'We can only try to learn from history, we are too late to attempt anything else."" Bankl takes up the old tradition of riddles and gnomic sayings. His anecdotes, full of charm and wisdom, track down important incidents, confrontations, shed light on the role the Free Masons played and make visible the patterns of history: Who was the 18th-century Marcus Aurelius? Who were the people who first quarreled over the question of immigrants? Which Englishman gave the order, "Our plan is very simple, it's either the Prussians or the night – We shall fight to the last man!"

Bankl takes us down the labyrinth of history and points out secret and not-so-secret connections and coincidences.

About the author:

University Professor Hans Bankl, 1940-2004. An internationally-renowned scientist who published over 180 scientific papers and who was also widely know for his best-selling popular science books. His book, "How Often Did the Pharoh Curse?" was published by Seifert Verlag in 2003. Hans Bankl died suddenly in December 2004. This is the third posthumous work to be published following, "Knife, Bullet, Noose, Poison" in 2006, and "Open Owing to a Death, Remarkable stories of pathology" in 2007, both also by Seifert Verlag.