Zickzack

by William Firebrace

Overview

Zigzagging through six locations on the edges of the German-speaking world, exploring them through politics, architecture, literature, film, art, music, food, and history.

“Zickzack” is the German word for “zigzag”: hopping around, moving back and forth, never following a straight line, avoiding the monotony of one thing following another. Zickzack is William Firebrace’s zigzagging exploration of six places on the edges of the German-speaking world. Deploying essays, narration, conversations, descriptions, and lists, Firebrace celebrates locations on defined and undefined borders, where cultures, languages, and histories mix. In his nonlinear wandering, he touches on ethnicity, topography, history, film, literature, myth, languages, and gastronomy.

These locales are not the famous cities of Berlin, Vienna, and Zurich, but areas that straddle countries, geographies, and influences. Two are within Germany itself, one lies on (and over) the border with Poland, and three were once within the loose German cultural zone but now belong to other countries. Firebrace explores Strasbourg, capital of Alsace and part of a long-running territorial dispute between France and Germany; Königsberg, which spent some of the twentieth century as Kaliningrad; and Görlitz and Zgorcelec, twin cities on either side of a river. He plays hopscotch with churches in Backstein and takes a train trip past cities with double names—Sterzing-Vipiteno, Brixen-Bressanone, Klausen-Chiusa, signs of the double culture, where everything happens twice but in a slightly different way. In the zigzags of the German-speaking world, the original culture sometimes survives, sometimes is deliberately destroyed, sometimes merges with other cultures, and often, if submerged, resurfaces in a different form.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262544061
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	10/04/2022
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.88(h) x 0.81(d)

About the Author

William Firebrace is an architect and writer in London. He is the author of Marseille Mix and Memo for Nemo.

Table of Contents

Preface 1

Until the Bretchellmann Speaks
Strasbourg–Straβburg–Strosburi 7

Now You Understand 
Kaliningrad–Königsberg 53

Paradise on Erft
Hombroich Insel 95

Silesian Scenes 
Görlitz–Zogorzelec 139

Hop Rayuela Backstein
Lübeck–Wismar–Stralsund 175

Olagaga in the Alps 
Südtirol–Alto Adige 215

Bibliography 273

Credits and Acknowledgments 275

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Riccardo Viale takes a keen and critical look at the nudging philosophy, contending that the biases presented to justify governmental nudging are better understood as adaptive behavior, and that the popular theory of Systems 1 and 2 cognition lacks scientific soundness. Moreover, he proposes a much better strategy: boosting rather than nudging people. Lucid and jargon-free, “Nudging” will have a lasting impact on the field. An enjoyably sophisticated book that is worth reading more than once.” 
—Gerd Gigerenzer, author of Calculated Risks, Gut Feelings, and Risk Savvy

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—Hersh Shefrin, Mario L. Belotti Professor of Finance, Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University

“Viale presents an engaging, highly readable account of nudge theory and practice. This is an intellectually rooted narrative that is able to examine individual- and social-level dimensions of behavioral public policy with equal subtlety. Viale gradually builds to a valuable and memorable statement on the differences between nudging for good and nudging for evil, guidelines that policymakers could use and implement to great social benefit.” 
—Varun Gauri, PhD, Princeton University and The Brookings Institution

“By bringing the self as an active participant in the nudging process, Viale provides a rich platform for discussing libertarian paternalism and developing tools that can use our adaptive inclinations and heuristics as assets rather than liabilities. His inclusive approach opens new doors for all choice architects to produce many goods from behavioral economics and cognitive science insights for the society.” 
—Shabnam Mousavi, Max Planck Institute for Human Development