From Goethe's Faust to hand play - The hand plays a central role not only as a sensory organ and tool, but also in history and literature.

It grasps and feels, caresses and strikes, greets and concludes contracts: No part of the body is as versatile as the hand. In language, we find countless examples of its prominent role: we take a thing in our hands, something cannot be dismissed out of hand, and a goal would be within reach if only we didn't have two left hands. Every era associates its own ideas with the hand - and if we are increasingly controlling machines with speech, that says a lot about the change we are undergoing. Jochen Hörisch introduces us to the whole variety of hands that we encounter in literature and in the history of ideas.