hirschfeld’s world travels in 1930, which he undertook to lecture and research."—Casey Schwartz, Washington Post "You’ve probably never heard of Magnus Hirschfeld—and this is an injustice to a truly great man. Daniel Brook’s excellent biography. . . resurrects Dr. Hirschfeld’s status as one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century, whose insights into human nature can illuminate our turbulent times."—Deborah Mason, BookPage An illuminating portrait of a lost thinker, German-Jewish sexologist and activist Magnus Hirschfeld. More than a century ago, Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, dubbed the “Einstein of Sex,” grew famous (and infamous) for his liberating theory of sexual relativity. Today, he’s been largely forgotten. Journalist Daniel Brook retraces Hirschfeld’s rollicking life and reinvigorates his legacy, recovering one of the great visionaries of the twentieth century. In an era when gay sex was a crime and gender roles rigid, Hirschfeld taught that each of us is their own unique mixture of masculinity and femininity. Through his public advocacy for gay rights and his private counseling of patients toward self-acceptance, he became the intellectual impresario of Berlin’s cabaret scene and helped turn his hometown into the world’s queer capital. But he also enraged the Nazis, who ransacked his Institute for Sexual Science and burned his books Driven from his homeland, Hirschfeld traveled to America, Asia, and the Middle East to research sexuality on a global scale. Through his harrowing lived experience of antisemitic persecution and a pivotal late-in-life interracial romance, he came to see that race, like gender, was a human invention. Hirschfeld spent his final years in exile trying to warn the world of the genocidal dangers of racism. Rich in passion and intellect, The Einstein of Sex at last brings together this unsung icon’s work on sexuality, gender, and race and recovers the visionary who first saw beyond the binaries. A century after his groundbreaking work—as the fights for personal freedom and societal acceptance rage on—Hirschfeld’s gift for thinking beyond the confines of his world has much to teach us. Hardcover320 pagesW. W. Norton, 20256.4 x 9.4 inchesISBN 9781324007241Biography, German History

The Einstein of Sex: Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, Visionary of Weimar Berlin

By Gustav JanouchContribution by Francine Prose "This remarkable book, itself the result of a miraculous discovery of material believed lost, is one of the most exciting works—fiction, nonfiction, poetry—I remember having read." —Joyce Carol Oates, Partisan Review The value of Gustav Janouch’s Conversations with Kafka was immediately recognized when it was first published in America in 1953. Through a series of mishaps, however, the original text did not include several large and critical segments of the manuscript. The missing material, only recovered by chance, was integrated in 1971 into this revised and enlarged edition of Janouch’s extraordinary portrait of Kafka. “The living Kafka whom I knew,” the author writes in his post-script, “was far greater than the posthumously published books, which his friend Max Brod preserved from destruction. The Franz Kafka whom I used to visit and was allowed to accompany on his walks through Prague had such greatness and inner certainty that even today, at every turning point in my life, I can hold fast to the memory of his shade as if it were solidly cast in steel …. [He] is for me one of the last, and therefore perhaps one of the greatest, because closest to us, of mankind’s religious and ethical teachers.” Paperback228 pagesNew Directions, 20125.2 x 0.7 x 8 inchesISBN 9780811219501Biography, Literary Criticism

Conversations with Kafka

Edited by Bernadette Reinhold and Patrick Wekner The photographic estate of Oskar and Olda Kokoschka comprises approximately 5.000 photographs. It contains portraits by renowned photographers, including Madame d’Ora (Dora Kallmus), Hugo Erfurth, Brassaï, George Platt Lynes, René Burri, Trude Fleischmann or Erich Lessing. Apart from artistically composed images, the estate also features numerous press photographs and astonishing snapshots. With its extensive commentary, this first photo-biography of Kokoschka provides an insight into the artist’s many-faceted work and eventful life. The publication offers a vivid record of the evolution of photography and a historico-cultural journey through the 20th century as reflected by the mirror of this extraordinary artist. Paperback208 pages | 206 colored illustrationsText in English and GermanAmbra Verlag, 20139 x 0.75 x 11 inchesISBN 9783990435656 Monograph, Photographs

Oskar Kokoschka - ein Künstlerleben in Lichtbildern | Oskar Kokoschka - An Artist's Life in Photographs

By Henry Wiencek How the architect Stanford White and the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens transcended scandal to enrich their times. Stanford White was a louche man-about-town and a canny cultural entrepreneur—the creator of landmark buildings that elevated American architecture to new heights. Augustus Saint-Gaudens was the son of an immigrant shoemaker, a moody introvert, and a committed procrastinator whose painstaking work brought emotional depth to American sculpture. They met when Stan was walking down the street and heard Gus whistling Mozart in his studio. They pursued their own careers in Italy and France, then came together again in New York, where they maintained an intimate friendship and partnership that defined the art of the Gilded Age. Over the course of decades, White would help sustain his friend's troubled spirits and vouch for Saint-Gaudens when he failed to complete projects. Meanwhile, Saint-Gaudens would challenge White to take his artistic gifts seriously—and so it went amid brilliant commissions and sordid debaucheries all the way to White’s sensational murder by an enraged husband in 1906. In Stan and Gus, the acclaimed historian Henry Wiencek sets the two men’s relationship within the larger story of the American Renaissance, where millionaires’ commissions and delusions of grandeur collided with secret upper-class clubs, new aesthetic ideas, and two ambitious young men to yield work of lasting beauty. Hardcover320 pagesFarrar, Straus and Giroux, 20255.7 x 1.05 x 8.65 inchesISBN 9780374162498Biography, Art & Architecture

Stan and Gus: Art, Ardor, and the Friendship That Built the Gilded Age

By Frank Meier, Edited by Philippe Collin, Cover Design or Artwork by Delius This volume is the ultimate bartender’s manual—a delightful concoction of vintage cocktails with Art Deco style and glamour. Originally self-published in 1936 and offered only to a select group of Meier’s friends and favorite guests, this edition is enhanced by stylish, vintage-inspired illustrations. With over 300 recipes, this is Meier’s personal mixology bible. While all the classics are here, it includes many of Meier’s own creations such as the Bees Knees (a gin sour where honey replaces simple syrup) and the Seapea Fizz (created for Cole Porter, whose initials provided its name). Also included are all manner of libations—sours, toddies, flips, egg nogs, slings, fizzes, coolers, rickeys, juleps, punches, and some nonalcoholic drinks—as well as extensive coverage of wines, eaux de vies, and even stylish sandwiches. Laced throughout are Meier’s wit and wisdom, life lessons, etiquette, and invaluable advice on a range of topics from horseracing to how to help with a snakebite. A fixture of Parisian nightlife, Meier was especially popular with US expats and visitors including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Noël Coward, and Cole Porter. He even served passionate martini aficionado Franklin D. Roosevelt. Hardcover176 pagesRizzoli, 20255 1/4 x 8 inchesISBN 9780847847860Culinaria

The Art of Cocktails: By The Legendary Bartender at the Ritz

By Joseph Horowitz “Heroically researched . . . chock-full of fascinating vignettes, stunning quotations, and shrewd insights on the fly.” —New York Times A masterful study of how the Russian Revolution, the rise of European fascism and the second world war all transformed the American performing arts —The Economist National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist Decades of war and revolution in Europe forced an "intellectual migration" during the last century, relocating thousands of artists and thinkers to the United States. For many of Europe's premier performing artists, America proved to be a destination both strange and opportune. Featuring the stories of George Balanchine, Kurt Weill, Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, and many others, Artists in Exile explores the impact that these famous newcomers had on American culture, and that America had on them. Paperback 480 pagesHarper Perennial, 20095 x 8 inchesISBN 9780060748500History

Artists in Exile: How Refugees from Twentieth-Century War and Revolution Transformed the American Performing Arts

Edited with text by Nicholas Sawicki and Marie Rakušanová Preface by Zuzana Jürgens Text by Alexander Klee, Marek Nekula, and Miroslav Halak Journey through Kafka’s Prague and discover the art, architecture, media and performances that influenced the author’s oeuvre What did Franz Kafka see and do, whom did he meet and what did he read while roaming the streets of Prague? Through the Eyes of Franz Kafka brings the world of turn-of-the-century Czechoslovakia and its cultural milieu to life. The author’s home city was a heterogeneous and multilingual metropolis whose visual environment shaped his everyday experiences, from local painting and sculpture to architecture, monuments and popular visual media including advertisements, photography and cabaret. Kafka’s attention to the modern visual culture of his era was reflected in his writings and in his interest in drawing, a practice in which he received preliminary training and which he took up in his free time during his years as a university student. This illustrated publication immerses us in Kafka’s world; by following in his footsteps and looking through his eyes, we gain a new understanding of his thoughts, philosophies and inspirations. Hardcover224 pages | 231 color and 16 tri-tone IllustrationsKant, 20258.25 x 11.25 inchesISBN 9788074374265Exhibition Catalogue, Biography

Through the Eyes of Franz Kafka: Between Image and Language

By Else Lasker-SchülerTranslated and Introduction by Jean M. Snook Concert was one of the last books published by a Jew in Germany before Hitler came to power. The work is autobiographical, a collection of essays and vignettes that both entertain and engage the reader at a deeper level. Like Robert Schumann's piano suites, each in itself a perfect concert, Else Lasker-Schüler's Concert contains pieces that vary greatly in theme, mood, length, and complexity, yet they are unified by the medium and by the distinct and lyrical personality of the artist. Lasker-Schüler is able to transform and transcend the everyday scenery and events that are her points of departure. She makes magical an unmagical corner of Germany, discerns the miraculous in the neglected and ignored, and finds wisdom and comfort in prayer and cosmic perspective.Lasker-Schüler was attuned to the world and in some ways uncannily prophetic. It may come as a surprise to some readers that Concert, published in German in 1932, contains a warning about the climatic dangers of interfering 'with the merry green leaf people who give us ozone and the breath of life.' With her respect for the natural environment and her emphasis on spiritual development rather than the materialistic, Lasker-Schüler's voice remains relevant to our own times. A recent German edition of her complete works has proven immensely popular. Prior to the Third Reich, Lasker-Schüler had a well-established reputation in her native Germany as a poet, dramatist, and prose writer, as well as for her work in the visual arts, and she received the Kleist Prize for Literature. As a Jew, though, she was increasingly threatened by 'people wearing swastikas,' and was forced to flee the country in 1933, never to return. She died in exile in Palestine in 1945. This is the first English translation of any of Lasker-Schüler's prose: a challenging task because she includes sections in dialect, poems, numerous neologisms, witty alterations of German sayings, and structural emulations with phonetic echoes of famous German art songs. Hardcover164 pagesUniversity of Nebraska Press, 1994Originally published in 19325.78 x 7.92 inchesISBN 9780803229006Essays, Autobiographical Short Stories

Concert

By Lene Rock The first extensive comparison of the German-Jewish literary corpus and contemporary minority writing in German Since the turn of the 21st century, countless literary endeavors by ‘new Germans’ have entered the spotlight of academic research. Yet ‘minority writing’, with its distinctive renegotiation of traditional concepts of cultural identity, is far from a recent phenomenon in German literature. A hundred years previously, the intense involvement of German-Jewish intellectuals in cultural and political discourses on Jewish identity put a clear stamp on German modernism. This book is the first to unfold literary parallels between these two riveting periods in German cultural history. Drawing on the philosophical oeuvre of Jean-Luc Nancy, a comparative reading of texts by, amongst others, Beer-Hofmann, Kermani, Özdamar, Roth, Schnitzler, and Zaimoglu examines a variety of literary approaches to the thorny issue of cultural identity, while developing an overarching perspective on the ‘politics of literature’. Paperback370 pagesLeuven University Press, 20206.14 x 9.21 inchesISBN 9789462701786Literary Criticism

As German as Kafka: Identity and Singularity in German Literature around 1900 and 2000

By Padraig Rooney "At last a biography in English of one of the most interesting women of the twentieth century! Schwarzenbach was so far ahead of her time that we are only now beginning to catch up to her. Little happened in the early decades of the twentieth century to which she didn't have a connection. What a life! And what a great way Padraig Rooney has told it." —Carlos Dews, editor of The Collected Works of Carson McCullers “An empathetic portrait of an audacious woman.” —Kirkus Reviews Annemarie Schwarzenbach was one of the twentieth century’s most remarkable women, possibly the greatest sexual and political radical of the 1930s. But until now she’s been largely ignored. Born to a wealthy family in Switzerland, as a teenager she rebelled against her domineering pro-Nazi mother. She immersed herself in the antifascist, queer and artistic circles of the German diaspora of the 1930s. Her edgy glamour and androgynous beauty turned heads in the lesbian nightclubs of Weimar Berlin, on the ski slopes of St. Moritz, and in New York's luxury hotels and jazz bars. Constantly on the move, Annemarie chronicled the low and dishonest decade leading to war through her unique journalism, writing and photography. Her work was as adventurous and uncompromising as her personal life, and reveals a deep courage, intelligence, and ambition tragically curtailed by her untimely death. Hardcover332 pagesPolity, 20256.3 x 1.4 x 9.1 inchesISBN 9781509566297Biography

Rebel Angel: The Life and Times of Annemarie Schwarzenbach

By Ludwig Wittgenstein Introduction by Jan Zwicky Translated by Alexander Booth One of the greatest philosophical works of all time, in a new translation for the twenty-first century Widely regarded as one of the most influential philosophical works of the twentieth century, Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is a succinct yet wide-ranging exploration of language and logic, science and mysticism, which has inspired generations of thinkers, artists and poets. In a series of short, bold statements, Wittgenstein seeks to define the limits of language, its relation to logic, its power and its inherent failings. Originally published in the early 1920s, it is the only book-length work the renowned philosopher published in his lifetime. In this thrilling new translation, Alexander Booth displays an extraordinary sensitivity to the subtle influence on Wittgenstein’s gem-like prose–at once specialist and, often, remarkably plain-spoken–considering his background in mechanical engineering, while highlighting the underlying poetry of this seminal text. Paperback 144 pages Penguin Classics, 2025 5.06 x 7.76 inches ISBN 9780241484173 Philosophy

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: The New Translation

By Hannah ArendtEdited by Jerome Kohn and Thomas Wild A deluxe expanded edition of the masterpiece of political philosophy that transformed how the world thinks about fascism and authoritarianism Includes two fascinating chapters that were later cut and are available in no other edition In 1951, a monumental book by a relatively unknown German-Jewish émigré addressed the terrifying new mode of political organization underlying the twin horrors of Stalinism and Nazism. Herself a refugee from Nazi persecution, Hannah Arendt sought, from her exile in New York City, to answer the unfathomable questions raised by the Soviet gulag and the Holocaust: How could there be such barbarism in the midst of civilization? How had governments exerted such absolute control over citizens, terrorizing them and enlisting them to commit atrocities on their behalf? Arendt’s historical and cultural analyses extend to a thorough examination of nineteenth-century antisemitism in Europe, including a trenchant account of the Dreyfus Affair in France and brilliant insights into imperialism, racism, and their role in totalitarianism’s rise in the 1920s and 1930s. Arendt contends that totalitarianism, as a political system, is now embedded in contemporary life and is, as she would later remark, “the central event of our world.” Her clear-eyed warning that totalitarianism is not merely a historical episode but is rather a permanent feature of modernity and beyond—a danger never to be fully eradicated, and a continual temptation for anti-democratic demagogues—makes Arendt, a half-century after her death, a preeminent thinker and political philosopher for the twenty-first century. The Library of America edition of this indispensable and influential work, based on the final version she revised in her lifetime, also restores to print Arendt’s “Concluding Remarks” to the 1951 first American edition and a chapter on the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian revolt of 1956, both of which were cut from later editions. The first annotated edition of Origins, the volume contains concise and thorough glosses on Arendt’s many historical and cultural references, and its Chronology provides a detailed portrait of her remarkable life. Hardcover900 pagesLibrary of America, 20254.8 x 7.8 inchesISBN 9781598538069Political Theory, Philosophy

Hannah Arendt: The Origins of Totalitarianism Expanded Edition

Edited by Larry Warsh and Dieter Buchhart A revelatory collection of the artist’s sketches and preparatory drawings, featuring many that have never been published before The great Russian modernist painter and theorist Wassily Kandinsky was one of the pioneers of abstraction in Western art. Few documents provide more insight into his evolution from figural to abstract art—or into the development of abstraction in the early twentieth century—than the pages of his sketchbooks. Featuring previously unpublished drawings, Wassily Kandinsky: The Sketchbooks is a comprehensive selection of hundreds of sketches from twelve notebooks Kandinsky kept between 1889 and 1935. Beginning with early figure studies, architectural sketches, and landscapes, the notebooks reveal a process of exploration that would lead Kandinsky from his first experiments in geometric abstraction to paintings that reshaped modernism. Demonstrating Kandinsky’s mastery of color, line, shape, composition, and movement, the book includes notes and preparatory studies for major paintings, such as the “analytical drawing” for Composition VII (1913), the first study for Several Circles (1926), and Study for Composition IX, a preliminary working of his 1936 masterpiece. Visually stunning, the book offers a remarkable, intimate look at how Kandinsky sought to discover nothing less than a spiritually transcendent form of art. Hardcover224 pages | 245 color illustrationsPrinceton University Press, 20258 x 10 inchesISBN 9780691268507Art History

Wassily Kandinsky: The Sketchbooks

By Larry Wolff "[A] masterful intellectual history of the province."—Timothy Snyder, New York Review of Books "Wolff's way of telling the story of how the idea of Galicia evolved throughout the nineteenth century is a dense narrative in which a variety of sources are related or juxtaposed to create multiple contexts—historical, political, social, intellectual, cultural. . . The scope and quality of Larry Wolff's scholarship makes The Idea of Galicia an impressive achievement. Not only has the author made a major contribution to the history of Galicia and to historiography, but he has also set a high standard for historical writing."—Jolanta Pekacz, Canadian Journal of History Galicia was created at the first partition of Poland in 1772 and disappeared in 1918. Yet, in slightly over a century, the idea of Galicia came to have meaning for both the peoples who lived there and the Habsburg government that ruled it. Indeed, its memory continues to exercise a powerful fascination for those who live in its former territories and for the descendants of those who emigrated out of Galicia. The idea of Galicia was largely produced by the cultures of two cities, Lviv and Cracow. Making use of travelers' accounts, newspaper reports, and literary works, Wolff engages such figures as Emperor Joseph II, Metternich, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Ivan Franko, Stanisław Wyspiański, Tadeusz "Boy" Żeleński, Isaac Babel, Martin Buber, and Bruno Schulz. He shows the exceptional importance of provincial space as a site for the evolution of cultural meanings and identities, and analyzes the province as the framework for non-national and multi-national understandings of empire in European history. Paperback 504 pagesStanford University Press; 1st edition, 20126 x 1.25 x 9 inchesISBN 9780804783125European History

The Idea of Galicia: History and Fantasy in Habsburg Political Culture

By Larry Wolff "In Larry Wolff's brilliant telling, an opera's fairy-tale empress and a real-life Habsburg empress come to embody the phantom political culture of an empire that to this day maintains a powerful hold over Central and Eastern European institutions and imagination."—Pieter M. Judson, author of The Habsburg Empire: A New History "This alluring and original work of history explores the parallel lives of a twentieth century opera, the twilight of the Habsburg Empire, and its last emperor and empress. Politics is woven into the opera's creation and its later life. In this brilliant book, art imitates life, and life art, through mirror images, shadows and the unexpected destinies of historic personages."—Leon Botstein, Bard College "The Shadow of the Empress has many virtues: great erudition, lively writing, and undeniable energy."—Celia Applegate, Austrian History Yearbook A beguiling exploration of the last Habsburg monarchs' grip on Europe's historical and cultural imagination. In 1919 the last Habsburg rulers, Emperor Karl and Empress Zita, left Austria, going into exile. That same year, the fairy-tale opera Die Frau ohne Schatten (The Woman Without a Shadow), featuring a mythological emperor and empress, premiered at the Vienna Opera. Viennese poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal and German composer Richard Strauss created Die Frau ohne Schatten through the bitter years of World War I, imagining it would triumphantly appear after the victory of the German and Habsburg empires. Instead, the premiere came in the aftermath of catastrophic defeat. The Shadow of the Empress: Fairy-Tale Opera and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy explores how the changing circumstances of politics and society transformed their opera and its cultural meanings before, during, and after the First World War. Strauss and Hofmannsthal turned emperors and empresses into fantastic fairy-tale characters; meanwhile, following the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy after the war, their real-life counterparts, removed from political life in Europe, began to be regarded as anachronistic, semi-mythological figures. Reflecting on the seismic cultural shifts that rocked post-imperial Europe, Larry Wolff follows the story of Karl and Zita after the loss of their thrones. Karl died in 1922, but Zita lived through the rise of Nazism, World War II, and the Cold War. By her death in 1989, she had herself become a fairy-tale figure, a totem of imperial nostalgia. Wolff weaves together the story of the opera's composition and performance; the end of the Habsburg monarchy; and his own family's life in and exile from Central Europe, providing a rich new understanding of Europe's cataclysmic twentieth century, and our contemporary relationship to it. Paperback452 pagesStanford Press, 20236 x 9 inchesISBN 9781503635647European History, Performing Arts History

The Shadow of the Empress: Fairy-Tale Opera and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy

by Fodor's Travel Guides “Fodor’s is pitched a few notches higher…aimed at a fairly discerning traveler with an appetite for background and the occasional surprise.” –New York Times “The Fodor’s guides are notable for their ratings of sights, restaurants, shops, accommodations and attractions.” –Chicago Tribune “In terms of comprehensiveness of coverage, the very accessible format, and the enthusiastic tone, this series remains one of the best on the market.” –Booklist Whether you want to explore Vienna's elegant palaces and concert halls, ski the Austrian Alps, or soak in the charms of Salzburg's classical music scene, the local Fodor's travel experts in Vienna are here to help! Fodor's Vienna & the Best of Austria guidebook is packed with maps, carefully curated recommendations, and everything else you need to simplify your trip-planning process and make the most of your time. This new edition has been fully-redesigned with an easy-to-read layout, fresh information, and beautiful color photos. Fodor's Vienna & the Best of Austria travel guide includes: AN ILLUSTRATED ULTIMATE EXPERIENCES GUIDE to the top things to see and doMULTIPLE ITINERARIES to effectively organize your days and maximize your timeMORE THAN 15 DETAILED MAPS to help you navigate confidentlyCOLOR PHOTOS throughout to spark your wanderlust!HONEST RECOMMENDATIONS FROM LOCALS on the best sights, restaurants, hotels, nightlife, shopping, performing arts, activities, side-trips, and morePHOTO-FILLED “BEST OF” FEATURES on “Best Museums in Vienna” and “Vienna Under the Radar,” "What to Buy in Vienna," and moreTRIP-PLANNING TOOLS AND PRACTICAL TIPS including when to go, getting around, beating the crowds, and saving time and moneyHISTORICAL AND CULTURAL INSIGHTS providing rich context on the local people, politics, art, architecture, cuisine, music, geography and moreSPECIAL FEATURES on “What to Watch and Read Before You Visit,” "Mozart," and “What to Eat and Drink”LOCAL WRITERS to help you find the under-the-radar gemsGERMAN-LANGUAGE PRIMER with useful words and essential phrasesUP-TO-DATE COVERAGE ON: Vienna, Kunshistorisches Museum, Stephensdom, Schönbrunn Palace, The Hofburg, Belvedere Palace, the Hotel Sacher, the Vienna Woods, the Danube Valley, Salzburg, Graz, Innsbruck, Tyrol, Vorarlberg, Bratislava, and more. Paperback384 pagesFodor's Travel, 2024Originally published in 20135.25 x 7.75 inchesISBN 9781640976764 Travel Guide, Vienna

Fodor's Vienna & the Best of Austria: With Salzburg & Skiing in the Alps (Full-color Travel Guide)

Von Elisabeth Sandmann Ein großes Kunst-Drama - die präzise recherchierte und emotional fesselnde Geschichte hinter Klimts »Goldenen Adele« Mitten im Ersten Weltkrieg wird Maria Altmann in Wien in eine wohlhabende jüdische Familie hineingeboren. Ihre früh verstorbene Tante, Adele Bloch-Bauer, geht bei dem Maler Gustav Klimt ein und aus, der 1907 ihr Porträt, das berühmte Bildnis der Goldenen Adele fertigstellt. Mit dem Einmarsch der Nazis wird der gesamte Besitz geraubt und den Bloch-Bauers bleibt von der einstmals großen Kunstsammlung buchstäblich nichts. Als sich die Erben nach 1945 um eine Rückgabe bemühen, sehen sie sich konfrontiert mit Lügen und Intrigen, die sie in ihrem vollen Ausmaß erst 50 Jahre später erkennen. Jetzt beschließt Maria Altmann mit fast 84 Jahren, den Staat Österreich von den USA aus zu verklagen und es beginnt ein transatlantischer Rechtsstreit, der einem Krimi gleicht. Gemeinsam mit dem jungen Anwalt Randol Schoenberg wird sie bis an das Höchstgericht der USA gehen und am Ende siegen. Hardcover128 pagesText in GermanSandmann, Elisabeth (Erweiterte und aktualisierte Neuausgabe edition), October 202414.1 x 1.4 x 21.6 cmISBN 9783949582387Provenance, Art History, Law

Der gestohlene Klimt

Edited by Matthias Muhling, Karin Althaus, Adrian Djukic, Ara H. Merjian, and Stephanie Weber A detailed and intellectually invigorating collection that places Surrealism in the thick of the battle for political emancipation. The Surrealist movement famously initiated a revolution in visual and written art, but its political engagement is sometimes overlooked. With more than 600 illustrations and contributions from some of the greatest thinkers of the last 100 years. Surrealism and Anti-fascism provides a panoramic view of Surrealism’s opposition to fascism. Surrealists denounced European colonial policies, organized resistance to fascist governments and movements, fought for the Spanish Republic, were persecuted, escaped into exile and died in the war against the Nazis. Today, as fascist-adjacent regimes again begin to proliferate internationally, this volume, bringing together central texts of political Surrealism from the first manifestos to the present day, could not be more timely. Contributors include: Theodor W. Adorno, Georges Bataille, Walter Benjamin, André Breton, Claude Cahun, Leonora Carrington, Aimé Césaire, Suzanne Césaire, Robert Desnos, China Miéville, Lee Miller, Karel Teige, Leo Trotzki, Paul Westheim. Paperback680 pages | 400 color, 50 bwHatje Cantz, 20258.75 x 11 inchesISBN 9783775758772Surrealism, Theory

Surrealism and Anti-Fascism: Anthology

By Elyse Graham “A fascinating new study. . . Book and Dagger tells the story of four such recruits—and surveys many others—with an almost breathless sense of wartime romance and drama. It makes for entertaining, atmospheric reading.” — Wall Street Journal The untold story of the academics who became OSS spies, invented modern spycraft, and helped turn the tide of the war At the start of WWII, the U.S. found itself in desperate need of an intelligence agency. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a precursor to today’s CIA, was quickly formed—and, in an effort to fill its ranks with experts, the OSS turned to academia for recruits. Suddenly, literature professors, librarians, and historians were training to perform undercover operations and investigative work—and these surprising spies would go on to profoundly shape both the course of the war and our cultural institutions with their efforts. In Book and Dagger, Elyse Graham draws on personal histories, letters, and declassified OSS files to tell the story of a small but connected group of humanities scholars turned spies. Among them are Joseph Curtiss, a literature professor who hunted down German spies and turned them into double agents; Sherman Kent, a smart-mouthed history professor who rose to become the head of analysis for all of Europe and Africa; and Adele Kibre, an archivist who was sent to Stockholm to secretly acquire documents for the OSS. These unforgettable characters would ultimately help lay the foundations of modern intelligence and transform American higher education when they returned after the war. Thrillingly paced and rigorously researched, Book and Dagger is an inspiring and gripping true story about a group of academics who helped beat the Nazis—a tale that reveals the indelible power of the humanities to change the world. Hardcover400 pagesEcco, 20246 x 1.15 x 9 inchesISBN 9780063280847History, World War II

Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II

By Anne Nelson One of the untold stories of the Holocaust—the nail-biting drama of Suzanne Spaak, who risked and gave her life to save hundreds of Jewish children from deportation from Nazi Paris to Auschwitz “vividly dramatizes the stakes of acting morally in a time of brutality.” —The Wall Street Journal Suzanne Spaak was born into the Belgian Catholic elite and married into the country’s leading political family. Her brother-in-law was the Foreign Minister and her husband Claude was a playwright and patron of the painter Renée Magritte. In Paris in the late 1930s her friendship with a Polish Jewish refugee led her to her life’s purpose. When France fell and the Nazis occupied Paris, she joined the Resistance. She used her fortune and social status to enlist allies among wealthy Parisians and church groups. Then, under the eyes of the Gestapo, Suzanne and women from the Jewish and Christian resistance groups “kidnapped” hundreds of Jewish children to save them from the gas chambers. Suzanne’s Children is the “dogged…page-turning account” (Kirkus Reviews) of this incredible story of courage in the face of evil. “Anne Nelson is superb at showing the upheavals in Europe since WWI through vivid, illuminating details…and she also masterfully describes the incremental changes in the Jews’ plight under the Occupation” (Booklist). It was during the final year of the Occupation when Suzanne was caught in the Gestapo dragnet that was pursuing a Soviet agent she had aided. She was executed shortly before the liberation of Paris. Paperback336 pagesSimon & Schuster, 20185.5 x 1 x 8.38 inchesISBN 9781501105333History, World War II

Suzanne's Children: A Daring Rescue in Nazi Paris

By Josephine BakerForeword by Ijeoma OluoTranslated by Anam Zafar and Sophie Lewis “A gorgeous, captivating gem of a memoir… Josephine Baker’s as enthralling on the page as she was on the stage.” —Abbott Kahler, New York Times bestselling author of Eden Undone and Sin in the Second City After stealing the spotlight as a teenaged Broadway performer during the height of the Harlem Renaissance, Josephine then took Paris by storm, dazzling audiences across the Roaring Twenties. In her famous banana skirt, she enraptured royalty and countless fans—Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso among them. She strolled the streets of Paris with her pet cheetah wearing a diamond collar. With her signature flapper bob and enthralling dance moves, she was one of the most recognizable women in the world. When World War II broke out, Josephine became a decorated spy for the French Résistance. Her celebrity worked as her cover, as she hid spies in her entourage and secret messages in her costumes as she traveled. She later joined the Civil Rights movement in the US, boycotting segregated concert venues, and speaking at the March on Washington alongside Martin Luther King Jr. First published in France in 1949, her memoir will now finally be published in English. At last we can hear Josephine in her own voice: charming, passionate, and brave. Her words are thrilling and intimate, like she’s talking with her friends over after-show drinks in her dressing room. Through her own telling, we come to know a woman who danced to the top of the world and left her unforgettable mark on it. Hardcover304 pagesTiny Reparations Books, 2025Originally published in 19495.8 x 1 x 8.54 inchesISBN 9780593853696Memoir, Josephine Baker

Fearless and Free: A Memoir

By Stephen Parker This first English language biography of Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) in two decades paints a strikingly new picture of one of the twentieth century's most controversial cultural icons. First published in 2014 and now available in paperback, it was critically lauded and declared the definitive life of this great artist and writer. Drawing on letters, diaries and unpublished material, including Brecht's medical records, Parker offers a rich and enthralling account of Brecht's life and work, viewed through the prism of the artist. Tracing his extraordinary life, from his formative years in Augsburg, through the First World War, his politicization during the Weimar Republic and his years of exile, up to the Berliner Ensemble's dazzling productions in Paris and London, Parker shows how Brecht achieved his transformative effect upon world theatre and poetry. Bertolt Brecht: A Literary Life is a powerful portrait of a great, compulsively contradictory personality, whose artistry left its lasting imprint on modern culture. Paperback704 pagesMethuen Drama, 20156.14 x 1.44 x 9.21 inchesISBN 9781474240000Biography, Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht: A Literary Life

By Dr. MisesIntroduction and translation by Erik Butler A compilation of 16 rigorous, eccentric essays commissioned by the German founder of psychophysics The original 1824 German publication of Stapelia Mixta united a bevy of eccentric proposals, meditations and displays of consciously excessive learning that strove for an unusual clarity of absurdity, which was the hallmark of the pseudonymous author Dr. Mises. Aiming for a broader reading audience, it was titled after a flower, but one of such a stench as to guarantee originality. And such was the originality of these semiserious flights of excess that came under the cover of Dr. Mises, who wrote on everything from landscaping to the spiritual lives of plants and heavenly bodies while also conducting pioneering research in optics and experimental psychology.The 16 essays of this collection include discussions of dancing, drugs, immortality, perception and psychology. These increasingly inventive essays start with a relatively digestible “Encomium of the Belly” before developing into a complicated, prepataphysical exploration of Spatial Symbolism. Paperback152 pages | 11 black-and-white illustrationsWakefield Press, 20245.25 x 8 inchesISBN 9781962728010 Essays

Stapelia Mixta

By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Introduction and Photography by Gordon L. Miller Goethe’s influential text, newly illustrated with stunning color photographs. The Metamorphosis of Plants, published in 1790, was Goethe’s first major attempt to describe what he called in a letter to a friend “the truth about the how of the organism.” Inspired by the diversity of flora he found on a journey to Italy, Goethe sought a unity of form in diverse structures. He came to see in the leaf the germ of a plant’s metamorphosis—“the true Proteus who can hide or reveal himself in all vegetal forms”—from the root and stem leaves to the calyx and corolla, to pistil and stamens. With this short book—123 numbered paragraphs, in the manner of the great botanist Linnaeus—Goethe aimed to tell the story of botanical forms in process, to present, in effect, a motion picture of the metamorphosis of plants. This MIT Press edition of The Metamorphosis of Plants illustrates Goethe’s text (in an English translation by Douglas Miller) with a series of stunning and starkly beautiful color photographs as well as numerous line drawings. It is the most completely and colorfully illustrated edition of Goethe’s book ever published. It demonstrates vividly Goethe’s ideas of transformation and interdependence, as well as the systematic use of imagination in scientific research—which influenced thinkers ranging from Darwin to Thoreau and has much to teach us today about our relationship with nature. Paperback156 pagesRandom House, 2024Originally published in 17906 x 8 inchesISBN 9780262551021Theory, Photography

The Metamorphosis of Plants

By Jostein Gaarder Translated by Paulette Møller “This book contains a novel mantra for those days when the world gets in your face.”—Entertainment Weekly“A whimsical and ingenious mystery novel that also happens to be a history of philosophy.”—Alexander Theroux, The Washington Post Book World“First, think a beginner's guide to philosophy . . . Next, imagine a fantasy novel—something like a modern-day version of Through the Looking Glass. Meld these disparate genres, and what do you get? Well, what you get is an improbable international bestseller . . . [A] tour de force.”—John Elson, Time A brand-new 30th anniversary edition of the wildly popular (over fifty million copies in print!), page-turning novel about a young girl’s exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought. Jostein Gaarder’s Sophie’s World is an exciting coming-of-age novel that thrives on its contradictions. It is a page-turning science fiction adventure as well as a history of Western philosophy—from the discourses of ancient Greece to debates about the Big Bang. The games begin when fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen finds two notes in her mailbox. One note asks, “Who are you?” The other asks, “Where does the world come from?” From here, with the aid of a devoted but mysterious instructor, Sophie sets off on a fantastic philosophical saga that will take her far beyond her small Norwegian hometown. Letters give way to lectures, questions give way to quests, and the dimensions of Sophie’s world (as well as our own) grow ever wider, deeper, and richer. Paperback544 pagesPicador, 2024Originally published in 19915.91 x 8.27 inchesISBN 9781250860491Philosophy, Theory

Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy

By Sigmund Freud Freud was fascinated by the mysteries of creativity and the imagination. The groundbreaking works that comprise The Uncanny present some of his most influential explorations of the mind. In these pieces Freud investigates the vivid but seemingly trivial childhood memories that often “screen” deeply uncomfortable desires; the links between literature and daydreaming; and our intensely mixed feelings about things we experience as “uncanny.” Also included is Freud’s celebrated study of Leonardo Da Vinci-his first exercise in psychobiography. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. Paperback240 pagesPenguin Classics, 20035.1 x 0.65 x 7.75 inchesISBN 9780142437476Psychology, History

The Uncanny

By Luisa Weiss A collection of more than 100 of the best, most emblematic recipes of German and Austrian home cooks, from the author of Classic German Baking. To many, German food is humble comfort food, the kind of food that may not win a beauty award, but more than makes up for it with its power to soothe, nourish and cheer. In Classic German Cooking, Luisa Weiss—who was born in Berlin to an Italian mother and American father, and married into a family with roots in Saxony—has collected and mastered the essential everyday recipes of Germany and Austria. Classic German Cooking features traditional and time-honored recipes that are beloved in homes across the region, such as Rinderrouladen (Braised Beef Rolls), Quarkauflauf (Fresh Cheese Soufflé), Hühnerfrikassee (Chicken Fricassee) and authentic Viennese Gulasch or Alpine Germknödel (Plum Butter-Stuffed Steamed Dumplings). Cozy Apfelküchle (Apple Fritters) bring warmth to an afternoon snack, while tangy Spargelsalat (White Asparagus Salad) signals the sweet start of Spring. Luisa gives history and context to the cooking of Germany and its influences worldwide. Sprinkled with both personal stories and historical insights, Classic German Cooking will leave you with a well-rounded understanding of the cuisine and its lasting influence. Hardcover272 pagesRandom House, Inc., 20248.27 x 1.06 x 10.28 inchesISBN 9781984861887 Cookbook

Classic German Cooking

By Bruno Munari Translated and annotated by Jeffrey Schnapp The first-ever English translation of Bruno Munari’s classic treatise on creativity, replete with new contextualizing annotations “But isn’t imagination also fantasy? And can’t fantastic images also assume the form of sounds? Musicians speak of sonic images, sound objects. How does one invent a fish tale, an air-cooled engine, a new plastic? ... fantasy, invention, creativity think; imagination sees.” Never before translated into English, Bruno Munari’s Fantasy, originally published in Italian in 1977, invites the reader to explore their own imagination, creativity and fantasy through a journey into Munari’s mind and work. His theory of creativity, developed in conversation with the Reggio Emilia Approach (a self-guided approach to education) and the work of Jean Piaget (a Swiss developmental psychologist who proffered a theory termed “genetic epistemology”) foregrounds the book’s journey through Munari’s design processes, both working for clients and teaching design principles to children. By turning both life and work into a classroom, Munari unlocks a path through imagination in order to access his, and in turn the reader’s, deepest sense of play. The facsimile reprint is accompanied by new contextual annotations by Munari scholar and design historian Jeffrey Schnapp. These micro-interventions highlight the innovations that make this work as relevant today as when originally published. Paperback240 pages | 224 black-and-white imagesInventory Press, 2024Originally published in 19774.5 x 7 inchesISBN 9781941753705Design History and Criticism

Fantasy: Invention, Creativity, and Imagination in Visual Communications

By Richard Schacht “Schacht’s long-standing and important thesis concerning Nietzsche’s naturalism is brought to fruition in this book. Nietzsche Pursued offers an invaluable, enriching, and superbly argued sequence of engagements with this extremely important thinker. This is an outstanding and original contribution to the field of Nietzsche studies by one of its most notable scholars.”—Peter R. Sedgwick, Cardiff University “The future of humanity is Nietzsche’s central concern. Nietzsche Pursued addresses current debates in innovative and inspiring ways, proposing nuanced solutions beyond established dichotomies such as moralism versus nihilism, essentialism versus perspectivism, and naturalism versus humanism. Schacht’s artful way of making sense of Nietzsche draws on a life’s work of exceptional scholarship and walks a virtuous tightrope between false alternatives.” —Helmut Heit, director of the Kolleg Friedrich Nietzsche, Weimar An ambitious venture into Nietzsche’s envisioned philosophy for the future. Nietzsche advocated for a post-theistic “philosophy of the future”—a new approach to human reality that would bend Western thought away from nihilism in a life-affirming, value-creative direction. His early demise left this endeavor only just begun. In Nietzsche Pursued, Richard Schacht examines Nietzsche’s revisionist approach to familiar philosophical topics, exploring how some may be further pursued in Nietzschean ways. Each chapter focuses on one topic that is central to Nietzsche’s vision of what philosophy can and should be and do. Among them: his kind of naturalism, humanity, perspectivism, morality, and music. Building on his analysis in Nietzsche’s Kind of Philosophy, Schacht invites readers to see with new appreciation the ongoing significance of Nietzsche’s thought for philosophy’s future. Hardcover376 pagesUniversity of Chicago Press, 20246 x 9 inchesISBN 9780226834665 Modern Western Philosophy, Ethics and Morality

Nietzsche Pursued: Toward a Philosophy for the Future

By Alessandra Comini ''This erudite, mostly engaging self-portrait charts the making of an art historian and professional 'seer,' whose passion and wit enabled her to become a noted teacher and scholar at Southern Methodist University. Comini helped unearth centuries of overlooked women in art and wrote landmark studies of the Austrian painter Egon Schiele and of musical iconography. For someone engaged in a life of the mind, she has lived much of it in motion, and the art of travel and close consideration of cultural context have been her keys to learning and teaching. She is at her riveting best when she reveals her discoveries about Schiele in his Vienna prison cell, Winckelmann in Rome and Trieste, the composer Edvard Grieg in Norway, and the painter Akseli Gallen-Kalella in Finland. Her short essays dazzle the most when they reveal her keen eye, such as when she discerns how the German artist Kathe Kollwitz, in a bust of herself, 'used the resolute features of her own aging face as a spiritual topography for courage and resignation.''' --Booklist Overflowing with passion for her work as a scholar and teacher, Distinguished Professor of Art History Emerita at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, Alessandra Comini reminisces through six decades as an unconventional art historian in this illustrated memoir. The author of award-winning books on Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, and Ludwig van Beethoven, Comini draws on her sixty years of daily journals, sharing research-related anecdotes as she reflects on the formation and flowering of her distinguished career. Beginning with her colorful background as a refugee from Franco's Spain, then Mussolini's Italy, she describes her music-loving family's sometimes humorous, sometimes painful adjustment to a World War II Texas. A series of fortuitous experiences at Interlochen's National Music Camp, Barnard College, the University of California at Berkeley, and Columbia University later leads to what would ultimately be a turning point in her life as well as in Schiele scholarship. She discovered the actual cell in which Schiele had been imprisoned in a provincial Austrian jail half a century earlier. Comini invites readers to join her in the same zestful and persistent pursuit of cultural history that has repeatedly earned her the honor of being voted "outstanding" professor, by her students at Columbia University and later at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Her research and quests take the reader around the world and back. From the islands of Corfu, Madeira, R gen, and Tahiti to the cities of Lisbon, Rome, Oslo, and St. Petersburg, Comini pursues such diverse and distinctive personalities as Rosa Bonheur, Gustav and Alma Mahler, Pablo Picasso, Eleonora Duse, Edvard Munch, K the Kollwitz, Vaslav Nijinski, and Egon Schiele. Alessandra Comini's memoir will inspire readers with its sincere and compelling account of an extraordinary life and career still passionately in progress. Retirement for her has meant discovering a joyful new profession: writing art history murder mystery novels that take her eighty-year-old pseudonymous heroine Megan Crespi from the top of Europe down to Antarctica in pursuit of murderous purloiners of artworks by Klimt, Schiele, Kokoschka, Munch, and Kollwitz. Paperback242 pagesSunstone Press, 20166 x 0.55 x 9 inchesISBN 9781632931405History

In Passionate Pursuit

By Luisa Weiss “If you’re fascinated by German baking, by the recipes for kuchen, cakes, tortes, cookies, and yeasted sweets passed down through generations, then you’ll be as joyful as I am that Luisa Weiss has given us this beautifully written and photographed book. Here, at last, is our portal to learning more about the long tradition of German baking, which has influenced bakers around the world, and to recreating such wonders at home. Classic German Baking is a sweet adventure.” —Dorie Greenspan, author of Dorie’s Cookies and the New York Times best-selling Baking Chez Moi “Even if you don’t have the stamina for homemade apple strudel or Black Forest cake, this Berlin-born food blogger will win you over with her sandy almond sugar cookies.”—The New York Times From her cheerful Berlin kitchen, Luisa Weiss shares more than 100 rigorously researched and tested recipes, gathered from expert bakers, friends, family, and time-honored sources throughout Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. German baking has influenced baking traditions around the world for generations and is a source of great nostalgia for those of German and Central European heritage. Yet the very best recipes for Germany’s cookies, cakes, tortes, and breads, passed down through generations, have never before been collected and perfected for contemporary American home bakers. Enter Luisa Weiss, the Berlin-based creator of the adored Wednesday Chef blog and self-taught ambassador of the German baking canon. Whether you’re in the mood for the simple yet emblematic Streuselkuchen, crisp and flaky Strudel, or classic breakfast Brötchen, every recipe you’re looking for is here, along with detailed advice to ensure success plus delightful storytelling about the origins, meaning, and rituals behind the recipes. Paired with more than 100 photographs of Berlin and delectable baked goods, such as Elisenlebkuchen, Marmorierter Mohnkuchen, and Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte, this book will encourage home bakers of all skill levels to delve into the charm of Germany’s rich baking tradition. Classic German Baking is an authoritative collection of recipes that provides delicious inspiration for any time of day, whether it’s for a special breakfast, a celebration with friends and family, or just a regular afternoon coffee-and-cake break, an important part of everyday German life. Hardcover288 pagesTen Speed Press, 20168.24 x 1.12 x 10.1 inchesISBN 9781607748250 German Cookbook

Classic German Baking: The Very Best Recipes for Traditional Favorites, from Pfeffernüsse to Streuselkuchen

Original Price: $18.00 UP TO 20% ADDITIONAL SAVINGS FOR MEMBERS By Alexander Wolff Named a Best Nonfiction Book of the Year by the Washington Post "An event-filled biography and, along the way, a captivating case study in the challenges faced by refugees attempting to remake a life . . . Part of Mr. Wolff's chronicle has to do with the family lineage of which he is a part, not least the experience of his own father, Kurt's son Niko . . . Not content with registering the tectonic shifts of the times, [Kurt] Wolff brought about convulsions of his own, shaking up the American postwar literary scene. His grandson's book, as enlightening as it is engaging, measures the effects." —Benjamin Balint, Wall Street Journal A sweeping portrait of the turmoil of the twentieth century and the legacy of immigration, as seen through the German-American family of the celebrated book publisher Kurt Wolff A literary gem researched over a year the author spent living in Berlin, Endpapers excavates the extraordinary histories of the author’s grandfather and father: the renowned publisher Kurt Wolff, dubbed “perhaps the twentieth century’s most discriminating publisher” by the New York Times Book Review, and his son Niko, who fought in the Wehrmacht during World War II before coming to America. Kurt Wolff was born in Bonn into a highly cultured German-Jewish family, whose ancestors included converts to Christianity, among them Baron Moritz von Haber, whose desire to demand satisfaction in a duel sparked off bloody anti-Semitic riots. Always bookish, Kurt became a publisher at twenty-three, setting up his own firm and publishing Franz Kafka, Joseph Roth, Karl Kraus, and many other authors whose books would soon be burned by the Nazis. Fleeing Germany in 1933, a day after the Reichstag fire, Kurt and his second wife, Helen, sought refuge in France, Italy, and ultimately New York, where in a small Greenwich Village apartment they founded Pantheon Books. Pantheon would soon take its own place in literary history with the publication of Nobel laureate Boris Pasternak’s novel Doctor Zhivago, and as the conduit that brought major European works to the States. But Kurt’s taciturn son Niko, offspring of his first marriage to Elisabeth Merck, was left behind in Germany, where despite his Jewish heritage he served the Nazis on two fronts. As Alexander Wolff visits dusty archives and meets distant relatives, he discovers secrets that never made it to the land of fresh starts, including the connection between Hitler and the family pharmaceutical firm E. Merck, and the story of a half-brother Niko never knew. With surprising revelations from never-before-published family letters, diaries, and photographs, Endpapers is a moving and intimate family story, weaving a literary tapestry of the perils, triumphs, and secrets of history and exile. Paperback400 pagesGrove Press, 20225.75 x 8.25 inchesISBN 9780802158260Biography, History

Endpapers: A Family Story of Books, War, Escape, and Home [Paperback]

By Walter Benjamin Introduction by Stanley Mitchell Translated by Anna Bostock "A small bomb of ideas and vital argument."—Guardian"He does not abolish the distance between us and Leskov, or Brecht, or Kafka; he brings it to life."—Times Higher Education Supplement"If the killing of Lorca was Fascism’s first crime against literature, Benjamin’s death was undoubtedly the second."—The Listener A collection of essays of political philosophy by the renowned mid 20th-century critical theorist and literary critic The relationship between philosopher-critic Walter Benjamin and playwright-poet Bertolt Brecht was both a lasting friendship and a powerful intellectual partnership. Having met in the late 1920s in Germany, Benjamin and Brecht, both independently minded Marxists with a deep understanding of and passionate commitment to the emancipatory potential of cultural practices, continued to discuss, argue and correspond on topics as varied as Fascism and the work of Franz Kafka. Faced by the onset of the ‘midnight of the century’, with the Nazi subversion of the Weimar Republic in Germany and the Stalinist degeneration of the revolution in Russia, both men, in their own way, strove to keep alive the tradition of dialectical critique of the existing order and radical intervention in the world to transform it. In Understanding Brecht we find collected together Benjamin’s most sensitive and probing writing on the dramatic and poetic work of his friend and tutor. Stimulated by Brecht’s oeuvre and theorising his particular dramatic techniques—such as the famous ‘estrangement effect’—Benjamin developed his own ideas about the role of art and the artist in crisis-ridden society. This volume contains Benjamin’s introductions to Brecht’s theory or epic theatre and close textual analyses of twelve poems by Brecht (printed in translation here) which exemplify Benjamin’s insistence that literary form and content are indivisible. Elsewhere Benjamin discusses the plays The Mother, Terror and Misery of the Third Reich, and The Threepenny Opera, digressing for some general remarks on Marx and satire. Here we also find Benjamin’s masterful essay “The Author as Producer” as well as an extract from his diaries that records the intense conversations held in the late 1930s in Denmark (Brecht’s place of exile) between the two most important cultural theorists of this century. In these discussions, the two men talked of subjects as diverse as the work of Franz Kafka, the unfolding Soviet Trials, and the problems of literary work on the edge of international war. Paperback144 pagesVerso, 20245.5 x 7.8 inchesISBN 9781804294796Literary Criticism, Theory and Aesthetics

Understanding Brecht

By Carl Gustav Jung The landmark text about the inner workings of the unconscious mind—from the symbolism that unlocks the meaning of our dreams to their effect on our waking lives and artistic impulses—featuring more than a hundred updated images that break down Carl G. Jung’s revolutionary ideas “What emerges with great clarity from the book is that Jung has done immense service both to psychology as a science and to our general understanding of man in society.”—The Guardian “Our psyche is part of nature, and its enigma is limitless.” Since our inception, humanity has looked to dreams for guidance. But what are they? How can we understand them? And how can we use them to shape our lives? There is perhaps no one more equipped to answer these questions than the legendary psychologist Carl G. Jung. It is in his life’s work that the unconscious mind comes to be understood as an expansive, rich world just as vital and true a part of the mind as the conscious, and it is in our dreams—those personal, integral expressions of our deepest selves—that it communicates itself to us. A seminal text written explicitly for the general reader, Man and His Symbols is a guide to understanding our dreams and interrogating the many facets of identity—our egos and our shadows, “the dark side of our natures.” Full of fascinating case studies and examples pulled from philosophy, history, myth, fairy tales, and more, this groundbreaking work—profusely illustrated with hundreds of visual examples—offers invaluable insight into the symbols we dream that demand understanding, why we seek meaning at all, and how these very symbols affect our lives. Armed with the knowledge of the self and our shadow, we may build fuller, more receptive lives. By illuminating the means to examine our prejudices, interpret psychological meanings, break free of our influences, and recenter our individuality, Man and His Symbols proves to be—decades after its conception—a revelatory, absorbing, and relevant experience. Paperback432 pagesBantam, 20235.15 x 0.89 x 7.97 inchesISBN 9780593499993Psychology

Man and His Symbols

By Gillian Rose Edited by Robert Lucas Scott and James Gordon Finlayson “To read these lectures is to watch a great mind at work. Animated by her discovery of an incisive and socially relevant left-wing intellectual tradition, Rose approaches teaching by conveying that excitement – precisely the philosophical eros she would later extol. For readers familiar with Rose’s rigorous and sometimes forbidding books, these lectures reveal an unexpected, intimate pedagogical side. Alongside her unique and pioneering reception of the Frankfurt School, we can see Rose’s own singular contributions to political thought – her meditations on law, violence, the relationship between aesthetic imagination and social order – begin to find their grounds in her readings of, and arguments with, her predecessors.”—James Butler“This is the best starting place for a new generation of Rose-readers, a reminder of where it all began, when modernists could still be Marxists and theologians belonged to a previous age. A treat for the Roserati.”—Peter Osborne, Director, Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, Kingston University London, author of Crisis as FormLectures on art, Marxism, and critical theory by the legendary philosopher, collected for the first time, with an afterword by Martin Jay Marxist Modernism is a comprehensive yet concise and conversational introduction to the Frankfurt School. It is also a new resource from one of the twentieth century’s most important philosophers: Gillian Rose. Her 1979 lectures on the Frankfurt School explore the lives and philosophies of a range of the school’s members and affiliates, including Adorno, Lukács, Brecht, Bloch, Benjamin, and Horkheimer, and outline the way each theorist developed Marx’s theory of commodity fetishism into a Marxist theory of culture. Paperback176 pagesVerso, 20245.5 x 8.25 inchesISBN 9781804290118Philosophy, Politics

Marxist Modernism: Introductory Lectures on Frankfurt School Critical Theory

By Christophe Koné“Uncanny Creatures contributes a new and novel theory of dolls and their relationship to the concept of the uncanny. It also contributes to the ongoing/emerging scholarship on gender and queer studies to the fields of German studies and art history.” —Nathan Timpano, University of Miami Germany held a monopoly on the manufacture and export of bisque toy dolls in Europe before WWI. Yet, dolls’ omnipresence in the material, visual, and literary culture of the modern German-speaking world has so far not been properly addressed. In demonstrating this cultural affinity for dolls, Christophe Koné draws upon a range of stories and seminal essays on dolls, as well as toys, sculptures, paintings, and photographs. He examines how E.T.A. Hoffmann’s romantic tale The Sandman (1815) has been a major source of inspiration for German-speaking doll makers because of how it centers imagination and inventiveness. Using Hoffmann’s tale as an early example of an amalgam between doll thinking and making in German culture, Koné shows how it initiated a genealogy of doll thinkers (Freud & Jentsch), writers (Rilke), painters (Kokoschka), photographers (Bellmer), and makers (Pritzel). Uncanny Creatures then explores how this unusual interest in human-like figures continues a long tradition of thought devoted to conceptualizing “things,” from Immanuel Kant’s theory of the thing-in-itself to Martin Heidegger’s lecture on the thing, and Eduard Mörike or Rainer Maria Rilke’s thing-poems. Because dolls occupy a liminal space—not quite things and more than mere objects—they appear as uncanny creatures which have held a fascination for writers, thinkers, and artists alike. Uncanny Creatures moves past the Freudian discourse of fetishism to propose a new reading of doll artifacts in German culture centered on their ability to evoke a feeling of uncertainty and unsettlement in the viewer. Paperback184 pagesUniversity of Michigan Press, 20246 x 0.6 x 9 inchesISBN 9780472039739 German History & Theory

Uncanny Creatures: Doll Thinking in Modern German Culture

Edited by Lisa Marei Schmidt, Sabine Maria Schmidt, and Florence Thurmes Eine Aufständische für die Moderne. A Rebel for Modern Art Art collector, patron and arbiter – Hanna Bekker vom Rath (1893–1983) was a trailblazer for the artistic avant-garde and one of the most important female personalities in Germany during the pre-war and post-war modern periods. She was a friend of Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Alexej von Jawlensky, Ida Kerkorius and Paul Klee. This lavishly illustrated volume provides a lively picture of a remarkable woman. A refuge for modernism: Hanna Bekker vom Rath promoted the art of the Brücke artists and the avant-garde in a variety of ways. Even during the National Socialist era her “Blue House” in Hofheim served as an intimate space for exchanges and exhibitions for the artists who were her friends. After the war she founded the Kunstkabinett in Frankfurt, the city’s first postwar gallery, and she undertook numerous international journeys on behalf of modern art. The texts and images sketch a multi-faceted portrait of an “ambassador of art” and document the influence of her achievements. Paperback256 pages | 180 color IllustrationsText in English and GermanHirmer, 20247.8 x 10 inchesISBN 9783777443546 Monograph

Hanna Bekker vom Rath: A Rebel for Mordern

Edited by Anke Finger and Julie Shoults This collection, for the first time, explores women’s self-conceptions and representations of women’s and gender roles in society in their own Expressionist works. How did women approach themes commonly considered to be characteristic of the Expressionist movement, and did they address other themes or aesthetics and styles not currently represented in the canon? Women in German Expressionism centers its analysis on gender, together with difference, ethnicity, intersectionality, and identity, to approach artworks and texts in more nuanced ways, engaging solidly established theoretical and sociohistorical approaches that enhance and update our understanding of the material under investigation. It moves beyond the masculine, “New Man,” viewpoint so firmly associated with German Expressionism and examines alternative, critical, and divergent interpretations of the changing world at the time. This collection seeks to broaden the theorization, scholarship, and reception of German Expressionism by—much belatedly—including works by women, and by shifting or redefining firmly established concepts and topics carrying only the imprint of male authors and artists to this day. Paperback372 pagesUniversity of Michigan Press, 20236 x 0.84 x 9 inchesISBN 9780472039388Women's Studies, German Expressionism

Women in German Expressionism: Gender, Sexuality, Activism

By Katya Moytl “In her superb new study of Viennese women, Motyl explores the real-life practices of a range of ‘new women’ during and after the First World War. Moving beyond approaches that treat the ‘new woman’ as a discursive or political phenomenon, she instead explores women’s everyday life practices. By tracing her subjects’ bodily routines, Motyl’s remarkably original work gives radical new meanings to the concept of a ‘new woman.’” ―Pieter M. Judson, author of The Habsburg Empire: A New History Explores the emergence of a new womanhood in turn-of-the-century Vienna. In Embodied Histories, historian Katya Motyl explores the everyday acts of defiance that formed the basis for new, unconventional forms of womanhood in early twentieth-century Vienna. The figures Motyl brings back to life defied gender conformity, dressed in new ways, behaved brashly, and expressed themselves freely, overturning assumptions about what it meant to exist as a woman. Motyl delves into how these women inhabited and reshaped the urban landscape of Vienna, an increasingly modern, cosmopolitan city. Specifically, she focuses on the ways that easily overlooked quotidian practices such as loitering outside cafés and wandering through city streets helped create novel conceptions of gender. Exploring the emergence of a new womanhood, Embodied Histories presents a new account of how gender, the body, and the city merge with and transform each other, showing how our modes of being are radically intertwined with the spaces we inhabit. Paperback304 pages | 50 halftonesUniversity of Chicago Press, 20246 x 0.73 x 9 inchesISBN 9780226832166 Women's History, Vienna

Embodied Histories: New Womanhood in Vienna, 1894-1934

By Patrick Mackie “Erudite, ambitious and elegantly written . . . Mackie’s assertions about the ways Mozart’s identification with his era come through in the music are intriguing and insightful . . . His writing is fresh and imaginative, showing feeling for the musical character and dramatic narrative of a piece.” —Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times Book Review “Mackie’s approach is to situate the composer as an avatar of modernism, facing a fragmented high culture—caught between dry, ritualized forms of courtly music and the ‘hedonistic levity’ betokened by Enlightenment individualism. By laying such tensions bare, Mackie achieves for Mozart what Mozart himself did for music, time and time again: to make the old new, and intelligible as such.” —Robert Erickson, The New Criterion In exhilarating, transformative prose, the poet Patrick Mackie reveals a musician in dialogue with culture at its most sweepingly progressive. Mozart is one of the most familiar and beloved icons of our culture, but how much do we really understand about his music, and what can it reveal to us about the great composer? Following Mozart from his youth in Salzburg to his early death, from his close and rivalrous relationship with his father to his romantic attachments, from his hugely successful operas to intimate compositions on the keyboard, Patrick Mackie leads the reader through the major and lesser-known moments of the composer’s life and brings alive the teeming, swiveling modernity of eighteenth-century Europe. In this era of rococo painting, surrealist aesthetics, and political turbulence, Mozart reckoned with a searing talent that threatened to overwhelm him, all the while pushing himself to extraordinary feats of musicianship. In Mozart in Motion, we are returned to the volatility of the eighteenth century and hear Mozart’s music in all its audacious vividness, gaining fresh perspectives on why his works still move us so intensely today as we continue to search for a modernity he imagined into being. Paperback368 pagesPicador, 20245.65 x 0.95 x 8.7 inchesISBN 9781250335715Biography, Austrian Composer

Mozart in Motion: His Work and His World in Pieces

By Frank Tallis "Stunning in its breadth and depth, this is a magisterial treatment of a towering thinker." - Publisher's Weekly (starred review)"Convincingly critical and convincingly admiring―among the best of innumerable Freud bios." - Kirkus (starred review)A chronicle of Vienna's Golden Age and the influence of Sigmund Freud on the modern world by a clinical psychologist whose mystery novels form the basis of PBS's Vienna Blood series.Some cities are like stars. When the conditions are right, they ignite, and burn with such fierce intensity that they outshine every other city on the planet. Vienna was one such city and, at the beginning of the twentieth century, was the birthplace of the modern mind and the way we live today. Long coffee menus and celebrity interviews are Viennese inventions. ‘Modern’ buildings were appearing in Vienna long before they started appearing in New York and the idea of practical modern home design originated in the work of Viennese architect Adolf Loos. The place, however, where one finds the most indelible and profound impression of Viennese influence is inside your head. How we think about ourselves has been largely determined by Vienna’s most celebrated resident, Sigmund Freud.In Mortal Secrets, Frank Tallis brilliantly illuminates Sigmund Freud and his times, taking readers into the mind of one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century, chronicling the evolution of psychoanalysis and opening up Freud’s life to embrace the Vienna he lived in and the lives of the people he mingled with from Gustav Klimt to Arnold Schönberg, Egon Schiele to Gustav Mahler. Mortal Secrets is a thrilling book about a heady time in one of the world’s most beautiful cities and its long shadow that extends through the twentieth century up until the present day.Hardcover 496 pagesSt. Martin's Press, 20246.5 x 1.5 x 9.5 inchesISBN 9781250288950 Austrian History

Mortal Secrets: Freud, Vienna, and the Discovery of the Modern Mind

By Bryan GilliamRichard Strauss' successful conducting and composing career spanned one of the most fascinating stretches of modern German history, from oil lamps to atomic energy, from a young empire to a divided Germany. This biography covers Strauss' early musical development, his emergence as a tone poet in the late nineteenth century, his turn to the stage at the beginning of the twentieth century, the successes and misfires of the post-World War I era, the turbulent 1930s, and the period of the Second World War and its aftermath. Paperback212 pagesCambridge University Press, 19995.5 x 0.53 x 8.5 inches9780521578950 ISBNMusic, Biography

The Life of Richard Strauss

Original Price: $51 UP TO 20% ADDITIONAL SAVINGS FOR MEMBERS Ecrit par Armelle WeirichCélèbre en Autriche pour son salon au sein duquel elle accueillait les plus grands artistes et intellectuels de son temps – Gustav Klimt, Gustav Mahler, Stefan Zweig – Berta Zuckerkandl fut elle-même une critique d’art majeure qui a impulsé et soutenu le développement de l’art moderne au tournant des XIXe et XXe siècles.Paperback294 pagesText in FrenchPu Rennes, 20236.69 x .59 x 9.65ISBN 9782753592391Viennese Salons, Austrian Writer

Berta Zuckerkandl: De Klimt à Rodin, une salonnière et critique d'art entre Vienne et Paris

By Marissa Moss "A brief comic book style episode introduces each chapter making an effective attention-grabber and a boon to report writers."—The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books "Moss presents a spectacular story of history, science, and women’s struggle for respect through the narrative of Meitner’s life. The writing style is captivating and the book is a quick page-turner."—School Library Journal"Absorbing and well-paced. . .Moss provides readers with comprehensible descriptions of her subject’s scientific work."—The Horn Book MagazineBestselling author-illustrator Marissa Moss tells the gripping story of Lise Meitner, the physicist who discovered nuclear fission.As a female Jewish physicist in Berlin during the early 20th century, Lise Meitner had to fight for an education, a job, and equal treatment in her field, like having her name listed on her own research papers.Meitner made groundbreaking strides in the study of radiation, but when Hitler came to power in Germany, she suddenly had to face not only sexism, but also life-threatening anti-Semitism as well. Nevertheless, she persevered and one day made a discovery that rocked the world: the splitting of the atom. While her male lab partner was awarded a Nobel Prize for the achievement, the committee refused to give her any credit.Suddenly, the race to build the atomic bomb was on—although Meitner was horrified to be associated with such a weapon. “A physicist who never lost her humanity,” Meitner wanted only to figure out how the world works, and advocated for pacifism while others called for war.The book includes an afterword, author's note, timeline, select terms of physics, glossary of scientists mentioned, endnotes, select bibliography, index, and Marissa Moss’s celebrated drawings throughout. The Woman Who Split the Atom is a fascinating look at Meitner’s fierce passion, integrity, and her lifelong struggle to have her contributions to physics recognized.Hardcover264 pagesAge range: 10-14 yearsAbrams Books for Young Readers, 20225.85 x 8.3 inchesISBN 9781419758539Teen Literature, Women Historical Non-Fiction

The Woman Who Split the Atom: The Life of Lise Meitner

By Anne-Marie O'Connor “Encapsulates a fascinating, complicated cultural history of fin-de-siècle Vienna, its Jewish intelligentsia, and their near complete destruction by the Nazis....vividly evokes... how she became entwined with the charismatic, sexually charged, and irreverent Klimt...poignant and convincing...”—Publisher’s Weekly “Ignites many a startling flashpoint in the moral history of our time—a taut, rich, tangy and instructive read.”—Frederic Morton Contributor to the Washington Post Anne-Marie O’Connor brilliantly regales us with the galvanizing story of Gustav Klimt’s 1907 masterpiece—the breathtaking portrait of a Viennese Jewish socialite, Adele Bloch-Bauer. The celebrated painting, stolen by Nazis during World War II, subsequently became the subject of a decade-long dispute between her heirs and the Austrian government. When the U.S. Supreme Court became involved in the case, its decision had profound ramifications in the art world. Expertly researched, masterfully told, The Lady in Gold is at once a stunning depiction of fin-de siècle Vienna, a riveting tale of Nazi war crimes, and a fascinating glimpse into the high-stakes workings of the contemporary art world.Hardcover349 pagesKnopf, 20126.67 x 1.38 x 9.6 inchesISBN 9780307265647Adele Bloch-Bauer, Gustav Klimt

The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt's Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer [Hardcover]

By Harvey SachsA NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2023 “[A]n immensely valuable source for anyone desiring an accessible overview of this endlessly controversial and chronically misunderstood giant of 20th-century music.” —John Adams, New York Times Book ReviewAn astonishingly lyrical biography that rescues Schoenberg from notoriety, restoring him to his rightful place in the pantheon of twentieth-century composers.In his time, the Austrian American composer Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) was an international icon. His twelve-tone system was considered the future of music itself. Today, however, leading orchestras rarely play his works, and his name is met with apathy, if not antipathy. With this interpretative account, the acclaimed biographer of Toscanini finally restores Schoenberg to his rightful place in the canon, revealing him as one of the twentieth century’s most influential composers and teachers. Sachs shows how Schoenberg, a thorny character who composed thorny works, raged against the “Procrustean bed” of tradition. Defying his critics—among them the Nazis, who described his music as “degenerate”—he constantly battled the anti-Semitism that eventually precipitated his flight from Europe to Los Angeles. Yet Schoenberg, synthesizing Wagnerian excess with Brahmsian restraint, created a shock wave that never quite subsided, and, as Sachs powerfully argues, his compositions must be confronted by anyone interested in the past, present, or future of Western music.Hardcover272 pagesLiveright, 20236.4 x 1 x 9.4 inchesISBN 9781631497575Biography, Austrian Composer

Schoenberg: Why He Matters

By Michael HaasA Financial Times Best Book of 2023: Classical Music“A deeply thoughtful, intensely detailed and clearly argued exploration. . . . This is not only a fascinating book, but an essential one, which will hopefully inspire further studies.”—Jessica Duchen, Engelsberg Ideas“Michael Haas is absolutely brilliant. His devotion to giving voice to the many creators who were brutally silenced during World War Two is inspiring and essential work. He does this with passion and knowledge.”—Marin Alsop“With great curiosity and empathy, Michael Haas illustrates climactic moments as these Jewish refugees lingered between worlds, lost countries and roots, and searched for new and old identities.”—Ute LemperWhat happens to a composer when persecution and exile means their true music no longer has an audience?In the 1930s, composers and musicians began to flee Hitler’s Germany to make new lives across the globe. The process of exile was complex: although some of their works were celebrated, these composers had lost their familiar cultures and were forced to navigate xenophobia as well as entirely different creative terrain. Others, far less fortunate, were in a kind of internal exile—composing under a ruthless dictatorship or in concentration camps and ghettos.Michael Haas sensitively records the experiences of this musical diaspora. Torn between cultures and traditions, these composers produced music that synthesized old and new worlds, some becoming core portions of today’s repertoire, some relegated to the desk drawer. Encompassing the musicians interned as enemy aliens in the United Kingdom, the brilliant Hollywood compositions of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and the Brecht-inspired theater music of Kurt Weill, Haas shows how these musicians shaped the twentieth-century soundscape—and offers a moving record of the incalculable effects of war on culture.Hardcover416 pages | 15 black-and-white images6.12 x 9.25 inchesYale University Press, 2023ISBN 9780300266504Jewish History, Music History

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