If humanity cannot live with the dangers and responsibilities inherent in freedom, it will probably turn to authoritarianism. This is the central idea of Escape from Freedom, a landmark work by one of the most distinguished thinkers of our time, and a book that is as timely now as when first published in 1941. Few books have thrown such light upon the forces that shape modern society or penetrated so deeply into the causes of authoritarian systems. If the rise of democracy set some people free, at the same time it gave birth to a society in which the individual feels alienated and dehumanized. Using the insights of psychoanalysis as probing agents, Fromm’s work analyzes the illness of contemporary civilization as witnessed by its willingness to submit to totalitarian rule.

First published in the 1930s, The Berlin Stories contains two astonishing related novels, The Last of Mr. Norris and Goodbye to Berlin, which are recognized today as classics of modern fiction. Isherwood magnificently captures 1931 Berlin: charming, with its avenues and cafés; marvelously grotesque, with its nightlife and dreamers; dangerous, with its vice and intrigue; powerful and seedy, with its mobs and millionaires--this is the period when Hitler was beginning his move to power. The Berlin Stories is inhabited by a wealth of characters: the unforgettable Sally Bowles, whose misadventures in the demimonde were popularized on the American stage and screen by Julie Harris in I Am A Camera and Liza Minnelli in Cabaret; Mr. Norris, the improbable old debauchee mysteriously caught between the Nazis and the Communists; plump Fräulein Schroeder, who thinks an operation to reduce the scale of her Büste might relieve her heart palpitations; and the distinguished and doomed Jewish family, the Landauers.

毕希纳的文学作品虽然不多，但却以极高的质量在德国文学史上赢得了一个不可动摇的地位。他的文学作品总共只有四部：一部历史剧《丹东之死》，一部讽刺喜剧《雷昂采与蕾娜》，一部命运悲剧《沃伊采克》和一部中篇小说《棱茨》。 除了上述四部作品外，革命传单《黒森快报》（把和平给茅屋！把战争给宫殿！）也可以称之为浸透政治色彩的第一个文学作品。它不但是一份重要的历史文献，也是他准备从事政治活动的政治纲领，对后来的德国传单文学产生了巨大的影响。

第二次世界大战期间，德国强调“人种论”，认为日耳曼民族是世界最优秀的民族。虽然这种说法日后被完全否定，但德国在过去两百多年从艺术、音乐到科学等领域，确实是人才辈出。
剑桥大学研究员彼得•沃森（Peter Watson）的叙述横贯1750年至今的德国现代思想与文化，将对全世界对于德国的陈旧观念发起挑战，让人们重新认识德语社会曾对世界带来的影响。
从巴洛克时代的结束、音乐家巴赫的逝世到1933年希特勒的崛起，德国从一个文化贫瘠的西方国家转变为一个重要的文化强国——甚至比法国、英国、意大利、荷兰、美国更具创造性、更有影响力。
在20世纪的最初几十年中，德国的艺术家、作家、学者、哲学家、科学家和工程师将本国的科学文化推向了难以想象的高度。
截至1933年，获得诺贝尔奖的德国人比任何其他国家都多，甚至超过了英国和美国的总和。然而，阿道夫·希特勒和第三帝国的统治使得天才锐减。这个残酷的事实使得德国取得的许多成就至今仍被阴影笼罩。
但当时，德国人是如何扭转国家大局，造就了文化领域一枝独秀的地位？
在这本兼容并包的文化与思想史中，彼得·沃森追溯历史真相，探索了德国天才的起源。他解释了德国文化为何能蓬勃发展、如何塑造了人们的生活。最重要的是，德国的科学文化如何持续影响着我们的世界。
作者还提出，德国思想是现代西方文化的巅峰。从贝多芬、康德到尼采，从歌德、瓦格纳到孟德尔、普朗克，从黑格尔、马克思到弗洛伊德、勋伯格，无数大师塑造了这种文化。
此外，尽管经历了第二次世界大战，约瑟夫·博伊斯（Joseph Beuys，艺术家）、于尔根·哈贝马斯（Juergen Habermas，哲学家）、约瑟夫·拉辛格（Joseph Alois Ratzinger，枢机主教）等重要人物保证了德国智慧至今仍兴旺发展。
《德国天才》是一部引人入胜，气魄宏大的编年史……英语目前在艺术和科学领域占据主导地位，但沃森另辟蹊径，带你回到很久以前德语一家独大的时刻。

Diese Ausgabe der Reihe »Suhrkamp BasisBibliothek - Arbeitstexte für Schule und Studium« bietet Max Frischs Homo faber zusammen mit einem Kommentar, der alle für das Verständnis des Werks erforderlichen Informationen enthält: einen Überblick über die literarhistorischen Voraussetzungen, eine Einführung in das Erzählverfahren und die Komponenten des Inhalts, die Entstehungs- und Textgeschichte, Selbstaussagen des Autors zu seinem Werk, eine Dokumentation der Rezeptionsgeschichte, Wort- und Sacherläuterungen, eine Analyse der unterschiedlichen Deutungsansätze sowie Literaturhinweise. Der Kommentar ist den neuen Rechtschreibregeln entsprechend verfasst. Walter Schmitz, geb. 1953, Professor für Neuere deutsche Literatur an der Technischen Universität Dresden, ist Mitherausgeber der Gesammelten Werke von Max Frisch und hat u.a. zahlreiche maßgebliche Monographien, Aufsätze und Materialienbände über Max Frisch publiziert.

The "German question" haunts the modern world: How could so civilized a nation be responsible for the greatest horror in Western history? In this unusual fusion of personal memoir and history, the celebrated scholar Fritz Stern refracts the question through the prism of his own life. Born in the Weimar Republic, exposed to five years of National Socialism before being forced into exile in 1938 in America, he became a world-renowned historian whose work opened new perspectives on the German past.
Stern brings to life the five Germanys he has experienced: Weimar, the Third Reich, postwar West and East Germanys, and the unified country after 1990. Through his engagement with the nation from which he and his family fled, he shows that the tumultuous history of Germany, alternately the strength and the scourge of Europe, offers political lessons for citizens everywhere—especially those facing or escaping from tyranny. In this wise, tough-minded, and subtle book, Stern, himself a passionately engaged citizen, looks beyond Germany to issues of political responsibility that concern everyone. Five Germanys I Have Known vindicates his belief that, at its best, history is our most dramatic introduction to a moral civic life.