New Books July–December 2019
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HAUS PUBLISHING new books JULY–DECEMBER 2019 Founded in London in 2003 by Barbara Schwepcke and inspired by the Monographien of the German publishing house Rowohlt, Haus began publishing the Life & Times biography series with a translation of Sebastian Haffner’sChurchill . In recent years our list has broadened substantially to include history, politics, current affairs, memoir, art and photography. Since 2005, we’ve published travel writing under the Armchair Traveller imprint and, since 2008, literary fiction in translation. Begun with the aim of bringing works of contemporary German-language literature into English, our international list of authors includes Siegfried Lenz, Markus Werner, Thomas Mann, Clarice Lispector, Érik Orsenna, Alex Capus and many others. Our well-established series include: Haus Curiosities, political pamphlets edited by Peter Hennessy; Makers of the Modern World, a 32-volume history of the Paris Peace Conferences after the First World War; and Armchair Traveller’s Histories. Publishing 20 books a year, we keep over 250 backlist titles in print. HausPublishing hauspublishing hauspublishing Sign up for our monthly email newsletter at www.hauspublishing.com 2 THE DICTATORSHIP SYNDROME Alaa Al Aswany Translated by Russell Harris £12.99 NOVEMBER 2019 POLITICS HBK, TRADE | 160 PP 978-1-912208-59-3 A fascinating work on the nature of dictatorship, how it takes hold and how it survives, from the author of the international bestseller The Yacoubian Building The study of dictatorship in the West has acquired an almost exotic dimension. But authoritarian regimes remain a painful reality for billions of people worldwide who still live under them, their freedoms violated and their rights abused. They are subject to arbitrary arrest, torture, corruption, ignorance, and injustice. What is the nature of dictatorship? How does it take hold? In what conditions and circumstances is it permitted to thrive? And how do dictators retain power, even when reviled and mocked by those they govern? In this deeply considered and at times provocative short work, Alaa Al Aswany tells us that, as with any disease, to understand the syndrome of dictatorship we must first consider the circumstances of its emergence, along with the symptoms and complications it causes in both the people and the dictator. Alaa Al Aswany’s The Yacoubian Building has sold over a million copies worldwide and his work has been published in over a hundred countries. Al Aswany was named by The Times as one of the fifty best authors to have been translated into English in the last fifty years. ................ 3 NEW AN EXTRAORDINARY SCANDAL The Westminster Expenses Crisis and Why It Still Matters Emma Crewe and Andrew Walker £20 OCTOBER 2019 POLITICS | CURRENT AFFAIRS HBK | ROYAL | 320 pp 978-1-912208-75-3 An insider/outsider account of the expenses scandal of 2009,examining its legacy for the relationship between politicans and the electorate Featuring interviews with the MPs, journalists, and officials close to one of Britain’s biggest political crises, this is the story of what really happened during the expenses scandal of 2009. Emma Crewe and Andrew Walker bring a fascinating insider/outsider perspective to this account. An Extraordinary Scandal explains how parliament fell out of step with the electorate and became a victim of its own remote institutional logic, at odds with an increasingly open, meritocratic society. Charting the crisis from its 1990s origins to its aftermath in 2010, the authors examine how the scandal aggravated the developing crisis of trust between the British electorate and Westminster politicians that continues to this day. Their in-depth research reveals new insight into how the expenses scandal gave us a taste of what was to come, and where its legacy can be traced in the new age of mistrust and outrage. Emma Crewe is a Principal Investigator at the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at SOAS. She is the author of Commons and Lords: A Short Anthropology of Parliament. Andrew Walker was a senior official at the House of Commons and board member responsible for the Fees Office until 2010. He is now an adviser on finance and HR issues. ................ 4 NEW BEALPORT A Novel of a Town Jeffrey Lewis £8.99 NOVEMBER 2019 FICTION PBK | B-FORMAT | 312 pp 978-1-912208-79-1 ‘… a hugely satisfying read.’ — Evening Standard ‘ Highly accomplished... a moving and humane portrait of small-town contemporary America, a vision of Trump’s republic in miniature.’ — Mail on Sunday An old shoe factory in a coastal New England town is up for sale again. When it’s bought by a venture capitalist with a fondness for the factory’s products, a story with profound implications is set in motion. Norumbega (Makers of Fine Footwear Since 1903) is a hobby for Roger Keysinger. For the residents of Bealport – whose livelihoods, self-respect, and interconnectedness hinge on its survival – it is something infinitely greater. Unsparing, comic, tragic, and universal, Bealport is a portrait of a town, of towns like it across America and beyond, and of a way of life that is passing. Jeffrey Lewis’s previous novels include The Inquisitor’s Diary and Berlin Cantata. An omnibus edition of his first four novels, The Meritocracy Quartet, appeared in 2015. Lewis won two Emmys and the Writers Guild Award as a writer and producer of the landmark television series Hill Street Blues. ................ 5 NEW IN PAPERBACK INTEGRITY IN PUBLIC LIFE Vernon White Claire Foster-Gilbert and Jane Sinclair £7.99 AUGUST 2019 POLITICS | SOCIAL SCIENCE PBK | A-FORMAT | 90 pp 978-1-912208-70-8 HAUS CURIOSITIES SERIES A critique of and an essential guide to integrity in public life Good governance is one of the UK’s fundamental values, and citizens are entitled to expect that public officials behave according to the highest ethical standards. This new Haus Curiosities volume, published in collaboration with Westminster Abbey Institute, looks at the place and meaning of integrity in the individual public servant, in public service institutions, and in the wider public they purport to serve. It addresses the fundamental questions of what integrity means in public life and why it has such a critical part to play in the constitution of Britain. The book also explores how people in public service institutions can cease to behave with humanity when those institutions deny the individual human spirit. The authors argue for the critical importance of institutions in upholding values when fallible humans forget them. Vernon White is an Anglican priest and theological scholar. Claire Foster-Gilbert is the Founding Director of Westminster Abbey Institute, the Co-founder of the St Paul’s Institute, and a current member of numerous medical and theological ethics committees. Jane Sinclair is Canon of Westminster and Rector of St Margaret’s Church, Westminster Abbey. ................ 6 NEW THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF DEMOCRACY John Major and Nick Clegg Edited and with an introduction by Claire Foster-Gilbert £7.99 SEPTEMBER 2019 POLITICS PBK | A-FORMAT | 90 pp 978-1-912208-73-9 HAUS CURIOSITIES SERIES Essays on the state of democracy from those who occupied positions at the heart of British politics Democracy operates on consent. That means politicians have to argue their causes and win consensus. But democracy has its flaws, not least in the lack of efficiency in the decision- making process. In this new book, two figures of the British political establishment, John Major and Nick Clegg, share their thoughts on where democracy is heading and how it can survive in the 21st century. Major writes of the qualities on which a healthy democracy depends, as he deplores the coarsening of political exchange. Clegg writes of the ways in which political language has always involved trading insults, and argues that compromise is not betrayal, but the very substance of our politics and our democracy. This balanced analysis of the state of UK democracy is a clarion call to the electorate and politicians to nurture and protect the values on which that democracy depends. Nick Clegg was Leader of the Liberal Democrats for eight years from 2007 and Deputy Prime Minister from 2010 to 2015. He is currently Vice-President for Global Affairs and Communications at Facebook. John Major was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997. ................ 7 NEW GUTENBERG Stephan Füssel Translated by Peter Lewis £9.99 OCTOBER 2019 BIOGRAPHY | HISTORY PBK | B-FORMAT 140 pp | 60 COLOUR ILLUSTRATIONS 978-1-912208-67-8 LIFE & TIMES SERIES The first biography of Gutenberg written in English that is both rigorous and accessible to a general audience Named ‘Man of the Millennium’ in 1999, Johannes Gutenberg was the creator of one of the most influential and revolutionary inventions in Europe’s history: a printing press with mechanical movable type. This invention sparked the printing revolution and represents one of the central contributions to the development of modernity. Yet despite Gutenberg's significance in shaping the world we know, a rigorous and accessible biography has not yet been published in English, until now. Written by one of Europe's leading experts on Gutenberg, this short life brings together rigorous scholarship and historical detail in a highly readable text that conveys everything readers need to know about the man who changed printing, and the world, forever. Stephan Füssel is the Gutenberg Chair at the University of Mainz and member of the board of the International Gutenberg Society. Peter Lewis is the translator of such works as Roger Willemsen’s The Ends of the Earth and Jonas Lüscher’s Barbarian Spring. ................ 8 NEW ROMMEL The End of a Legend Ralf Georg Reuth Translated by Debra S. Marmor and Herbert A. Danner £9.99 AUGUST 2019 BIOGRAPHY | HISTORY PBK | B-FORMAT 140 pp | 60 B/W ILLUSTRATIONS 978-1-912208-22-7 ‘A brilliant book’ — Independent Erwin Rommel is the best-known German field commander of the Second World War.