Daniel Brook, "The Einstein of Sex: Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, Visionary of Weimar Berlin" (W. W. Norton & Co, 2025)

Daniel Brook, "The Einstein of Sex: Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, Visionary of Weimar Berlin" (W. W. Norton & Co, 2025)

More than a century ago, Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, dubbed the "Einstein of Sex," grew famous (and infamous) for his liberating theory of sexual relativity. Today, he's been largely forgotten. In The Einstein of Sex: Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, Visionary of Weimar Berlin (W. W. Norton & Co, 2025)journalist Daniel Brook retraces Hirschfeld's rollicking life and reinvigorates his legacy, recovering one of the great visionaries of the twentieth century. In an era when gay sex was a crime and gender roles rigid, Hirschfeld taught that each of us is their own unique mixture of masculinity and femininity. Through his public advocacy for gay rights and his private counseling of patients toward self-acceptance, he became the intellectual impresario of Berlin's cabaret scene and helped turn his hometown into the world's queer capital. But he also enraged the Nazis, who ransacked his Institute for Sexual Science and burned his books. Driven from his homeland, Hirschfeld traveled to America, Asia, and the Middle East to research sexuality on a global scale. Through his harrowing lived experience of antisemitic persecution and a pivotal late-in-life interracial romance, he came to see that race, like gender, was a human invention. Hirschfeld spent his final years in exile trying to warn the world of the genocidal dangers of racism. Deep Acharya is a PhD student and a George L. Mosse fellow of Modern European Cultural History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison working on the history of fatherhood in 20th century Germany. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Episoder(1974)

Yanara Friedland, "Thanatographies" (U Alabama Press, 2026)

Yanara Friedland, "Thanatographies" (U Alabama Press, 2026)

Yanara Friedland is a writer, translator, and educator born in Berlin. She is the author of Uncountry: A Mythology (2016) winner of the Noemi Press Fiction Book Award and Groundswell (2021) selected f...

18 Apr 1h 3min

Myung-jin Han with Nicolas Levi, "I Was a North Korean Diplomat: Inside the Secret World of Pyongyang's Foreign Service" (Independently Published, 2026)

Myung-jin Han with Nicolas Levi, "I Was a North Korean Diplomat: Inside the Secret World of Pyongyang's Foreign Service" (Independently Published, 2026)

Nicolas Levi is a researcher at the Institute of Mediterranean and Oriental Cultures of the Polish Academy of Sciences. He has authored numerous books related to North Korea and is a regular commentat...

18 Apr 50min

Audrey Borowski, "Leibniz in His World: The Making of a Savant" (Princeton UP, 2026)

Audrey Borowski, "Leibniz in His World: The Making of a Savant" (Princeton UP, 2026)

Described by Voltaire as “perhaps a man of the most universal learning in Europe,” Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) is often portrayed as a rationalist and philosopher who was wholly detached fro...

17 Apr 1h 1min

Kate Crane, "Whatever Happened to Eddy Crane?: A Memoir and an Investigation" (Hanover Square Press, 2026)

Kate Crane, "Whatever Happened to Eddy Crane?: A Memoir and an Investigation" (Hanover Square Press, 2026)

Kate Crane's new memoir, Whatever Happened to Eddy Crane?: A Memoir and an Investigation" (Hanover Square Press, 2026) starts when Crane was in eighth grade and her father, a truck mechanic in an indu...

15 Apr 43min

Elizabeth Rosner, "Third Ear: Reflections on the Art and Science of Listening" (Catapult, 2025)

Elizabeth Rosner, "Third Ear: Reflections on the Art and Science of Listening" (Catapult, 2025)

This illuminating book Third Ear: Reflections on the Art and Science of Listening (Catapult, 2025) weaves personal stories of a multilingual upbringing with recent scientific breakthroughs in interspe...

14 Apr 1h 3min

Rory Naismith, "Offa: King of the Mercians" (Yale UP, 2026)

Rory Naismith, "Offa: King of the Mercians" (Yale UP, 2026)

In Offa: King of the Mercians (Yale UP, 2026), Professor Rory Naismith presents an authoritative biography of Offa of Mercia, revealing his importance as the king who stood at the turning point of Ang...

14 Apr 51min

David Potter, "Master of Rome: A Life of Julius Caesar" (Oxford UP, 2025)

David Potter, "Master of Rome: A Life of Julius Caesar" (Oxford UP, 2025)

By any measure, Julius Caesar is one of the most significant and famous figures in Roman history. Self-identified as a "popular" politician, he advocated for effective government to better the lives o...

11 Apr 50min

Ed Simon, "Writing During the Apocalypse: Reflections on the Great Unraveling" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

Ed Simon, "Writing During the Apocalypse: Reflections on the Great Unraveling" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

Rising authoritarianism. Covid. Inflation. Wealth disparity. War. Climate change. While every time period is marked by apocalyptic fears, it certainly seems like our current anxieties aren't ill place...

9 Apr 1h 6min

Populært innen Samfunn

rss-spartsklubben
giver-og-gjengen-vg
aftenpodden
aftenpodden-usa
konspirasjonspodden
intervjuet
rss-nesten-hele-uka-med-lepperod
popradet
rss-henlagt-andy-larsgaard
lydartikler-fra-aftenposten
grenselos
wolfgang-wee-uncut
min-barneoppdragelse
synnve-og-vanessa
rss-dette-ma-aldri-skje-igjen
rss-espen-lee-usensurert
frokostshowet-pa-p5
fladseth
krisemoter
relasjonspodden-med-dora-thorhallsdottir-kjersti-idem