An Expert Review in 89 Numbers
With a Dialogue between Nature and an Unhappy Man: On the Demon that is the Division of Labour
With illustrations
An Expert Review in 89 Numbers / Eine Experten-Revue in 89 Nummern
With a Dialogue between Nature and an Unhappy Man: On the Demon that is the Division of Labour
With illustrations
On the winning formula of humanity: the division of labour without any morals
Nature has treated people somewhat like a stepmother would. Other animals are stronger, can swim and fly better, give birth less awkwardly and do not need as much time to become adults. How can it be then that this weak creature came to be the strongest on earth? The answer, if you believe the author, has to do with the division of labour. Thanks to this trick every one of us, he believes, can achieve something pretty good, even if it remains impossible for a person to do...
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Nature has treated people somewhat like a stepmother would. Other animals are stronger, can swim and fly better, give birth less awkwardly and do not need as much time to become adults. How can it be then that this weak creature came to be the strongest on earth? The answer, if you believe the author, has to do with the division of labour. Thanks to this trick every one of us, he believes, can achieve something pretty good, even if it remains impossible for a person to do everything.
But when every person can be an expert the question becomes: what exactly is his speciality, what makes him the best? In order to find out, one has to pay close attention. It doesn’t matter whether we’re looking at a passionate bus driver, a comet hunter, a specialist for mousetraps or plastic bags, a con artist or a number theorist – we can thank the demon of the division of labour for our temporary victory over this planet, for our insanity and our defeats.
Through eighty-nine familiar and spectacular variations Enzensberger unfolds this fancy of nature, which compensates our defects and has made our survival possible. His examples range from the ancient world to the present day, from the discovery of the spiral and the alphabet to the art of making manhole covers more attractive.
»He brilliantly showcases the genius and insanity of famous or forgotten specialists – be it for screws, physical mysteries, unconditional basic income or British waterfowl.« Peter von Becker, Der Tagesspiegel
»[...] a compendium with the characteristics of a royal cabinet-of-curiosities.« Jamal Tuschick, der Freitag
»With him, readers enter a kind of cabinet of curiosities of the human mind. [...] In short, a reliable Enzensberger: critically and wittily thought out.« Paul Stänner, Deutschlandfunk
»A late work full of colour [...]« Kai Sina, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
»Enzensberger’s volume offers a fascinating and intelligent Panopticon of the history of science and of culture.« Ulf Heise, MDR
»… [a] refreshing, curious hommage to the experts and the connoisseurs.« SWR
»A wonderful reading pleasure about professions, vocations and aptitudes.« Renate Kromp, news.at
»An enjoyable encyclopaedia!« Hansruedi Kugler, St. Galler Tagblatt
»Effortless, without drifting off into the trivial. […] If you get bored reading this, you are the one who is boring.« Roland Gutsch, Nordkurier
»With wit, wisdom and numerous surprising examples the grand seigneur of contemporary German literature presents 89 experts.« Heiko Buhr, Lebensart im Norden
»It’s fun to study this multi-faceted ›Expert Review‹.« Knut Cordsen, br.de
»Hans Magnus Enzensberger‘s productivity is impressive. Two new titles were published this year and they showcase the jubilarian as the unchanged astute analyst and excpetionally gifted virtuoso of words.« Peter Mohr, lokalkompass.de
»He brilliantly showcases the genius and insanity of famous or forgotten specialists – be it for screws, physical mysteries, unconditional basic income or British waterfowl.« Peter von Becker, Der Tagesspiegel
»[...] a compendium with the characteristics of a royal cabinet-of-curiosities.« Jamal Tuschick, der Freitag
»With him, readers enter a kind of cabinet of curiosities of the human mind. [...] In short, a...
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2019, 335 pages
Persons
Hans Magnus Enzensberger
Author
Hans Magnus Enzensberger was born in Kaufbeuren in 1929. He died on November 24, 2022, aged 93, in Munich. As a poet, essayist, writer, biographer, editor and translator, he was one of the world’s most influential and internationally renowned German intellectuals.
Hans Magnus Enzensberger
Author
Hans Magnus Enzensberger was born in Kaufbeuren in 1929. He died on November 24, 2022, aged 93, in Munich. As a poet, essayist, writer,...
© Jürgen Bauer
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
Latest first
Year of Publication: 2023
Hans Magnus EnzensbergerYear of Publication: 2023
Light Poems
»Light poems« in a time of severe global crises – can that work? And what are they trying to tell us? But in any case, having a poet and a visual artist as renowned as Enzensberger and Tripp present us with the illusion of life is certainly going to be entertaining. With great zest, the two disturb it, the dust of our earthly conditions in the form of people, animals and things....
Year of Publication: 2020
Hans Magnus EnzensbergerYear of Publication: 2020
Babel
Babel! A word seemingly born from chaos in its alliterating, rolling urgency. The poet pulls several examples of how deception and self-deceit, misjudgements and failing routines determine...
Rights sold to:
Bengali rights (Parampara)
Year of Publication: 2019
Hans Magnus EnzensbergerYear of Publication: 2019
Windfalls
»How’s the confidence of the financial astrologers doing? What does the gibberish of the daily papers tell us? How much reality is contained in the mythical models of contemporary physics and cosmology? Towards which ultimate goal is our contemporaries’ pathological mobility drifting? What is the ubiquitous craze for abbreviations hiding? And down which garden path are the fine arts trying to...
Year of Publication: 2019
Hans Magnus EnzensbergerYear of Publication: 2019
Poems 1950-2020
Every five years, Hans Magnus Enzensberger presents once more the chance to discover his rich lyrical oeuvre. Enzensberger takes the opportunity to critically review his selection and enrich it with...
Rights sold to:
For further information regarding the rights status of the poems in your territory please contact the respective Rights Manager >>
Year of Publication: 2018
Ingeborg Bachmann, Hans Magnus EnzensbergerYear of Publication: 2018
»Write down everything that is true«
The hitherto unpublished and unknown correspondence between Ingeborg Bachmann and Hans Magnus Enzensberger allows one to relive how, after the Second World War, two of the most prominent writers in the German language chose to depict and regard the world, literature and the publishing industry, but also how they wished to present and be regarded themselves.
One was...
Year of Publication: 2018
Hans Magnus EnzensbergerYear of Publication: 2018
A Handful of Anecdotes
»It is hard to shake off one’s date of birth. M. drags his around with him, too.« The first twenty years of life are baggage that a person is forever stuck with. But...
Rights sold to:
Spanish world rights (Anagrama), France (Gallimard), Serbia (Laguna)
Year of Publication: 2018
Hans Magnus EnzensbergerYear of Publication: 2018
Survival Artists
The 20th century was the heyday of writers who had survived state terror and purges with all the ethical and political ambivalences that this entailed. How did they manage to do that? Were they...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Seagull), Spanish world rights (Altamarea), France (Alma), Italy (Einaudi), Serbia (Laguna), Turkey (Iletisim)
Domestic Rights Sales: German Book Club rights (Büchergilde Gutenberg)
Year of Publication: 2015
Hans Magnus EnzensbergerYear of Publication: 2015
Money, Money, Money!
Every time Aunt Fé comes to visit, the rather ordinary daily life of the Federmann family is turned upside down. Elderly, jaunty Aunt Fé is a sly lady. She lead an adventurous life and...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Seagull), Spanish world rights (Anagrama), Catalan rights (Edicions 62), France (Alma), Italy (Einaudi), Japan (Shobunsha)
Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (Der Hörverlag)
Year of Publication: 2014
Hans Magnus EnzensbergerYear of Publication: 2014
Tumult
In 1963 the author took his first trip to Russia and unexpectedly became a guest at Khrushchev's dacha in Gagra. The result was a detailed portrait of the man and the Soviet »Thaw«...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Seagull), Chinese simplex rights (Beijing Fonghong Books), Brazilian Portuguese rights (Todavia), France (Gallimard), Italy (Einaudi), Denmark (Gyldendal), Croatia (Disput), Greece (Hestia)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Malpaso)
Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (Der Hörverlag), German Entire Radio Reading (HR), German Book Club (Büchergilde Gutenberg)
Year of Publication: 2014
Hans Magnus EnzensbergerYear of Publication: 2014
Gone!
What’s going on in Theresia’s grandparents’ house? More and more things continue to disappear in an inexplicable manner: from the corkscrew to an old radio with a magical eye to the massive oak buffet table – until the entire house goes up in flames. But has anything really disappeared or have people simply forgotten where those things have gone? Theresia follows events closely, at first as a...
Year of Publication: 2013
Hans Magnus EnzensbergerYear of Publication: 2013
Mr Zed's Reflections
Who is this plump Mr., who shows up every afternoon at the same spot in the city park for almost a year, and who engages passers-by in quick-witted repartee? A wise man, a wisecracker, a clown, a...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Seagull), Spanish world rights (Anagrama), France (Alma)
Domestic Rights Sales:German Audiobook (Der Hörverlag), German Radio Play (Hessischer Rundfunk)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Italy (Einaudi)
Year of Publication: 2012
Hans Magnus EnzensbergerYear of Publication: 2012
Panopticon
In his new book, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, the master of the political and literary essay, discloses information about matters big and small, daily and commonplace themes, astounding his readers...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Seagull), France (Alma)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Malpaso), Italy (Einaudi), Korea (Orot)
Year of Publication: 2011
Hans Magnus EnzensbergerYear of Publication: 2011
Brussel, the Gentle Monster or the Disenfranchisement of Europe
Who dictates that we should have thirty-four-digit bank transfer codes, questions the legal systems of apparently sovereign nations and sets up rescue systems of dizzying proportions that exceed the...
Rights sold to:
Chinese simplex rights (Beijing Fonghong Books), France (Gallimard),
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: English world rights (Seagull), Spanish world rights (Anagrama), Catalan rights (Arcadia), Portuguese rights (Relogio d'Agua), Italy (Einaudi), Netherlands (Cossee), Denmark (Hovedland), Sweden (Karneval), Norway (Valdisholm), Croatia (Meandarmedia), Greece (Nefeli)
Year of Publication: 2010
Hans Magnus EnzensbergerYear of Publication: 2010
My Favourite Flops, Followed by a Wealth of Ideas
In this black book, Enzensberger sets his sights on a subject that many artistic contemporaries of his shun: failure.
»There are few experiences that I owe so much to; I would even...
Rights sold to:
Russia (selection; Obedinennoe)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: English world rights (Seagull), Spanish rights Latin America (Capital Intelectual), Italy (Einaudi)
Year of Publication: 2010
Hans Magnus EnzensbergerYear of Publication: 2010
Album
What is this »album« about?
»This is not a diary«, as it states at the very beginning of the book.
So what is it then? A jumble, a jotter, a...
»This is not a diary«, as it states at the very beginning of the book.
So what is it then? A jumble, a jotter, a...
Rights sold to:
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: English world rights (Seagull), Italy (Einaudi)
Year of Publication: 2009
Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Uwe JohnsonYear of Publication: 2009
»for means of brutal communication«
In 1959, just after Uwe Johnson’s relocation to West berlin and the publication of his debut novel Speculations About Jakob, the correspondence and friendship between Johnson and Hans Magnus Enzensberger commences. Over the course of eight years they communicate about the situation of literature and politics and discuss the scopes of political activism. At the same time,...
Year of Publication: 2009
Hans Magnus EnzensbergerYear of Publication: 2009
Skirmishes and Scholia
They remained unpublished for decades: Hans Magnus Enzensberger's Frankfurt lectures on poetry from the winter semester of 1964/65. Using these extensive texts, Enzensberger's writings on...
Rights sold to:
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Denmark (Gyldendal)
Year of Publication: 2009
Hans Magnus EnzensbergerYear of Publication: 2009
Fatal Numbers
Since time immemorial man has developed ways of coping with the seemingly unpredictable vicissitudes of his existence. But the modern age was not content with the old incantations of the shamans and...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Upper West Side Philosophers)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: France (Jacqueline Chambon)
Year of Publication: 2008
Hans Magnus EnzensbergerYear of Publication: 2008
Hammerstein or Idiosyncrasy
A grand opus on the most fatal period of German history and an outstanding figure until now not the subject of a biography. The results of Hans Magnus Enzensberger's research into the life of...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Seagull), Spanish world rights (Anagrama), Chinese simplex rights (Beijing Fonghong Books), Brazilian Portuguese rights (Companhia das Letras), France (Gallimard)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Italy (Einaudi), Netherlands (Cossée), Denmark (Gyldendal), Sweden (Norstedts), Norway (Press), Japan (Shobunsha), Poland (Swiat Ksiazki), Croatia (Disput), Serbia (Prometej), Turkey (Everest), Greece (Kastaniotis)
Year of Publication: 2007
Hans Magnus EnzensbergerYear of Publication: 2007
The Labyrinth of Intelligence
Intelligence, along with flexibility and the ability to work in a team, is the cardinal virtue of today’s world. However, using tests to make objective sense of subjective results leads to...
Rights sold to:
Spanish world rights (Anagrama)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Italy (Einaudi), Finland (Savukeidas), Estonia (Loomingu Raamatukogu)
DISCOVER
News
On the Death of Hans Magnus Enzensberger
Suhrkamp Verlag mourns the loss of Hans Magnus Enzensberger.News