Brunner was born in
Berlin, Germany. He graduated both from the
Berlin School of Economics and the
Free University of Berlin. As a recipient of a scholarship from the
German Academic Exchange Service he spent an academic year at the
University of Washington in 1991/92. He had editorial positions in television, magazine publishing and book publishing. Brunner works at the crossroads of history, culture, and science and is the author of several books, including
Bears: A Brief History and
Moon: A Brief History which have been translated into several languages and were reviewed in major outlets such as
The New York Times,
Slate.com,
The New Yorker,
Los Angeles Times,
The Telegraph,
The Times,
The Sunday Times,
The Washington Post,
The Times Literary Supplement,
Nature, and
The Guardian. He has contributed articles to magazines ''
Lapham's Quarterly, The Paris Review Daily
, The Smart Set
, aeon
, The Public Domain Review
, Quartz
, Cabinet, PBS Nature
, The Wall Street Journal Speakeasy
and The Huffington Post
, The Times Literary Supplement
as well as various leading German-language publications including Süddeutsche Zeitung
, Neue Zürcher Zeitung
, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung
, and Die Zeit''. He lectured at the
Carnegie Museum of Natural History, the
Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts and Culture in New York City, the
Bancroft Library and the Botanical Garden of the University of California at Berkeley, at the Goethe Institutes of San Francisco and Washington, D.C. and at Deutsches Haus at
New York University. Some of his books have been translated into Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Spanish, Italian, French, Russian, Romanian, Greek, Norwegian, Turkish, and Arabic. In 2016 he was fellow of the Logan Nonfiction Program /
Carey Institute for Global Good in New York. == Bibliography ==