The Search for Cohesion
The Self and the Collective: The Beauty and Difficulty of Social Life
The Search for Cohesion / Die Suche nach Zusammenhalt
The Self and the Collective: The Beauty and Difficulty of Social Life
What holds our society together?
Everyone in our society wants to be seen and understood, but very few want to see and understand – a glaring imbalance. Everyone claims to be »unique«, but society is not founded on self-realisation but on the creation of relationships.
In his new book, Wilhelm Schmid explores the question of what values society needs. What holds it (delicately) together? Does it need an »identity«, or is »integrity« more important? Or a »unifying culture«? How important is truth...
Read more
Everyone in our society wants to be seen and understood, but very few want to see and understand – a glaring imbalance. Everyone claims to be »unique«, but society is not founded on self-realisation but on the creation of relationships.
In his new book, Wilhelm Schmid explores the question of what values society needs. What holds it (delicately) together? Does it need an »identity«, or is »integrity« more important? Or a »unifying culture«? How important is truth for social cohesion and how is it established? And why do autocracies have no future, even though they are currently on the rise?
Society thrives when its citizens care about it and look after it. It is high time to rehabilitate the once discredited word »bourgeois«, rediscovering its etymological commonalities with the citizenry. And how to deal with disaffected, reactionary movements? In his encounters with these groups, the author discovers what unites them despite all their differences: the small and big questions of life.
»The new Schmid – a book for contemplative individuals and for people who want to look beyond the next talk show.« Stefan Lüddemann, Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung
»The new Schmid – a book for contemplative individuals and for people who want to look beyond the next talk show.« Stefan Lüddemann, Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung
2025, 469 pages
Persons
Wilhelm Schmid
Author
Wilhelm Schmid was born in 1953 and lives in Berlin. For many years, he taught philosophy at the University of Erfurt, was a visiting professor in Riga, Latvia, and Tbilisi, Georgia, and worked as a »philosophical counsellor« at a hospital near Zurich, Switzerland. He is a popular guest speaker and has been giving lectures in China and South Korea since 2010. He was awarded the Meckatzer Prize for Philosophy in 2012 and the Egnér Prize in 2013. His works have been translated into 25 languages, and his bestselling book Gelassenheit has sold over 600,000 copies.
Wilhelm Schmid
Author
Wilhelm Schmid was born in 1953 and lives in Berlin. For many years, he taught philosophy at the University of Erfurt, was a...
© Suhrkamp Verlag
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
Latest first
Year of Publication: 2024
Wilhelm SchmidYear of Publication: 2024
Surviving Death
Surviving death, how do you do that? This is the immediate challenge for anybody who has to keep on living after having lost someone dear to them. It’s helpful to acquaint yourself with some of the...
Rights sold to:
Spanish world rights (Espasa), Turkey (Iletisim)
Year of Publication: 2023
Wilhelm SchmidYear of Publication: 2023
On the Swing Set
Joie de vivre is an art that can be learned. Talent is helpful, but practice is crucial. This also includes practising restraint. So that we can draw breath more easily for new upswings...
Rights sold to:
Korea (Fika Book), Turkey (Iletisim)
Year of Publication: 2021
Wilhelm SchmidYear of Publication: 2021
Finding a Place to Call Home
More and more, people are on the search for a place to call home in a world that seems uncertain and within a life that changes faster than it can be understood. More than ever even those who normally have a comfortable home find themselves faced with the lack thereof. Home becomes a fleeting commodity in an era in which people and things are becoming global.
People themselves...
Year of Publication: 2019
Wilhelm SchmidYear of Publication: 2019
On the Power of Touch
We see, we hear, we smell, we taste. But what about the sense of touch? Yes, touch can be quite nice. It offers stimulation, encouragement, reassurance, connection with others. It strengthens the...
Rights sold to:
Turkey (Iletisim)
Year of Publication: 2018
Wilhelm SchmidYear of Publication: 2018
Self-Acceptance
In his new book, Wilhelm Schmid builds on the reflections of his bestseller What We Gain As We Grow Older and leads the way to genuine self-acceptance: The basis for equanimity is...
Rights sold to:
France (Piranha), Turkey (Iletisim)
Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (DAV)
Year of Publication: 2017
Wilhelm SchmidYear of Publication: 2017
Giving And Receiving Gifts
Giving gifts is not as easy as it looks. People often ask themselves: What shall I give to whom and why? A few thoughts on the subject guarantee that giving can make both parties happy. The...
Rights sold to:
Turkey (Iletisim)
Year of Publication: 2016
Wilhelm SchmidYear of Publication: 2016
Understanding Life
Wilhelm Schmid, best-selling author of Happiness and What We Gain As We Grow Older, was given the opportunity to apply his ideas on founding a philosophical art of living over the course of ten years at a hospital near Zurich, where he discussed the following questions with the patients: What meaning do touches, habits, longings, beauty have? What is happiness? Does one’s own...
Year of Publication: 2016
Wilhelm SchmidYear of Publication: 2016
On the Joy of Being a Parent and Grandparent
Wilhelm Schmid, best-selling author of Happiness and What We Gain As We Grow Older, shows how much life with children can contribute to a meaningful existence. Furthermore, he offers suggestions as to how the children’s resilience, their ability to be self-assertive, can be nurtured.
On the Joy of Being a Parent and Grandparent consists...
Year of Publication: 2015
Wilhelm SchmidYear of Publication: 2015
Sexout
»Sex is fun!« More and more people – young and old – don’t know what to do with this constantly reiterated phrase anymore, because their experience is entirely different from what it...
Rights sold to:
Netherlands (De Bezige Bij), Turkey (Iletisim)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Italy (Fazi)
Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (DAV)
Year of Publication: 2014
Wilhelm SchmidYear of Publication: 2014
What We Gain as We Grow Older
Bestselling author Wilhelm Schmid (Happiness) doesn’t want to praise or disparage growing older, but rather to develop a pragmatic art of dealing with it: on the one hand...
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Upper Westside Philosophers), Russia (Directmedia), Portuguese rights (Penguin Random House/Objectiva), France (Piranha), Netherlands (De Bezige Bij), Denmark (Informations Forlag), Danish audio book rights (Lindhardt & Ringhof), Sweden (Lind & Co.), Norway (Gyldendal Norsk), Finland (Aula & Co.), Korea (Chaek Se Sang), Japan (Mikasa Shobo), Poland (W.A.B.), Czech Republic (Euromedia), Serbia (Laguna), Latvia (Zvaigzne), Turkey (Iletisim), Ukraine (Knihy XXI), India (Malayalam, Sahitya Pravarthaka), Israel (Modan)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Kairos), Catalan rights (Angle), Chinese complex rights (Emily Publishing Co.), Italy (Fazi), Slovenia (Narava)
Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (DAV), German Book Club (Club Bertelsmann)
Year of Publication: 2013
Wilhelm SchmidYear of Publication: 2013
Giving Life Meaning
More and more people are in search of meaning. But why? And where might they look to find it?
In Giving Life Meaning, Wilhelm Schmid shows how humans need meaning in order to live, and that they find it above all in the interpersonal sphere, in the establishment, maintenance, and protection of relationships.
»An immense potential for meaning and hence energy is to be found in...
In Giving Life Meaning, Wilhelm Schmid shows how humans need meaning in order to live, and that they find it above all in the interpersonal sphere, in the establishment, maintenance, and protection of relationships.
»An immense potential for meaning and hence energy is to be found in...
Year of Publication: 2012
Wilhelm SchmidYear of Publication: 2012
Unhappiness
A guide to learning how to leave enough room for unhappiness, with plenty of comfort-ing examples and facts.
It seems everything has already been said about happiness....
Rights sold to:
English world rights (Upper West Side Philosophers), Netherlands (Ambo/Anthos), Turkey (Iletisim)
Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (Komplett Media)
Year of Publication: 2011
Wilhelm SchmidYear of Publication: 2011
Love
In his new guide, bestselling author Wilhelm Schmid shows the way to experience success and fulfillment in love. Amusing and easy to read, yet at times very personal, he shares insights into love,...
Rights sold to:
Netherlands (Ambo/Anthos), Denmark (Informations Forlag), Danish Audiobook Rights (Lindhardt & Ringhof), Latvia (Zvaigzne), Turkey (Iletisim)
Year of Publication: 2010
Wilhelm SchmidYear of Publication: 2010
Re-inventing Love
Best-selling author and philosopher Wilhelm Schmid explains why love so seldom works out today but shows how it can prevail against all odds; he describes when we should leave love be, and...
Rights sold to:
Chinese simplex rights (Shanghai Translation Publishing House), Netherlands (Ambo/Anthos)
Year of Publication: 2007
Wilhelm SchmidYear of Publication: 2007
Happiness
Simply to be happy is evidently no mean task. In his new book, Wilhelm Schmid contemplates what constitutes happiness, what philosophy can contribute to the question, and what we can and must...
Rights sold to:
Chinese simplex rights (Shanghai Translation Publishing), France (Autrement), Danish Audiobook Rights (Lindhardt & Ringhof), Sweden (Lind & Co.)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Spanish world rights (Pre-Textos), Italy (Fazi), Netherlands (Ambo|Anthos), Denmark (Informations Forlag), Finland (Ajatus), Korea (Bookstory), Estonia (Olion), Latvia (Zvaigzne ABC), Serbia (Laguna)
Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (Lindhardt & Ringhof / Saga Egmont)
Year of Publication: 2005
Wilhelm SchmidYear of Publication: 2005
Beautiful Life?
The »Art of Life«? The absence of any such art is the very thing which characterizes modern life, lacking as it is in any sense of leisureliness.
The author's aim is not to bemoan this state...
The author's aim is not to bemoan this state...
Rights sold to:
Italy (Apogeo), Netherlands (Ambo|Anthos), Korea (Chaek Se Sang), Latvia (Zvaigzne), Georgia (Akolasia)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Serbia (Svetovi)
Year of Publication: 2005
Wilhelm SchmidYear of Publication: 2005
The Art of Balance
Rights sold to:
Italy (Fazi), Netherlands (Ambo/Anthos), Latvia (Zvaigzne Abc)
Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (Lindhardt & Ringhof / Saga Egmont)
Year of Publication: 2004
Wilhelm SchmidYear of Publication: 2004
To Be Friends With Ourselves
We ourselves have become the weakest link in our society. We seem to have lost ourselves; our very self in our so-called advanced and liberated societies.
The...
The...
Rights sold to:
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Italy (Fazi), Netherlands (Ambo|Anthos)
