February 2012
1 post
Berlusconiland
On Silvio Berlusconi, Maurizio Viroli, and civic republicanism:
Absolute monarchs are able to cow their courtiers into submission by wielding the implicit threat of pain, imprisonment or execution. Berlusconi never had such tyrannical powers. Even so, his underlings acted as if they were mere courtiers—apparently, the hope of getting rich was quite enough to...
January 2012
4 posts
A Continent's Discontent
On Walter Laqueur and the European Dream, in the Wall Street Journal.
If the years following the end of the Cold War now seem an era of dreams, then our current moment may one day be known as the era of nightmares. Just as Mr. Fukuyama and others once predicted that the West’s ideas would soon be ascendant the world over, so commentators...
The Pursuit of Italy
A review of David Gilmour’s interesting history of the Italian penninsula at bookforum.
Berlusconi has contributed more than anyone alive to turning Italy into a paese di merda. But his rule, too, shall pass. If the Italian peninsula has remained an enchanted place despite Caligula, Nero, Cesare Borgia, Vittorio Emanuele and Benito...
Germany Is Not That Sorry Anymore
An op-ed on Germany’s hesitant reaction to the Euro Crisis at Foreign Policy.
A transformed Germany now threatens the stability of the euro, and indeed the future of the European Union itself. But the reason is not just that the new Germany has grown more selfish. If Germans were simply acting rationally, they would bail out the euro. The...
On Thomas Friedman
A review Thomas Friedman’s latest over at The Daily.
The genre of the Friedman Takedown has entered an unprecedented crisis with the publication of his latest work. Friedman’s assault on the English language has noticeably mellowed. Whole pages go by without a mixed metaphor. One or two paragraphs in the book contain no metaphor at all. It...
May 2011
3 posts
Losing (but Loving) the Green Card Lottery
An op-ed in the New York Times.
“While the completely open borders of yore are sadly not feasible today, the lottery, in its limited way, helps America to remain a land of equal opportunity.”
Chess and Madness
On chess, madness and Bobby Fischer, in The Paris Review online:
“Chess has no transcendental or metaphysical justification. But neither do any of the other pursuits that make us human. Fischer may, in some sense, have been mad all along. He certainly, since his earliest childhood, was barely functional the moment he stepped away from the board. And yet, until he was twenty-nine years...
Fiction
My first short story, “The Other Jesus,” will be published in the Summer Issue of the Antioch Review.
It’s not online, so be sure to go buy a copy in a good old-fashioned book store…
April 2011
1 post
Book Project
I am very pleased to share the exciting news that my first book, on my childhood, German-Jewish relations since 1945, and the current state of Germany, will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG).
January 2011
1 post
Nothing to Declare
The first installment of my new weekly column on German, European and US politics and culture has appeared over at The European. (It is written in German.)
An excerpt from my first piece:
“Nein, über Sarrazin lohnt es sich nicht mehr zu reden. Eine große Bitte habe ich aber an alle deutsche Möchtegernprovokateure mit...
November 2010
4 posts
A Moral Baseball Bat →
My review of Hans Kundnani’s Utopia or Auschwitz: Germany’s 1968 Generation and the Holocaust in n+1.
UPDATE: Read Hans Kundnani’s interesting and gracious response to my review here.
Towns in Tuscany, Depopulating →
“Tuscany is known as a land of plenty, where beautiful landscapes and picturesque hilltop villages combine with a rich cultural heritage to attract tourists from around the world. But off the tourist track, in its poorer areas, whole towns are becoming depopulated and thousands of acres of agricultural land falling into...
Pimpocracy →
Video of the press review on France 24, the news channel, discussing an interview I gave to an Italian paper - in which I likened Italy under Berlusconi to a “pimpocracy.”
