Summer Suggestions: Mozart, Pekingology, and More

Director of Carnegie Europe

This year I recommend a rediscovery of past classics.

I usually search for stimulation different to our daily preoccupations about politics, but these are inescapable in this electoral year. Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here has it all: the authoritarian creep, the liberal-democratic intellectual complacency.

Rereading some masterpieces has been so illuminating that I can only recommend them. Susan Strange’s States and Markets or E. H. Carr’s Twenty-Years’ Crisis. Among the best books to understand today’s world.

I love Mozart’s operas, but they are long. So I cheat: I create redux versions without the parlato on my phone. Portable, essential Mozart.

Researcher at the Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History

Sergei Lebedev’s A Present Past. Titan and other Chronicles. A dive into the Soviet Union’s dark legacies by one of Russia’s foremost writers.

Sergei Radchenko’s To Run the World. The Kremlin’s Cold War Bid for Global Power. All you would want to know about the Cold War and more—told from the Soviet perspective. Indispensable.

The podcast Pekingology: Xi Jinping’s China explained by dissecting state, society, and the latest research. Sometimes dry but highly informative.

Giuliano da Empoli’s The Wizard of the Kremlin. Kremlinology as a novel, well written, well informed, a page-turner.

European affairs correspondent for NRC Handelsblad

Coffee and Cigarettes by former criminal defense lawyer Ferdinand von Schirach. It is a (not entirely fictional) collection of essays, short stories, and memories. A kaleidoscopic, personal book about good and bad, justice and the human condition. The offspring of a prominent Nazi, von Schirach has thought more about these topics than most other people. Beautifully written, the book has one disadvantage: it is achingly slim.

The European Rescue of the Nation-State by Alan Milward. I had read it before, but this book (published in 2000!) is a gift that keeps on giving. Milward convincingly argued that for weakened, partly decolonizing European states after World War II, European integration was a survival strategy. With EU member states becoming increasingly powerful in Brussels and even populists entering European politics, it is not hard to see why this book remains relevant today.

I am not into TV series, but I like podcasts, especially slow ones. Every morning, I listen to the podcast of a France Culture radio program called L’Invité des Matins: just one topic fleshed out with one or two experts who have usually published books about the subject at hand and are, oh miracle, usually allowed to finish their sentences. Enlightening and civilized, and a good antidote to pessimism and distrust.

Claudia Roden’s Mediterranean, a cookbook.

Director of the Berlin office of the European Council on Foreign Relations

Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead. It rips your heart out and warms it at the same time. A story about Appalachia, the Opioid Crisis, and one of the most loveable boys in American literary history.

Daniel Brössler’s Ein deutscher Kanzler: Olaf Scholz, der Krieg und die Angst. The book’s blurb says: “You probably can’t get any closer to Olaf Scholz than Daniel Brössler”—and that’s exactly right. A book that helps you understand the Zeitenwende chancellor, without having to agree with what he does.

20 Days in Mariupol. Relentless. Merciless. Shattering. A testimony to the horror that the Russian war of aggression has brought to Ukraine.

Breaking Bad on Netflix. A few months ago, I started watching the original English version of the TV series with my teenage son. He wanted to improve his English—I wanted to spend some time with him. We’re now in the middle of our second season about an upright chemistry teacher who becomes a ruthless crystal meth dealer and we both really enjoy those evenings on the couch together.

Visiting adjunct professor at the Rzeszów University of Information Technology and Management

Traumland by Adam Soboczynski (in German) is a personalized account of leaving Poland for Germany during the fading years of communism. At times sarcastic and full of witty anecdotes, the slim volume brings to life a surprising clash of expectations and reality of life as a migrant.

Ages of American Capitalism by Jonathan Levy chronicles in crisp and jargon-free language a meticulously researched economic history of the United States. The cogent narration uses precise economic and financial terminology to explain multilayered political and social forces behind the spectacular rise of a superpower.

Aga Derlak is an up-and-coming jazz pianist, composer, and arranger whose third studio album Parallel (2023) won Poland’s Grammy equivalent for the jazz artist and jazz album of the year. Up to seven musicians, including a string quartet, blend modern jazz syncopation to yield a dense texture of musical ideas.

Vice president for policy and programming at GLOBSEC

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen is both a bone-chilling and funny account of the double life of a Vietnamese war captain resettled to California as he navigates his conflicting personal and political allegiances. It’s a complex—but exceptionally readable!—mix of Vietnam war drama, political intrigue, spying, the struggles of immigration, betrayal, and love.

I keep going back to the Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets by Svetlana Alexievich. It remains one of the best books that helps to understand the “post-Soviet person” and the enduring and contradictory appeal of the Soviet Union. It’s worth (re)reading for anyone seeking a nuanced understanding of why Russia is what it is today and how ordinary Russians interpret their recent history.

Argentina, 1985. The movie depicts the Trial of the Juntas, a civilian court’s effort to prosecute the leaders of Argentina’s military dictatorship for their brutal and bloody crimes. It’s a cautionary but also hopeful tale for any society striving for reconciliation and the restoration of the rule of law.

Young Sheldon and The Big Bang Theory—it was fun even before nerdy became mainstream.

Senior fellow at Carnegie Europe

Solo Andata by Erri de Luca, in Italian at Feltrinelli. Has been translated in English and French. I have quoted this book before; it is a harrowing reading about the misery of migrants putting their life in danger to travel by foot and boat from Africa to Europe. From my own experience, I can tell that de Luca recounts the true story of one of the major tragedies of our times. In verse.

Sand and Steel, A New History of D-Day by Peter Caddick-Adams. In English. Translated into French. A huge history book, looking deeper into the preparations of Operation Overlord and its implementation eighty years ago.  

Labyrinth, by Khatia Buniatishvili, famed Georgian pianist. This musical odyssey has many glorious names—Bach, Brahms, Chopin, Couperin, Liszt, Scarlatti, and more—but also Serge Gainsbourg, Philip Glass, and Ennio Morricone, among modern composers.

Un Vieux by Pierre Loti, at Les Editions du Sonneur. A tiny book en français by the French officer and novelist known for his exotic short novels. This one depicts the melancholy of a retired sailor, longing for his past sailings and adventures far away from his native Britanny.

Managing director of the New Horizons Project

Mohsin Hamid’s The Last White Man zooms in on Anders, an “ordinary” young white man living in an ordinary white Western town, who wakes up one day to find that his skin has turned dark and he must suddenly navigate racism, prejudice, and discrimination, providing valuable insights as Europeans grapple with the increased power and role of the xenophobic far right after the June European Parliament elections.

The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi is a fascinating blend of historical scholarship and compelling personal stories, based on family diaries, letters, and official documents, which constructs a detailed and nuanced history of the Palestine struggle for nationhood which debunks conventional Western narratives.

Despite some pretty awful historical inaccuracies about colonial India’s struggle for independence, the Netflix series Heeramandi, with its glorious music and dances set in the intricate and vibrant world of Lahore’s historic red-light district, showcases the indomitable feminist energy of South Asia’s most beautiful and powerful courtesans.

I take solace in human-centered science fiction shows like Travelers, Manifest, Constellation, and 3 Body Problem for a few much-needed hours of escape into fantastical worlds where people struggle with deep, often existential questions but still seem to retain their humanity.

Permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), Vienna

Jenny Erpenbeck’s Kairos (2021). I warmly recommend this love story set at the end of the German Democratic Republic—Erpenbeck gives an in-depth view of life and its emotions and challenges. A literary jewel.

Etienne de la Boetie’s Discourse on Volontary Servitude (1577). Needs to be read and reread to understand why people do not stand up to tyranny and why they can and should.

Honeyland (2019), a North Macedonian documentary film by directors Tamara Kotevska, Ljubomir Stefanov. If you have not seen this, it is a must about the essence of life’s wisdom and what truly counts. Hatidze Muratova, the main character, is the epitome of the philosophy of life.

Indulging in the Renaissance: Piero della Francesca, Pico della Mirandola, et al.