Ben Lewis – författare

The book that immerses the Cold War in the warm bath of nostalgia.Q: Why, despite all the shortages, was the toilet paper in East Germany always 2-ply?A: Because they had to send a copy of everything they did to Moscow.Communist jokes are the strangest, funniest, most enchanting and meaningful legacy of the 80 years of political experimentation in Russia and Eastern Europe, known as Communism. The valiant and sardonic citizens of the former Communist countries - surrounded by an invisible network of secret police, threatened with arrest, imprisonment and forced labour, confronted by an economic system that left shops empty, and bombarded with ludicrous state propaganda - turned joke-telling into an art form. They used jokes as a coded way of speaking the truth.HAMMER AND TICKLE takes us on a unique journey through the Communist era (1917-1989), and tells its real history through subversive jokes and joke-tellers, many of whom ended up in the gulags. It is also illustrated with a combination of rare and previously unpublished archive material, political cartoons, caricatures, photographs and state-sponsored propaganda. Humorous, culturally poignant and historically revealing, this is the story of a political system that was (almost) laughed out of existence.

In 2017 the Salvator Mundi was sold at auction for $450m. But is it a real da Vinci? In a thrilling narrative built on formidable research, Ben Lewis tracks the extraordinary journey of a masterpiece lost and found, lied and fought over across the centuries. In 2017, Leonardo da Vinci’s small oil painting, the Salvator Mundi was sold at auction for $450m. In the words of its discoverer, the image of Christ as saviour of the world is ‘the rarest thing on the planet by the greatest human being who ever lived’. Its dazzling price also makes it the world’s most expensive painting.For two centuries art dealers had searched in vain for the Holy Grail of art history: a portrait of Christ as the Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci. Many similar paintings of greatly varying quality had been executed by Leonardo’s assistants in the first half of the sixteenth century. But where was the original by the master himself?In November 2017, Christie’s auction house announced they had it. But did they? The Last Leonardo tells a thrilling tale of a spellbinding icon invested with the power to make or break the reputations of scholars, billionaires, kings and sheikhs. Lewis takes us to Leonardo’s studio in Renaissance Italy; to the court of Charles I and the English Civil War; to Holland, Moscow and Louisiana; to the galleries, salerooms and restorer’s workshop as the painting slowly, painstakingly, emerged from obscurity. The vicissitudes of the highly secretive art market are charted across five centuries. It is a twisting tale of geniuses and oligarchs, double-crossings and disappearances, where we’re never quite certain what to believe. Above all, it is an adventure story about the search for lost treasure, and a quest for the truth.

Karl Kautsky (1854–1938) was the leading theoretician of the German Social Democratic Party and one of the most prominent public intellectuals of his time. However, during the twentieth century a constellation of historical factors ensured that his ideas were either gradually consigned to near oblivion or downright reviled. Not only has his political thought been dismissed in non-Marxist historical and political discourse, but his ideas are equally discredited in Marxist circles.This book aims to rekindle interest in Kautsky's ideas by exploring his democratic-republican understanding of state and society. These essential works from different points in his career demonstrates how Kautsky's republican thought was positively influenced by Marx and Engels—especially in relation to the lessons they drew from the experience of the Paris Commune.

Oswald Spengler was one of the most important thinkers of the Weimar Republic, but very little has been published on his politics, philosophy and life, especially in the English-language.Oswald Spengler and the Politics of Decline transforms the pre-existing picture of Spengler by demonstrating how Spengler’s radical opposition to liberal democracy was an unwavering facet of his thought from 1918 onwards. It adopts a completely novel approach by placing a new emphasis on his political activities and writings, and is unique in explaining the interplay between Spengler’s meta-historical considerations on world history and the practical demands of Realpolitik throughout the complex discourse of German national renewal.

Oswald Spengler was one of the most important thinkers of the Weimar Republic, but very little has been published on his politics, philosophy and life, especially in the English-language.Oswald Spengler and the Politics of Decline transforms the pre-existing picture of Spengler by demonstrating how Spengler’s radical opposition to liberal democracy was an unwavering facet of his thought from 1918 onwards. It adopts a completely novel approach by placing a new emphasis on his political activities and writings, and is unique in explaining the interplay between Spengler’s meta-historical considerations on world history and the practical demands of Realpolitik throughout the complex discourse of German national renewal.