The first volume of his diaries was called "the great social novel of the Federal Republic." Here is Volume 2: at the same height, with the same fire. The tone of unflinching self-observation, which simultaneously observes others, continues in this second volume: even clearer, sharper, yet also with a touch of the comedic, exaggerated, and rigorously self-ironic. In a form freer than before, Raddatz now incorporates monologues, short telephone dramas, essays, and portrait miniatures into the text. New names emerge: Joachim Fest and Katharina Thalbach, along with memories of Klaus Mann and several others. It addresses the image of the "good society," the emerging unity of East and West, and, with increasing anger, also American politics: the war in Iraq, the lies of the administration, Guantanamo - for Raddatz, the painful revision of a life.