Category: Book and film reviews

About 200 km north of Lima, the capital of Peru, in a desert, there is an archaeological site that has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is Caral, the oldest city in the Americas. Its foundation dates back 5,000 years - and perhaps longer. Accordingly, this culture would be almost as old as the Egyptian (about 5,500 years) [...]

The most important natural history book of the Middle Ages. You have probably never heard of a book that for a millennium was the most widely read text in the Occident after the Bible: The Physiologus. But you know many descriptions of real or fabulous animals from it that have become proverbial: the lion that animates its young by breathing on them; the pelican that loves sacrifice, [...]

Grail Message from Abd-ru-shin Verlag of the Grail Message Foundation Stuttgart, www.gralsbotschaft.org. “In the Light of Truth” is one of the most demanding of all book titles imaginable. But this work lives up to the highest expectations - provided one delves into it without prejudice. “What is truth?” Asked the philosophically educated Roman prefect Pontius Pilate in the year 30 the accused Jesus. This was silent. He, [...]

Suhrkamp Verlag Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-518-42385-1 There are many writings about environmental issues. But Stephen Emmott's "Ten Billion" is unique. They deserved to be the book of the year! Emmott's stage play "Ten Billion" was also a sensational success in London. Stephen Emmott teaches at Oxford and runs a research laboratory for computational science. So has [...]

The battle for Europe and our money Droemer, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-426-27605-1 What's wrong with Europe? Bank crash, debt crisis, bailouts, mass unemployment in the southern countries, protest movements... How could the European economy, after the much acclaimed introduction of the common currency EURO in seventeen countries (of currently 28 member states of the European Union), get into this turbulence, which is far from [...]

Ecological Turnaround or Catastrophic End Günter Albert Ulmer (Published in GralsWelt 76/2013) Our world is suffering from multiple exponential growth: the population is growing exponentially, consumption per capita is growing exponentially, and the big capital owners want their profits to grow exponentially as well. They must, it seems, in order to further increase their influence over politicians and governments [...]

The new report to the Club of Rome by Jorgen Randers. Oekom, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-86581-398-5, 430 pages. (Published in Grail World 76/2013) In 1972, 40 years ago, the first report to the Club of Rome appeared under the title: "The limits of growth", which wanted to draw attention to the fact that the earth is limited and therefore that [...]

Obituary of our lives as they have been (Published in Grail World 76/2013) By Gabor Steingart, Piper, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-492-27489-0, 182 pages. Have politics, the economy, the environment, life, the world ever changed faster than in the last few decades? It is only today that we are becoming quite aware of the fact that the years of the so-called [...]

The discovery of the oldest high culture in Europe By Harald Haarmann CH Beck, Munich 2011 ISBN 978-3-406-622106 286 pages. (Published in GralsWelt 76/2013) In the general sense of history, the cradle of European civilization can be found among the ancient Greeks. Their much admired culture was then adopted by the Romans. When the Teutons established the Roman Empire for centuries [...]

By Colin Crouch Suhrkamp, Berlin, 2011, ISBN 978-3-518-42274-8, 148 pages (Published in GralsWelt 75/2013) Have you also wondered how it was possible "that a crisis caused by the reckless greed of the banks was transformed into a problem of state budgets. While bankers' bonuses are returning to pre-crisis levels, thousands are losing their jobs in the public sector." [...]