The in­ven­ti­on of shoes

There were once two brothers, one older and one younger. It came to pass that, over a hundred years ago in a small town in Middle Franconia, they first jointly founded a trainer factory, and later, separately, two global corporations: Adi and Rudi - Adidas and Puma – a legendary, lifelong sibling rivalry.

“Orbit” author Philipp Löhle sends two feuding brothers, along with their feuding wives and feuding children, to ancient Greece in search of the comic and the more-or-less heroic within German history, capitalism and marketing performance: from Jesse Owens, via the “Miracle of Bern,” to Run-DMC and Kanye West. Just do it.