Politics & Ideas

Instructive, smart and stimulating: Raoul Schrott explains where ideas come from and how they end up in politics

Where do our values and ideas come from? Is a nation defined by its borders, languages or even the heritage of its citizens? Following on from his first timeless epic, Erste Erde (First Earth), Raoul Schrott has written a very topical political plea.

In four major essays, Raoul Schrott takes on the role of explorer and delves into the world of human coexistence. Using the example of High German, he shows how culture emerges in the first place. The history of the detective novel, which in parallel produced new scientific findings, demonstrates how ideas develop over epochs. Schrott demonstrates the explosive power of ideas using the definitions of “nation”, and in the politics of the sacred, as found in the election of the Pope, for example.

“Nothing finished can last permanently.” This phrase takes on a new meaning when viewed as a result of millennia-long processes. In this book, the polymath Raoul Schrott takes a wider view than the next political battle.