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Leben und Forschen zwischen New York und Berlin
[The Other Side. Life and Research between New York and Berlin]

In this book, Wolfgang Schivelbusch not only looks back at his life, he also writes a cultural-historical biography of Germany. Schivelbusch’s life has always been connected to the USA: the GIs at Frankfurt’s outdoor pools whom he admired as a child, the student revolts, and his move to the gritty New York of the 1970s, from its intellectual life and culture to Schivelbusch’s view from his apartment, a view at the World Trade Center, followed by his return to Germany.

Schivelbusch collects and brings together all the topics that have concerned him all his life: the relationship between mind and power, the culture of defeat, physiology and consumption. In his role as a melancholic and distanced contemporary witness, he sketches a path from the post-war period’s unambiguousness to the existential dread of the present on both sides of the Atlantic. Therefore, The Other Side is both an autobiography as well as a diagnosis of our current time.

In December 2021 ranked 5th, in November 2021 ranked 7th on the ZEIT, ZDF, and Deutschlandfunk Kultur non-fiction best list. Also in November 2021 ranked 5th on the Literarische Welt, NZZ, RBB Kultur, and Österreich 1 non-fiction best list.