Cultural historian Wolfgang Schivelbusch studied comparative literature, philosophy and sociology in Frankfurt and Berlin and received his PhD from Freie Universität Berlin in 1972. From 1995 to 2000, he was a project collaborator at the Max-Planck-Institut für Geschichte in Göttingen. Between 2005 and 2013, he was a frequent visiting scholar at the Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte in Berlin. His numerous and award-winning publications, many translated into several languages, include The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the Nineteenth Century (1979), Disenchanted Night: The Industrialization of Light in the Nineteenth Century (1988), Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants, and Intoxicants (1992), In a Cold Crater: Cultural and Intellectual Life in Berlin, 1945-1948 (1998), The Culture of Defeat: On National Trauma, Mourning, and Recovery (2003), and Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt's America, Mussolini's Italy, and Hitler's Germany, 1933-1939 (2006). Since 1974, Wolfgang Schivelbusch has been dividing his time between New York and Berlin. As of 2014, he is a visiting scholar at the Emmy Noether Research Group “The Future in the Stars.”