The world is completely out of joint and most of us haven't even noticed. However there are some people who are only too well aware of this predicament: terrorists and heads of state. They are taking advantage of the cracks in failing states for their own gain-and the number of failed and ...

Art as a million dollar project

In our capitalist society, works of art represent the ultimate status symbol. The art market is booming, prices are rocketing. Why is it that people are willing to spend millions of dollars on works by van Gogh, Klimt, Keith Haring or Gerhard Richter ...

One day. Loads of problems. All the answers!

Offices are more than just common human habitats - they are also conflict zones that exert a massive influence on people's behaviour, psyche and well-being. They are akin to small local communities, with their own (largely ...

Hatred is an emotion, but peace is a conscious decision

A hotel in Rome. There's a knock at Lizzie Doron's door; when she opens it, she thinks she finds herself confronted by an Arab suicide bomber wearing an explosives belt. In fact Nadim has merely stuck his travel documents to ...

An inside view of the most important power in the Middle East

The Islamic Republic stands for an authoritarian yet modern society grounded in technology and the military which has nevertheless managed to retain a unique Iranian culture. But Iranian society is rent by an ...

The Middle Eastern politics of the Brandt era and their consequences
Even today, Willy Brandt's winning of the Nobel Peace Prize and the aura attached to his Ostpolitik cast a long shadow. His kneeling in Warsaw is legendary. However, the West German to the Middle East approach ...

From preaching hate to promoting enlightenment
Kamouss is one of the most well-known imams in Germany, where he was once considered the "popstar of the Salafist scene." Since then, his perspective on Islam has fundamentally changed. This book presents his self-critical ...

To the exclusion of the public

Beyond the reach of parliaments, transnational groups and networks of groups are working together to set global standards and norms. Public obligations and decision-making mechanisms are privatized in the process, resulting in the gutting of ...

Day after day, the internet is inundated by a flood of digital images. We never come even close to seeing all of it. Why is this? In his investigative research, Moritz Riesewieck has focused on the quagmire created by the simultaneous endeavors of censorship and exploitation. His goal: to ...

Frustrated by what he sees as patchwork politics, Omid Nouripour presents a tangible political approach for dealing with Islamist terror in terms of both internal and foreign policy. He holds that "IS" can be defeated by adopting a prudent combination of ideological, military, political and ...

What's stirring up France - and who's doing the stirring?

The relentless advance of the Front National is changing the French political landscape. Marine le Pen, the party's head, is quite clearly reaching out for presidency. Julia Heyer describes how the Front National

After seven decades of peace, freedom and increasing prosperity, Germany is the most successful country in the world in geopolitical terms. It has been actively involved in global security issues while steering clear of any hint of superpower politics. In the wake of its moral suicide in World ...