A scandal in Königsberg / Christopher Clark.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Clark, Christopher M., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cults--Russia (Federation)--Kaliningrad (Kaliningradskai͡a oblastʹ)--History--19th century.

Cults.

Misinformation--Russia (Federation)--Kaliningrad (Kaliningradskai͡a oblastʹ)--History--19th century.

Misinformation.

Kaliningrad (Kaliningradskai︠a︡ oblastʹ, Russia)--History--19th century.

Kaliningrad (Kaliningradskai︠a︡ oblastʹ, Russia).

Physical Description:

179 pages : illustrations, maps ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Penguin Press, 2026.

Summary:

"As told by one of our greatest historians, the story of the scandal that took down two Lutheran preachers in the heart of nineteenth-century Prussia -- a chamber piece of cultish esotericism, pseudoscience, and political resistance that conjures up Europe at the end of the age of reason and presages our current age of misinformation. In 1835, Johannes Ebel and Georg Heinrich Diestel were tried for having started a cult. Worse: It was a cult that encouraged scandalous sexual behavior in women, including the daughters of prestigious Prussian families -- causing the deaths of two young women from sexual exhaustion. The trial would absorb and polarize the city of Königsberg for half a decade and ruin the lives and careers of its defendants, despite their eventual legal exoneration. The historical moment it encapsulates -- a Europe reeling from the triumph and horror of a new industrial, imperial era, struggling to decide which principles will reign in the aftermath of Enlightenment reason -- is a fable for our present time of political, social, and existential disquiet. The great Cambridge historian Christopher Clark -- known for The Sleepwalkers, his monumental, defining study of the causes of the First World War -- came across the files containing this story three decades ago; it has been swirling in his mind ever since. In gripping, narrative prose, Clark immerses us in a Königsberg scarred by the horrors of the Napoleonic Wars, where Immanuel Kant had recently inaugurated the theory of consciousness that completely reshaped humanity's understanding of itself -- but where the distinction between reason and fanaticism was now up for grabs. A Scandal in Königsberg is a European history in exquisite miniature -- and a peerless lesson in the theological and philosophical debates that animated the Western world at one of its great moments of transformation. Rich and provocative, A Scandal in Königsberg articulates an unsettling antecedent for our most fiercely litigated contemporary questions of sexual identity, freedom of thought, and who gets to decide what constitutes the truth." -- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

The city of almost

News from Königsberg

The prophet of the Pregel

Ida's awakening

Varieties of religious understanding

The difficult ascent of Johann Ebel

The Ebelians

Charge and counter-charge

Building a case

The trial begins

Diestel testifies

A media sensation

Dr Sachs accuses

The end of the road

Closing thoughts.

Notes:

Maps on endpapers.

"First published in Great Britain by Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Random House UK, 2025" --Title page verso.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

9798217060948

1802069739

9781802069730

OCLC:

1574222870