Best selling Non-fiction from Chronos
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1. Chronos Mit der Stadt in den Krieg
The military organization of the city of Zurich has been built upon the guilds and the Constaffel since 1336. Within these associations, the obligation to serve in watch and military duty that comes with citizenship was verified and enforced. The only military administrative book at the guild level that has survived in Zurich is the travel roll of the Constaffel, covering the years 1503 to 1583. Preserved in private ownership along with a number of other lists, this collection provides a unique documentation of the city's military, war, and social history.
"With the City into War" leads to the core of urban military administration in the 16th century and from there to a society that lived with and in war. The collapse of the Zurich military organization after the Battle of Kappel and the subsequent changes in the militia system become evident.
A detailed introduction explains the historical background and the events that made the Confederation—and Zurich along with it—a political factor on the European stage for several years. Each page of the roll is reproduced in image and annotated transcript, vividly illustrating the presence of war in Zurich's society during the 16th century.
2. Chronos Schaffhauser Geschichte im Fokus
Fifteen authors explore topics and figures from the economic, social, and cultural history of Schaffhausen. The temporal range spans from the 15th to the 21st century. The subjects include marriage strategies of the urban nobility in the late Middle Ages, Schaffhausen's republican self-understanding between the Confederation and the Empire, its financial situation during the Thirty Years' War, the history of buildings in light of newly evaluated sources, the contributions of the stucco workers Höscheller and Schärer to the decoration of the Zurich Town Hall, and much more. Recent economic history is addressed in articles about the bankruptcy of the private bank Zündel & Co. in 1914, precautionary measures taken by Georg Fischer AG during the Cold War, and the recent controversy surrounding the archive of the Schaffhausen Cantonal Bank. Contributions by Kurt Bänteli, Franziska Eggimann, Daniel Grütter, Roland E. Hofer, Peter R. Jezler, Eduard Joos, Adrian Knoepfli, Oliver Landolt, Mandy Ranneberg, Peter Scheck, Karl Schmuki, Markus Späth-Walter, René Specht, Matthias Wipf, Mark Wüst.
Non-fiction
CHF47.90
Schaffhauser Geschichte im Fokus
German, Adrian Bringolf, Adrian Knoepfli, Brand Wüst, Daniel Grütter, Eduard Joos, Franziska Eggimann, Hans Ulrich Wipf, Karl Schmuki, Kurt Bänteli, Mandy Ranneberg, Markus Späth-Walter, Matthias Wipf, Oliver Landolt, Peter R. Jezler, Peter Scheck, René Woodpecker, Roland E. Hofer, 2022
3. Chronos Humanitäre Hilfe der Schweiz für SS-Kriegsverbrecher
One of the largest humanitarian actions of Switzerland after World War II enabled a determined group to establish a racially defined, closed settler colony in Brazil in 1951/52, in order to carry the idea of the German master race into the post-war era. The involvement of former members of the Waffen-SS seemed to bother no one, nor did the racist view of the indigenous population in Brazil, which the settlers partly displaced and partly exploited as cheap labor. The initiative was prepared and launched by representatives of the Catholic Church in Austria and the Vatican, along with a radical group of Danube Swabians from the Ustaša state of Croatia. The ambitious settler project only progressed after the Swiss Caritas headquarters in Lucerne got involved. Given the scale of the task, they realized that they could not manage the action alone and gradually engaged Swiss European aid and thus the Swiss authorities. The Federal Council and Parliament approved the action without asking too many questions. The stylization of Germans as victims of the post-war period fit well into their efforts to distract from Switzerland's anti-Semitically influenced refugee policy and its lucrative involvement in the Nazi and fascist war economy. Humanitarian aid was an almost ideal means of managing foreign and domestic political crises based on organized forgetting.
4. Chronos Die Frau des Metzgers
But I wanted to know why she sank into a hole and faded away. Why this sensual, vibrant woman became the old woman who was broken by her soul's pain. I wanted to know what had become of the love I felt as a child when I found my grandparents sleeping like beings on the narrow sofa. Susanna Schwager takes us back to the childhood and youth of a generation that is about to leave us. There, in a poor extended family from Solothurn, begins the story of Hildi Meister, the butcher's wife. To her, the silent one who died fifteen years ago, we are led by a web of voices that remember how she grew up as a child among a crowd of siblings, how she worked in the factory as a teenager to bring home the much-needed wages. It speaks of the ignorance of growing up, of flirting and first love, of having children and the necessity of marrying. And then came life alongside Hans Meister, the young butcher's apprentice, who started from the bottom and transplanted her from the village to the city as things began to improve. A family was founded, a business of their own. Who was this woman and who did she become? Amid the intertwining and knotting voices, the historical images take shape, and the person seems elusive.
5. Chronos Case histories - Histories de cas
Since the 1980s, there has been a growing interest in case work within the field of history. Case studies continue to enjoy enduring popularity among historians. Ideally, they allow for a meaningful relationship between the particular and the general, without falling into the pitfalls of pure macro or micro history. The focus of this issue is on the various challenges that arise when working with case histories. The contributions address the criteria for forming and selecting case examples in historical source work from different thematic, temporal, and methodological-theoretical perspectives. Questions regarding the representativeness and exemplarity of case examples and studies are reflected upon, as well as the possibilities for validating the significance of the particular and relating it to general developments and processes.
6. Chronos Transferts de technologie - Technology transfer
The book "Transferts de technologie - Technologietransfer" offers a comprehensive analysis of technology transfer from a historical perspective, with a particular focus on Switzerland. It brings together contributions from various authors who explore the role of technology in the context of the industrial revolution and international exchange processes. The authors examine how technological innovations were disseminated in Switzerland and what conditions were necessary for successful technology transfer. The topics range from the spread of techniques during the industrial revolution to specific case studies that illuminate the development of Swiss industry and its impact on the global technology market. This academic book is a valuable resource for anyone interested in the history of technology and its effects on society.
Non-fiction
CHF23.70
Transferts de technologie - Technology transfer
French, German, Cédric Humair, Malik Mazbouri, Pierre-Yves Donzé, 2010
7. Chronos Honey for the poor, marzipan for the rich
Finely crafted molds are mirror-image negative forms designed for embossing thin marzipan coverings on cakes and gingerbread or for anise cookies (farmers' marzipan) and honey cookies. One of their origins lies in the tradition of decorating bread with symbols or signs of salvation, which were applied using stamps made of wood or fired clay. Furthermore, the customs of monastic wafer bakeries likely played a role, as their baked goods were often adorned with religious images, as well as Christmas or Easter motifs. By the 15th century, secular themes began to emerge, depicting topics such as fertility, love, social classes, professions, customs, coats of arms, as well as plants and animals. The illustrated and thoroughly explained exhibits come from the Swiss National Museum in Zurich, the Museum zu Allerheiligen in Schaffhausen, and other museums, monasteries, and private collections in Switzerland and neighboring countries. For enthusiasts of molds and sweet pastries, this book is an indispensable reference work, as it is for museums, art historians, folklorists, and collectors. It offers a comprehensive overview and presentation of the largely undiscovered imagery of Swiss pastry molds from the Early Modern period.
8. Chronos Frau Minne und die Zürcher Juden
A few years ago, wall paintings of unique significance were discovered in the house at Brunngasse 8 in Zurich. They were created around 1330 and adorned a large, representative hall with motifs from the courtly world of Minnesang. The client and owner of the house was Frau Minne, a noble Jewish woman from Zurich. She and her two sons, Mosche and Mordechai ben Menachem, were involved in money lending; Mosche was also a rabbi and the author of an important collection of Talmudic commentaries.
During the plague epidemic, Europe experienced numerous persecutions of Jews. In the pogrom in Zurich in 1349, all male members of the Jewish community were murdered, and the rest were expelled.
The contributions gathered in this book by thirteen authors revolve around the paintings and their context. How do they relate to the biblical prohibition of images? What was the status of Jewish women in a male-dominated Christian society? How did money lending become a profession, and how did the stereotype of the "greedy Jew" arise? Was there an angry mob behind the pogrom of 1349, or ultimately an upper class that profited from the death of Jewish creditors?.
Non-fiction
CHF46.70
Frau Minne und die Zürcher Juden
German, Brigitta Rotach, Dölf Wild, Ehud M. Landau, Ron Epstein-Mil, Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities, 2024
9. Chronos Lakes in modern times
As a large parish village in a pleasant area, whose inhabitants primarily engage in agriculture, Seen was characterized in a local lexicon in the mid-19th century. Today, 150 years later, it is decidedly more challenging to describe the character of Seen in just a few words. Since 1922, it has no longer been an independent municipality but a district of Winterthur, and in recent decades, Seen has experienced an immense construction boom that has doubled the population within a generation and transformed the district into a proper city. This urbanization process today shapes the perception of a locality that consists of very different settlements, hamlets, and farms, some of which have grown together in an urban planning sense, while others have remained distant, each possessing its own history and identity. A look into the past opens up a wide field of village stories that exist in the tension between city and countryside, agriculture and industry, hills and plains, village and outlying areas. Sketching a broad panorama of the rural-urban world, the individual chapters present everyday life from various perspectives, thus creating an image that shows the district in a new, sometimes unfamiliar, and often surprising light.
10. Chronos Russian Everyday Life 01. Pre-Modernity
Carsten Goehrke opens nine windows into the past in his three-volume work on the history of Russian everyday life. These windows reveal how people lived in both rural and urban settings, what worries and troubles they faced, and how they shaped their daily lives. Central themes include securing existence, housing, food and drink, sexuality and social relationships, as well as the worlds of imagination, norms and values, and interpretations of the world and life. In the first volume of the work, Goehrke spans a wide arc in four time snapshots: from East Slavic everyday life in the 9th century, through life in the Kievan Rus in the 12th and early 13th centuries, to the living environments of Rus in the 15th century and Moscow's daily life at the end of the 17th century. A large number of illustrations and source excerpts illustrate the presented content, making the work an exciting read for a broad audience.
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