A Scandal in Konigsberg

by Christopher Clark

A Times Best Book of the Year 2025

A remarkable micro-history from the author of The Sleepwalkers and Revolutionary Spring

'It takes a confident historian to write a short book… the story is distilled to its powerful essence; he knows precisely what’s important… This small book is many things, but for me what shines brightest is a tale of two renegade preachers who understood women and love' - Gerard de Groot, The Times
Now part of the Russian Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad, the former Prussian and German port of Königsberg has always been a somewhat sleepy place, doomed to be famous for having once been the residence of Immanuel Kant. But in the late 1830s, just for a short while, it became famous for all the wrong reasons.

Christopher Clark’s brilliant new book is the result of many years of fascination with this strange case. Sensational accusations were bandied about, implying that beneath the town’s somnolent surface there were dark erotic currents and wrenching betrayals of trust. For the Prussian authorities this was just the sort of moral collapse they feared most. In the aftermath of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, which had unsettled a generation, every lapse could be seen as the harbinger of new storms.

A Scandal in Königsberg beautifully brings to life a time and a place that we would now situate in the tranquil ‘Biedermeier’ years between the seismic upheavals of the 1810s and 1840s. But there is a timeless quality to this small vortex of turbulence, in which spiritual hunger, vanity, professional rivalry, sexual incontinence, naivety and sheer human waywardness threatened to tear a city apart.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Religion, Germany, Audiobook, World History, Cults

192 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2025

Reviews

[Brendan (History Nerds United) · Rating 4 out of 5]

The blurbs for A Scandal in Königsberg by Christopher Clark lean heavily into how the book can be applied to today's quagmire of misinformation. I wouldn't go so far as to say that is untrue, but I would say that people who might be misled as to what most of the book is focusing on.

The narrative follows two preachers who are pulled into a public kerfuffle involving their beliefs and whether or not there is a sex scandal going on. This is mostly based on one of the, to put it lightly, unique readings of the Bible I have ever read. (Note: The book is worth it merely for an anecdote about Immanuel Kant responding to the philosophy. I am still laughing.) There is a trial. Fin.

This is a very short book. The total page count is less than 200 pages and some of that is notes and such. I'd say at least half of that page count is a history of Königsberg and the surrounding area as well as philosophy. The rest is about the respective characters and the plot.

I'd liken this book to The Faithful Executioner by Joel Harrington. This also follows a story set in the middle of Europe and gives a window into everyday life and beliefs of the people inhabiting the time and space. However, I wouldn't tell just anyone to read it. You have to love history and be willing to read a book for the experience of being dropped into a place you can't conceive of without a historian guiding you. If you think this is a historical true crime with a strong story then you may be disappointed. If you want some philosophy mixed with history then this might be a great read for you.

(This book was provided as an advance review copy by NetGalley and The Penguin Press.)

[Ruben · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5 - Christopher Clark is best known for 'Sleepwalkers', a 900 page account of how Europe went to war in 1914. It has been lingering unread in my Audible library for years...

This one is much shorter and the history it describes much smaller: 200 years ago in the Province of East Prussia two priests were accused of forming a religious sect and engaging in sexual impropriety with their followers. A real media storm developed (surprisingly, some German newspapers at the time were worse than News of the World) and the priests' careers and reputations were destroyed - "cancel culture" avant la lettre.

During this period the State was doubling down on religious activities outside the official Church doctrine. But it was also the time of the Enlightenment and increasingly clear that a literal interpretation of the Bible was becoming untenable - Christians were looking for ways to interpret scripture in line with scientific discoveries and an improved understanding of the world. This is at least what the priests attempted, but some disgruntled and jealous former community members accused them of the aforementioned crimes.

Interesting to learn something about a topic, place and time I know very little about. 3,5 stars because it also felt like a bit of a hobby project and the publisher let him have it.

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

(2.7) I picked this up at my local library because of the insert description and the name of the book - this was a story of a scandal, blah blah blah. I honestly thought it would read like a true crime narrative, but was hoodwinked into something else. Granted, it did talk about the scandal in Konigsberg in the early-mid 19th century, but as it began talking about the history of Prussia in the late 18th century to early 19th century, it sort of made me think I was reading a historical rendition of the area. Then it talks specifically about Christianity (Lutheran denomination specifically) and then we get what the scandal was eventually. It builds and builds, but the climax wasn't terribly interesting; you more or less know most of the main bits from the aforementioned insert description. It honestly reads more like a doctorate dissertation than anything else, so I don't think I was the intended audience.

It was interesting, but not something specifically historical that will stay with me or even had much historical significance with Christianity. It was written well, but it just didn't do it for me.

Rounding up to a 3 just because it was ok.

[Traci Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was pretty bored by this book. There’s clearly a lot of research here but I just didn’t care about the religious debate at the center of this book. It’s doing what it set out to do but it’s not for me.

[Caleb · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short account of a society shocking trial in 19th century Prussia against two Rasputinesque Lutheran priests. Ultimately, I wasn’t sure I’d be into this book, but I love the author and so I decided to give it a go. Clark definitely portrays the prosecution as biased in this case and the case suffers from a lack of concrete evidence and an abundance of hearsay. Clark is an excellent author and the story flows quickly, just the topic wasn’t something I was interested in reading.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

this was a short nonfiction about about a sexual scandal involving lutheran pastors - well researched and a very interesting premise but i felt like half the book was infodumping about königsberg, i wanted more immanuel kant!

[Andrés CM · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Hoy toca reseñar la última obra de Christopher Clark, Un escándalo en Königsberg (Galaxia Gutenberg, 2026), que vuelve a confirmar por qué el autor de Sonámbulos y El reino de hierro es uno de los grandes narradores de la historia europea moderna. En esta ocasión, Clark reduce la escala de sus habituales frescos continentales a un microcosmos: la ciudad portuaria de Königsberg entre 1835 y 1842. El resultado es un relato tenso, elegante y sorprendentemente actual, que funciona tanto como historia rigurosa como fábula sobre la desinformación, los pánicos morales y las guerras culturales".
RESEÑA COMPLETA: https://atrapadaenunashojasdepapel.bl...

[Florian Lorenzen]

Der australische Historiker Christopher Clark gilt spätestens seit der Veröffentlichung seiner „Schlafwandler“, in welcher er die Juli-Krise 1914 (die schließlich in den ersten Weltkrieg münde) minutiös rekonstruierte, als einer der besten Kenner deutscher Geschichte. Sein großes Werk „Preußen. Aufstieg und Niedergang. 1600–1947“ aus dem Jahr 2006 gehört bis heute zu meinen absoluten Lieblingsbüchern. Somit war ich ziemlich begeistert, als ich von der Publikation seines neusten Werks „Skandal in Königsberg“ erfuhr. Meinen hohen Erwartungen gerecht werden konnte dieses Büchlein jedoch nicht.

Doch zunächst zum Inhalt: „Ein Skandal in Königsberg“ erzählt die wahre Geschichte eines Skandals, der sich in den späten 1830er-Jahre in der ostpreußischen Hauptstadt Königsberg ereignete. Den beiden lutherischen Predigern Johann Wilhelm Ebel & Georg Heinrich Diestel wird zum Vorwurf gemacht, eine Art Sekte gegründet und in dieser unzüchtige Lehren verbreitet zu haben. Die Geschichte dieses Skandals, des sich daran anschließenden Gerichtsprozesses sowie des Werdegangs der zentralen Protagonisten wird von Clark gewohnt solide und preußen-romantisch nacherzählt.

Etwas holprig wird es jedoch in dem Moment, in dem Clark diesen Skandal mit mehr Bedeutung und Relevanz für die heutige Zeit auflädt, als dieser Geschichte realistischerweise inhärent ist. Ein Beispiel: Clark sieht in der Figur des Prediger Ebel – aufgrund seines femininen Auftretens – eine Art „queeres Wesen“ und interpretiert das rabiate Vorgehen des preußischen Staates gegen ihn als Reaktion auf einen Verstoß gegen die „patriarchale Ordnung“. Am Ende ist das alles nicht so „woke“ geschrieben, wie es sich in diesen Zeilen vielleicht anhören mag. Dennoch würde ich der Auslegung Clarks eine gewisse Über-Interpretation attestieren, wodurch sich für mich auch die Frage stellt, ob der geschilderte Vorgang wirklich ein 200-Seiten-Langes Buch wert gewesen ist.

Für mich leider das bisher schwächste Buch von Christopher Clark

Review auf Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/DTcmQMuAviv

[uk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ein Gesellschaftsstück aus dem 19. Jahrhundert.
In dem Religion benutzt wird.
Wieder einmal.
Diesmal, um bürgerliche Existenzen zu vernichten.

q. e. d.

[Jolanta (knygupė) · Rating 3 out of 5]

2,6*
Labai sausa.

[mippers · Rating 3 out of 5]

well written, well researched, interesting critique about the Handling of A Church Scandal in Prussia,,, unfortunately i was! hoping the scandal would be a lil juicier

[Mathijs Loo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zeer verfrissend om eens geen uit de kluiten gewassen studie van Chris Clark te lezen. Waarschijnlijk gaat dit boek een voetnoot in zijn carrière worden, maar Clark weet een boeiende geschiedenis neer te zetten van een rechtzaak tegen een christelijke sekte in het Königsberg van 1835.

[Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Am Anfang waren zwei große Eier im Vakuum: Urlicht bzw. Urfeuer und Urfinsternis bzw. Urwasser. Ausgehend von dieser eigentümlichen Überzeugung, die Bibelglauben und Vernunft miteinander versöhnen sollte, werden zwei Prediger angeklagt, eine illegale Sekte gegründet zu haben – verstärkt durch den Vorwurf sexueller Unzucht.

Christopher Clark rekonstruiert diese Episode preußischer Religionsgeschichte. Die religiösen Befindlichkeiten sind aus heutiger Sicht kaum noch nachvollziehbar. Trotz klarer Struktur liest sich das Buch wie eine Ansammlung von Archivfunden. Mir ist es nicht gelungen, ein echtes Interesse an der Geschichte oder ihren Protagonisten zu entwickeln.

[CasserresBoy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Social history is always a way to understand future sociaty. The author bring us a detailed account of a religious scandal in the first half of the XIX century Prusia. A period after the Napoleon invation, where enlightment and reason colliade againts religion and imagination. In the end, pure souls straglying to make sense of their reality are unjustly acused of herasy and sex ofenses , and comdemned under obscure law proceedings.

[Johannes · Rating 2 out of 5]

2,5

Let's start by the beginning by acknowledging I didn't like it, I'm simply giving it a 2 starts review for it is a book, a very well researched one I might add, by Christopher Clark which in itself is a mark of quality if there was ever one. Clark is a very detailed-oriented, able storyteller of pretty much unknown subjects, especially those of the defunct kingdom of Prussia. And here perhaps I should give some context, on his amazing "Iron Kingdom" Clark devotes a whole chapter of his book to the religious issues on Prussia in between Lutherans and Catholics, and why this was such a big issue for the kingdom. It is amazing he got to manage so much information into a cohesive narration but it also explains why Penguin chose to use such a small font on its printing as to fit it all. I'm sure there was much back and forth in between his editor trying to rein him in without much success so... back to "A Scandal in Königsberg". It's amazing this book was published in the first place given how uninteresting and arid the subject is, I struggled to keep interest through most of it, again, not Clark's fault, it is just ever so boring, and I love history, especially Prussian one. There is little written over Königsberg, the real Prussia, the area that named the kingdom and allowed its creation on the first place but perhaps the topic wasn't the best.

The book has over 300 pages and almost 80 are his notes, so perhaps that says a lot about it. I'm sad I didn't enjoy it but alas, it is a fact nonetheless.

[Claire McKenna · Rating 4 out of 5]

A scandal in the church? Inconceivable!

[Candace · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars, actually, rounded up because there’s a a guy named Count Fink von Finkenstein. This book seems pretty niche.

[Caroline McIntyre · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is probably very interesting to a specific type of person, but that person is just not me.

[Michael Quinn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I would have liked this a lot more if I read it in just one or two sittings. As I experienced it, however, it lacked some of the urgency you'd expect from such a short book and it didn't capture the scandalous nature of the incident as much as I expected. Still, it was an interesting story and Clark is a good writer.

[Bookish Tokyo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember being fascinated as a child by the splinter of Russian territory that sticks into the side of Europe. A place on the map that draws the eye and makes one curious about its history and geography. Although initially I had hoped for a straightforward history of the territory, what I got instead was something completely different, but also incredibly interesting. 
. 
Clark paints well the rather ugly city and province of Konigsberg, the city just recovering from Napoleon was yearning for profound experiences away from the prevailing dry rationalism on offer in the city churches and universities. People were looking for something more. In comes two harmless eccentric preachers inspired by the self-made preacher Schonherr who believed it was two primordial eggs, one of light and the other water that created the earth. The former being ostensibly male and the latter female. They were bound in a union and through this theory one could explain everything.
.
The two preachers were personable, friendly and imbued themselves into high society. Especially popular with high society women who were desperate to understand the chaotic world in which they live. Ultimately this disturbed the establishment. Rumours began to form of wild sex parties, debauched behavior and kinky sex. Accusations reflected in many ways the proclivities of the accusers themselves. All this of course was false, but it didn’t stop the subsequent trial or the gossip of wild sex orgies.
.
A fascinating read. Lightly handled but still gives a good impression of both Koenigsberg and the scandal, which now seems all slightly ridiculous. A huge thank you to penguin and netgalley for the advanced copy. It’s out now in all good bookshops!

[Brady · Rating 3 out of 5]

Critics and readers alike praise Clark for his expansive, sweeping histories. For instance, The Sleepwalkers is an award-winning account of the origins of The Great War. His audience often reaches for hyperbole to praise this work. Here, he proves just as much skill at narrating smaller forms of history. Ebel, a young heterodox preacher, finds himself embroiled in a scandal that enthralls not only Königsberg (today Kaliningrad) but the eminent theologians, philosophers, and statesmen of the German-speaking world. For a book about a church dispute, I was surprised at how gripping it was.

The book is not without flaws. First, the speculation about Ebel’s sexuality feels underdeveloped. While efforts to understand queer history are appreciated, the evidence felt unsatisfactory, e.g., that he bathed with a group of women or that he was viewed as effeminate. Second, Clark included some fictional dialogues between involved figures, seemingly with the intent of enlivening them as characters. These sections were reminiscent of the use of a similar device by Schleiermacher, but I found it didactic at points.

These criticisms aside, A Scandal in Königsberg is a delightful read. It provides a valuable perspective into 19th-Century German social mores, and if you have an interest in the period, you should give it your attention.

Thank you to Penguin Books for the opportunity to read the ARC.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is there anything Chris Clark can't do?

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Penguin sure knew what it was doing framing this “European history in exquisite miniature” as “a fable for our present time of political, social, and existential disquiet.” My philosophical and theological pearls were clutched throughout in anachronistic sympathy.

Cancel culture theology in the first half of 19th century Prussia? Sign me up. It’s like a good ol’ 20th century American satanic panic (which were almost as good as the 13th century French satanic panics).

And, hey, sometimes you end up in a cult doing weird stuff in the pursuit of spiritual ecstasy and enlightenment. That’s not great, but it can happen to the best of us. Nonetheless, maybe a good idea or two can be lifted from the wreckage:

“[Ida von der Groeben found that] ‘Christianity can serve every need, including the needs of the intellect, and that this was the *religion of awareness and therefore also of joy*'. She had learned, moreover, that Christians were not servants, but rather children, volunteers, friends of God. And the preacher—here she touched on the core of Ebel's style as a pastor and teacher—was not the lord over the faith of his congregation, but rather *the helpers of their joy* [Gehülfe ihrer Freude].”

Clark does an interesting thing two or three times in the book where he will shift narrative technique from that of the historian to that of the historical fiction writer. He will dip into dialogue and narration rather than straight-up historical evidence to back a claim. In a way, it mirrors the subject matter of the text itself: whispers and stories that you can’t quite be sure factually accurate, but they influence what you (think you) know about the situation in Königsberg. So maybe it isn’t true after all, but it does make for a good story, and that keeps winning the day with us. We think we are newly post-truth. Turns out we were well on our way in Napoleon’s Europe.

One such fictional dialogue at the very end seemed such a great gesture to help make his final point that the moral lesson left after this tragedy was that people failed to properly understand one another. Two people who had been embroiled in the controversy at Königsberg meet 30 years later and reflect on the titular scandal:

“‘Mathilde [who had worked directly with Ebel and Diestel] never complained—she said that true Christians had always been persecuted in this way. We still lived alongside each other. We still met and spoke often. But now a world had become between us, we understood each other less and less. That, Mr Rosenkranz, is the real moral of the story. The failure of understanding. Even as we sat in my room chatting in our accustomed spot, my childhood friend and I were already dead and buried for each other.’”

Even good ideas, it seems, deserve to be killed for reasons I cannot claim to begin to know. I close with the physician and accusing angel himself, Herr Doktor Ludwig Wilhelm Sachs, from his deposition to the Consistory in the case against Ebel and Diestel:

“When you have caught an eel, and you want to strip its skin, it is a good idea to hammer a nail through its head.

I think I have made my meaning clear.”

[W.S. Luk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even though the scandals surrounding religious thinkers in 19th-century Königsberg seem like an obscure subject, Clark's short book bears out his point in the introduction that "resemblances to present-day persons and situations, though not intended, cannot be ruled out". This comparison hinges on how the bizarre theologies of thinkers like Johann Ebel flourished out of a blend of Christian mysticism and the philosophical/scientific currents of their time (Clark engages interestingly with how developments from the writings of Kant to the birth of the steam engine may have influenced these idiosyncratic belief systems), and the way in which the nascent news media and public sphere were mobilised to condemn them.

There's an intriguing point where Clark notes that the hysteria around Ebel's ideas emphasised claims that he and his disciples were sexually predatory and posed threats to young women, only for Clark's research to highlight that no records exist of women criticising Ebel's conduct, only aristocratic men professing to defend their honour. Highlighting the theological and social complexities beneath the sensationalism of this case, A SCANDAL IN KÖNIGSBERG is a fascinating study of a little-known historical controversy, even if Clark's prose is not always persuasive: the book opens with a dense and occasionally aimless profile of Königsberg's history, and Clark's fictitious vignettes of conversations between and about figures of this era are integrated awkwardly in a somewhat halfhearted effort (two such vignettes are featured) to bring novelistic flavour to the book.

[Tanner Volz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m no historian and unarmed to judge the book’s scholarly success, but it’s a fascinating and thematically loaded survey of religious happenings in Königsberg, Prussia (now Germany) in the early 19th century. Most intriguing to me:

* The ease with which imaginative and zealous believers adapted their desperate need to repair biblical dissonances to weird and often bluntly silly mythological addenda—most prominently in this book, a wild image of Creation as an architected collision of ovoid elementary entities. Massive, shapely blobs of water and fire—the masculine and the feminine, of course—colliding and resulting in a sort of galactic, gendered yin/yang. Boom, universe.

* While it seemed like anyone could start any weird-ass denomination they wanted, these weren’t grifts. Something like Lutheranism was born of the earnest desire to reconcile legitimately painful textual quagmires. (We still see plenty of Christians today trying to reconcile interpretations and squabbling over specifica (actual word). It never works out.)

* No, the scandal has (relatively) little to do with sex so much as blasphemy and social impropriety. As to the latter, one of the preachers in question is especially fascinating as he appears to have been gender-queer. His distaste for conventional homosocialjty was apparently less scandalous than we might think; preachers were quite well-known for their eccentricities, such as their taste for wizardly garb and other harmless, even charming oddities.

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

My rating is actually more like 3.5. Like others have pointed out, this is heavy on the info about political and religious politics in this Prussian city in the first half of the 19th century. Something I find quite interesting, but not why I picked up the book. Essentially it's the German Romantic period colliding head on with the Age of Enlightenment and winning, but not without a battle.

However, when it does hit harder on the actual scandal, it's fascinating and kind of hilarious. The newspaper accounts are priceless. I can imagine the head of the household forbidding his womenfolk and servants from reading the newspaper and then marching off after breakfast with the paper into his library, locking the door and having a jolly good time being a) shocked, SHOCKED and b) gloriously titillated by all the details. The fact that it was mainly made up was completely irrelevant.

There is a particularly loathsome doctor who plays a somewhat important role who just goes to show that misogyny has a long, respectable history (when accused by a noblewoman of sexual assault his excuse was the classic, Trump-approved, "HER? That dried-up old bag? She wishes!).

It does have echoes of today's misinformation (these people would have loved Fox News, Twitter and TikTok), as well as heavy does of culture wars, the fear of women not doing as they're told, religious fanaticism, and the gentry really needing to get better hobbies.

[WildesKopfkino · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moral, Macht und muffige Kirchenluft. Klingt trocken, wird hier aber plötzlich erstaunlich pikant. Königsberg wirkt zunächst wie eine Stadt, in der nach 18 Uhr nur noch Fensterläden klappern. Und dann kommt dieser Skandal daher und reißt die fromme Fassade mit einem satten Knall ein. Zwei Prediger, viele Gerüchte und ein ganzes Gemeinwesen, das nervös mit den Fingern auf den Tisch trommelt.

Christopher Clark erzählt das Ganze mit einem Blick, der gleichzeitig neugierig und leicht amüsiert wirkt. Hinter der steifen preußischen Ordnung brodeln Eitelkeiten, Begierden und jede Menge Angst vor Kontrollverlust. Beim Lesen entsteht dieses Gefühl, heimlich durch halb geöffnete Türen zu schauen. Man weiß, das gehört sich nicht, macht aber genau deshalb so viel Spaß.

Besonders stark ist die Atmosphäre. Enge Gassen, moralische Empörung und dieses leise Tuscheln, das immer lauter wird. Kein reiner Krimi, eher ein historisches Drama mit echtem Zündstoff. Man merkt, wie sehr Clark die Zeit versteht. Und wie wenig sich Menschen seitdem verändert haben.

Manchmal nimmt sich das Buch Zeit. Sehr viel Zeit. Einige Passagen wirken wie ein gemütlicher Spaziergang durch Archivstaub. Aber genau daraus entsteht auch die Glaubwürdigkeit. Am Ende bleibt ein kluger, unterhaltsamer Blick auf einen Skandal, der überraschend modern wirkt. Und ein Grinsen, weil selbst im strengsten Preußen ordentlich Chaos möglich war.

[Anne O'Connell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Christopher Clark’s writing is clear and engaging throughout his lengthy books Revolutionary Spring (try the audiobook – Clark gives a riveting performance) and The Sleepwalkers. In A Scandal in Königsberg he’s as unstuffy as ever but on a smaller scale. Even on this more limited canvas he gives the reader plenty of background to understand the context in which clergyman Johann Ebel was accused of leading a sect that followed the teachings of an oddball theosopher and ‘encouraged his followers to engage in gross sexual impropriety’. His friend pastor Heinrich Diestel became embroiled in the scandal when he tried sticking up for Ebel.
Clark treats us to a story where pigheadedness and arrogance combine in personal attacks under the guise of clerical propriety. It’s both fine scholarship and entertainingly gossipy. And it has a playful ending of an imagined conversation between a writer and a philosopher reminiscing about the time of the scandal. I recommend A Scandal in Königsberg if you’d like a glimpse of how badly some ostensibly respectable people behaved in the far corner of East Prussia in the 1830s.
Thanks to Penguin Press for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley.

[Miriam · Rating 2 out of 5]

The final chapter of the book finally does what I wanted it to do all along - introduce some nuance and some of the human consequences of the scandal in Königsberg. Too bad the rest of the book doesn't do it. The first three quarters of the book are very dry, and the author just keeps repeating that every judge, every expert giving testimony, and every press article is biased against the preachers accused of forming a sect and behaving immorally with their parishioners. I wish he had properly explained why they would be biased, or in what way. Then he quotes supporters of the preachers, and notes that they're biased and bitter, but truthful. Based on what?
If someone in the 19th century preaches that the world was formed not by God, but by balls of fire and water bumping into each other before creation, the author has to explain how that does not deviate from the orthodoxy of the time.
So many things in this book are alluded to, but not many are fully explained or substantiated by on-page evidence. It may be that the author told the story exactly as it happened, but reading the book is a very frustrating experience.

[Leon Spence · Rating 5 out of 5]

A simply outstanding book by a world renowned historian.

A Scandal in Konigsberg focuses on a relatively minor religious scandal and subsequent trial in 1830s Prussia. The author accepts early on that there are not as many sources available to him as he would like to draw definitive conclusions in the matter and this only makes the questions that the book raises more compelling.

The events described touch on organised religion and theosophy, the power of charisma in influencing others, gender roles and sex and sexuality, the role of the media and the power of fake news (as well as a touch of class identification thrown in for good measure). Each of these themes remain pertinent today and the outcome of the events seem oddly contemporary.

Clark has written a short history book that is also a morality tale. I'm sure that it will demand reading more than once and every time invite the reader to draw different conclusions.