New Books in Eastern European Studies

The Idea of "Central Europe" from Naumann to Kundera

24 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Central Europe has long been infamous as a region beset by war, a place where empires clashed and world wars began. In The Middle Kingdoms: A New Hi...

Maria Popova and Oxana Shevel, "Russia and Ukraine: Entangled Histories, Diverging States" (Polity, 2023)

24 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Russia and Ukraine have alternative histories and alternative destinies. After the Soviet Union collapsed - depending on who you spoke to – they wer...

Paul Le Blanc, "Lenin: Responding to Catastrophe, Forging Revolution" (Pluto Press, 2023)

23 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Returning to the New Books Network today is Paul Le Blanc, here to discuss his new book Lenin: Responding to Catastrophe, Forging Revolution (Pluto ...

Andrew Monaghan and Richard Connolly. "The Sea in Russian Strategy" (Manchester UP, 2023)

22 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The common perception of Russia's status as a great power is often portrayed as being based largely on land power. Being the largest country in the wo...

David K. Zimmerman, "Ensnared Between Hitler and Stalin: Refugee Scientists in the USSR" (U Toronto Press, 2023)

22 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the 1930s, hundreds of scientists and scholars fled Hitler’s Germany. Many found safety, but some made the disastrous decision to seek refuge in ...

Antonis Klapsis et al., "The Greek Junta and the International System: A Case Study of Southern European Dictatorships, 1967-74" (Routledge, 2020)

20 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Greek Junta and the International System: A Case Study of Southern European Dictatorships, 1967-74 (Routledge, 2020) examines the international d...

Maxim Shrayer, "I Saw It: Ilya Selvinsky and the Legacy of Bearing Witness to the Shoah" (Academic Studies Press, 2013)

19 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In I Saw It: Ilya Selvinsky and the Legacy of Bearing Witness to the Shoah (Academic Studies Press, 2013), based on archival and field research and ...

Nicole Eaton, "German Blood, Slavic Soil: How Nazi Königsberg Became Soviet Kaliningrad" (Cornell UP, 2023)

18 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

German Blood, Slavic Soil: How Nazi Königsberg Became Soviet Kaliningrad (Cornell UP, 2023) reveals how Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, twentiet...

Bálint Madlovics and Bálint Magyar, "The Russia-Ukraine War, Volumes 1-2" (CEU Press, 2023)

17 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of the CEU Press Podcast Series, host Bálint Madlovics sat down for a fascinating discussion on the impact of the war on Ukraine’s ...

Anthony Tucker-Jones, "Battle of the Cities: Urban Warfare on the Eastern Front" (Pen & Sword Military, 2023)

17 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The common image of World War II (1939-1945) is that of swift armored maneuver advances supported by combined arms, especially overwhelming air suppor...

Natasha Wheatley, "The Life and Death of States: Central Europe and the Transformation of Modern Sovereignty" (Princeton UP, 2023)

12 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Natasha Wheatley is an Assistant Professor of History at Princeton University. Her bold and riveting debut monograph, The Life and Death of States: C...

Writing the History of Money and Monetary Policy

08 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What do the histories of currency and monetary policy tell us about societies at large, political structures, and cultures? Ekaterina Pravilova and ...

Valerie Kivelson et al., "Picturing Russian Empire" (Oxford UP, 2023)

07 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Picturing Russian Empire (Oxford UP, 2023) appears as Russia’s imperialist war of aggression against Ukraine grinds on. The stakes could not be hi...

Roger R. Reese, "Russia's Army: A History from the Napoleonic Wars to the War in Ukraine" (U Oklahoma Press, 2023)

05 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Czar Alexander III (1845-1894) is reported to have stated that "Russia only has two allies: the army and the navy." Military power has always been imp...

Jan Selling, "Romani Liberation: A Northern Perspective on Emancipatory Struggles and Progress" (Central European UP, 2022)

05 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Well-known for his work in Critical Romani Studies, Jan Selling talks with Lavinia Stan about his latest book. Centered on Scandinavia, Romani Liber...

David Alan Parnell, "Belisarius & Antonina: Love and War in the Age of Justinian" (Oxford UP, 2023)

04 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Belisarius and Antonina were titans in the Roman world some 1,500 years ago. Belisarius was the most well-known general of his age, victor over the Pe...

Agata Fijalkowski, "Law, Visual Culture, and the Show Trial" (Routledge, 2023)

30 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Addressing the relationship between law and the visual, this book examines the importance of photography in Central, East, and Southeast European show...

Marat Grinberg, "The Soviet Jewish Bookshelf: Jewish Culture and Identity Between the Lines" (Brandeis UP, 2023)

29 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In The Soviet Jewish Bookshelf: Jewish Culture and Identity Between the Lines (Brandeis UP, 2023), Marat Grinberg argues that in an environment wher...

Linda Kinstler, "Come to This Court and Cry: How the Holocaust Ends" (PublicAffairs, 2023)

26 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1965, five years after the capture of Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires, one of his Mossad abductors was sent back to South America to kill another fu...

Owen Matthews, "Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin's War Against Ukraine" (Mudlark, 2022)

25 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

An astonishing deep dive into the war in Ukraine - from the corridors of the Kremlin to the trenches of Mariupol. The Russo-Ukrainian War is the most ...

Trenton W. Holliday, "Cro-Magnon: The Story of the Last Ice Age People of Europe" (Columbia UP, 2023)

23 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

During the Last Ice Age, Europe was a cold, dry place teeming with mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, reindeer, bison, cave bears, cave hyenas, and cave l...

Sonja K. Pieck, "Mnemonic Ecologies: Memory and Nature Conservation along the Former Iron Curtain" (MIT Press, 2023)

22 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The first book-length scholarly treatment of Germany's largest conservation project, the Green Belt, Mnemonic Ecologies: Memory and Nature Conservati...

Philip Jenkins, "A Storm of Images: Iconoclasm and Religious Reformation in the Byzantine World" (Baylor UP, 2023)

22 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the eighth century, the Byzantine Empire began a campaign to remove or suppress sacred images that depicted Christ, the Virgin, or other holy figur...

The Family in History, History in the Family: National Identity in Nineteenth-century Kyiv and Immigration Politics in West Germany after 1955

21 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In two new books, Fabian Baumann and Lauren Stokes examine the past through the lens of family structures and relations. In Dynasty Divided: A Fa...

Immo Rebitschek and Aaron B. Retish, "Social Control under Stalin and Khrushchev: The Phantom of a Well-Ordered State" (U Toronto Press, 2023)

21 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How did the Soviet Union control the behaviour of its people? How did the people themselves engage with the official rules and the threat of violence ...

Leyla Amzi-Erdogdular, "The Afterlife of Ottoman Europe: Muslims in Habsburg Bosnia Herzegovina" (Stanford UP, 2023)

20 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In her sparkling and splendid new book The Afterlife of Ottoman Europe: Muslims in Habsburg Bosnia Herzegovina (Stanford University Press, 2023),...

Stefan C. Ionescu, "Jewish Resistance to ‘Romanianization’, 1940-44" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015)

20 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Jewish Resistance to ‘Romanianization’, 1940-44 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), Stefan C. Ionescu examines the process of economic Romanianizati...

Tom Gallagher, "Europe's Leadership Famine: Portraits of Defiance and Decay 1950-2022" (Scotview, 2023)

16 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Tom Gallagher about his new book Europe's Leadership Famine: Portraits of Defiance and Decay 1950-2022 (Scotview, 2023). Represe...

Jana Randow and Alessandro Speciale, "Mario Draghi, the Craftsman: The True Story of the Man Who Saved the Euro" (Rizzoli, 2019)

14 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

"Within our mandate, the [European Central Bank] is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro. And believe me, it will be enough". With tho...

C. J. Wagevier, "Fighting for Napoleon's Army in Russia: A POW's Memoir" (Pen and Sword, 2023)

12 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1812 the French emperor Napoleon decided to invade Russia. For this purpose, he gathered an army of half a million men and women, consisting of sol...

Valentina Marcella, "Laughing Matters: Graphic Satire Reckoning with the 1980 Coup in Turkey" (Istituto per l’Oriente C. A. Nallino, 2022)

12 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Valentina Marcella's Laughing Matters: Graphic Satire Reckoning with the 1980 Coup in Turkey (Istituto per l’Oriente C. A. Nallino 2022) focuses...

Rory Finnin, "Blood of Others: Stalin's Crimean Atrocity and the Poetics of Solidarity" (U Toronto Press, 2022)

11 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Blood of Others: Stalin's Crimean Atrocity and the Poetics of Solidarity (U Toronto Press, 2022) offers a cultural history of Crimea and the Black Se...

Gültan Kışanak, "The Purple Color of Kurdish Politics: Women Politicians Write from Prison" (Pluto Press, 2022)

10 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Purple Color of Kurdish Politics: Women Politicians Write from Prison (Pluto Press, 2022) is a one-of-a-kind collection of prison writings from m...

Books in Early Modern Europe

07 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

If you are reading this, it’s probably hard—nearly impossible—to imagine a world without writing—without print, books, newspapers, signs, graf...

Harriet Murav and Gennady Estraikh, "Soviet Jews in World War II: Fighting, Witnessing, Remembering" (Academic Studies Press, 2018)

07 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Harriet Murav and Gennady Estraikh's book Soviet Jews in World War II: Fighting, Witnessing, Remembering (Academic Studies Press, 2018) discusses th...

Daniel Satinsky, "Creating the Post-Soviet Russian Market Economy: Through American Eyes" (Routledge, 2023)

06 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Creating the Post-Soviet Russian Market Economy: Through American Eyes (Routledge, 2023) captures the essence of the period when Russians and America...

Zeynep K. Korkman, "Gendered Fortunes: Divination, Precarity, and Affect in Postsecular Turkey" (Duke UP, 2023)

05 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Gendered Fortunes: Divination, Precarity, and Affect in Postsecular Turkey (Duke UP, 2023), Zeynep K. Korkman examines Turkey’s commercial for...

Isaac McKean Scarborough, "Moscow's Heavy Shadow: The Violent Collapse of the USSR" (Cornell UP, 2023)

01 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Moscow's Heavy Shadow: The Violent Collapse of the USSR (Cornell University Press, 2023) by Dr. Isaac Mckean Scarborough tells the story of the colla...

Gwendolyn Sasse, "Russia's War Against Ukraine" (Polity, 2023)

29 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Nineteen months since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the books are coming thick and fast. Fortunately, each tells a different and compell...

Series Spotlight: Central European Medieval Texts (CEMT)

29 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In episode 5 of the CEU Press Podcast Series we sat down with Professor Gábor Klaniczay from the CEU’s Department of Medieval Studies to discuss on...

Alex J. Bellamy, "Warmonger: Vladimir Putin's Imperial Wars" (Agenda Publishing, 2023)

28 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

"War was always central to Putin's project," writes Alex J. Bellamy in Warmonger: Vladimir Putin's Imperial Wars (Agenda, 2023). Not just the second...

Timur Warner Hammond, "Placing Islam: Geographies of Connection in Twentieth-Century Istanbul" (U California Press, 2023)

27 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

For centuries, the Mosque of Eyüp Sultan has been one of Istanbul’s most important pilgrimage destinations, in large part because of the figure bur...

Gary Saul Morson, "Wonder Confronts Certainty: Russian Writers on the Timeless Questions and Why Their Answers Matter" (Harvard UP, 2023)

26 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A noted literary scholar traverses the Russian canon, exploring how realists, idealists, and revolutionaries debated good and evil, moral responsibili...

Erik R. Scott, "Defectors: How the Illicit Flight of Soviet Citizens Built the Borders of the Cold War World" (Oxford UP, 2023)

24 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Defectors fleeing the Soviet Union seized the world's attention during the Cold War. Their stories were told in sensational news coverage and dramatiz...

The Future of Ukraine: A Discussion with Christopher Miller

24 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has already changed the world. Why did it happen? Who is winning? How will it end? Christopher Miller is the author of...

Antony Kalashnikov, "Monuments for Posterity: Self-Commemoration and the Stalinist Culture of Time" (Cornell UP, 2023)

23 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Antony Kalashnikov's Monuments for Posterity: Self-Commemoration and the Stalinist Culture of Time (Cornell UP, 2023) analyzes Stalinist monument-bu...

Martyn C. Rady, "The Middle Kingdoms: A New History of Central Europe" (Basic Books, 2023)

23 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Central Europe has long been infamous as a region beset by war, a place where empires clashed and world wars began. In The Middle Kingdoms: A New His...

Malgorzata Fidelis, "Imagining the World from Behind the Iron Curtain: Youth and the Global Sixties in Poland" (Oxford UP, 2022)

22 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Global Sixties are well known as a period of non-conformist lifestyles, experimentation with consumer products and technology, counterculture, and...

Ruth Schwertfeger, "A Nazi Camp Near Danzig: Perspectives on Shame and on the Holocaust from Stutthof" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

22 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Within the vast network of Nazi camps, Stutthof may be the least known beyond Poland. This book is the first scholarly publication in English to break...

Katarzyna Person and Johannes-Dieter Steinert, "Przemysłowa Concentration Camp: The Camp, the Children, the Trials" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023)

21 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Katarzyna Person and Johannes-Dieter Steinert's book Przemysłowa Concentration Camp: The Camp, the Children, the Trials (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023) ...

Anthony Gad Bigio, "A Sephardi Turkish Patriot: Gad Franco in the Turmoil of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic" (Hamilton Books, 2023)

17 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In A Sephardi Turkish Patriot: Gad Franco in the Turmoil of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic (Hamilton Books, 2023), Anthony Gad Bigio ...

Ainsley Morse, "Word Play: Experimental Poetry and Soviet Children's Literature" (Northwestern UP, 2021)

16 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Ainsley Morse's book Word Play: Experimental Poetry and Soviet Children's Literature (Northwestern UP, 2021) traces the history of the relationship ...

Dženita Karić, "Bosnian Hajj Literature: Multiple Paths to the Holy" (Edinburgh UP, 2022)

15 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Dženita Karić's new book Bosnian Hajj Literature: Multiple Paths to the Holy (Edinburgh University Press, 2023) maps the diverse understandings of...

Pallavi Narayan, "Pamuk's Istanbul: The Self and the City" (Routledge, 2022)

15 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Pallavi Narayan's book Pamuk's Istanbul: The Self and the City (Routledge, 2022) reconstructs Istanbul through the prism of Orhan Pamuk’s fiction...

Avigdor Hameiri, "Under a Bloodred Sky: Avigdor Hameiri’s War Stories and Poetry" (Academic Studies Press, 2023)

15 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Under a Bloodred Sky: Avigdor Hameiri’s War Stories and Poetry (Academic Studies Press, 2023) represents an anthology of Avigdor Hameiri’s ten mo...

Prit Buttar, "To Besiege a City: Leningrad 1941-42" (Osprey, 2023)

14 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The city of St. Petersburg held great significance to the Russian Empire when Peter the Great first built the city in 1703. It was intended to be Russ...

The Shadow War between America and Russia

13 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Western analysts and media often assess the prospect that Moscow might use nuclear weapons as the war in Ukraine grinds on, possibly to a flailing Rus...

A Better Way to Buy Books

12 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Bookshop.org is an online book retailer that donates more than 80% of its profits to independent bookstores. Launched in 2020, Bookshop.org has alre...

Ryan Tucker Jones, "Red Leviathan: The Secret History of Soviet Whaling" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

09 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Soviet Union killed over six hundred thousand whales in the twentieth century, many of them illegally and secretly. That catch helped bring many w...

Andrea Muehlebach, "A Vital Frontier: Water Insurgencies in Europe" (Duke UP, 2023)

08 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In A Vital Frontier: Water Insurgencies in Europe (Duke University Press, 2023)) Andrea Muehlebach examines the work of activists across Europe as ...

Katja Hoyer, "Beyond the Wall: A History of East Germany" (Basic Books, 2023)

08 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1990, a country disappeared. When the Iron Curtain fell, East Germany ceased to be. For over forty years, from the ruin of the Second World War to ...

Valerie Hébert ed., "Framing the Holocaust: Photographs of a Mass Shooting in Latvia, 1941" (U Wisconsin Press, 2023)

07 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Framing the Holocaust: Photographs of a Mass Shooting in Latvia, 1941 (University of Wisconsin Press, 2023), edited by Valerie Hébert, compiles ess...

Endre Sashalmi, "Russian Notions of Power and State in a European Perspective, 1462-1725: Assessing the Significance of Peter's Reign" (Academic Studies Press, 2022)

04 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Endre Sashalmi's book Russian Notions of Power and State in a European Perspective, 1462-1725: Assessing the Significance of Peter's Reign (Academic...

Davide Rodogno, "Night on Earth: A History of International Humanitarianism in the Near East, 1918–1930" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

02 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Night on Earth: A History of International Humanitarianism in the Near East, 1918–1930 (Cambridge UP, 2021) is a broad-ranging account of internati...

Pothiti Hantzaroula, "Child Survivors of the Holocaust in Greece: Memory, Testimony and Subjectivity" (Routledge, 2020)

29 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Pothiti Hantzaroula about her book Child Survivors of the Holocaust in Greece: Memory, Testimony and Subjectivity (Routledge, 20...

Hans-Lukas Kieser, "When Democracy Died: The Middle East's Enduring Peace of Lausanne" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

28 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Treaty of Lausanne, signed in Switzerland in July 1923, officially settled the conflict between the Ottoman Empire and the Allied forces. Not only...

Anna Wylegała et al., "No Neighbors’ Lands in Postwar Europe: Vanishing Others" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023)

25 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Anna Wylegala, Sabine Rutar, and Malgorzata Lukianow's edited volume No Neighbors’ Lands in Postwar Europe: Vanishing Others (Palgrave MacMillan, ...

Hans Kundnani, "Eurowhiteness: Culture, Empire and Race in the European Project" (Hurst, 2023)

17 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

"Today’s 'pro-Europeans' would be horrified at the suggestion that their idea of Europe had anything to do with whiteness. In fact, many would find ...

Samuel Ramani, "Putin's War on Ukraine: Russia’s Campaign for Global Counter-Revolution" (Hurst, 2023)

17 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Eight years after annexing Crimea, Russia embarked on a full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine in February 2022. For Vladimir Putin, this was a le...

Christopher Harrison, "Genocidal Conscription: Drafting Victims and Perpetrators Under the Guise of War" (Lexington Books, 2023)

15 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Christopher Harrison's book Genocidal Conscription: Drafting Victims and Perpetrators Under the Guise of War (Lexington Books, 2023) examines how s...

Toward a More Expansive View of Medieval Europe: Kyivan Rus and Norman Salerno in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries

14 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Focusing on gender relations, family formation, and marriage patterns in areas peripheral to the England, France, and the Holy Roman Empire, Christia...

Mark Edele, "Russia's War Against Ukraine: The Whole Story" (Melbourne University, 2023)

13 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

"That Russia and Ukraine have diverged politically so radically since 1991 is partially due to their position vis-à-vis the imploded empire they emer...

Michael Broers, "Napoleon: The Decline and Fall of an Empire, 1811-1821" (Pegasus Books, 2023)

12 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1811, Napoleon stood at his zenith. He had defeated all his continental rivals, come to an entente with Russia, and his blockade of Britain seemed,...

Jacob Mikanowski, "Goodbye, Eastern Europe: An Intimate History of a Divided Land" (Pantheon Books, 2023)

11 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Eastern Europe, the moniker, has gone out of fashion since the fall of the Soviet Union. Ask someone now, and they might tell you that Estonia is in t...

Olena Palko and Manuel Férez Gil, "Ukraine's Many Faces: Land, People, and Culture Revisited" (Transcript Publishing, 2023)

11 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Russia's large-scale invasion on the 24th of February 2022 once again made Ukraine the focus of world media. Behind those headlines remain the complex...

Xenia A. Cherkaev, "Gleaning for Communism: The Soviet Socialist Household in Theory and Practice" (Cornell UP, 2023)

10 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Gleaning for Communism: The Soviet Socialist Household in Theory and Practice (Cornell UP, 2023) is a historical ethnography of the property regime u...

Andrii Portnov, "Dnipro: An Entangled History of a European City" (Academic Studies Press, 2022)

09 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Andrii Portnov's Dnipro: An Entangled History of a European City (Academic Studies Press, 2022) is the first English-language synthesis of the hist...

Yiannis Kokosalakis, "Building Socialism: The Communist Party and the Making of the Soviet System, 1921–1941" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

06 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

By placing the party grassroots at the centre of its focus, Yiannis Kokosalakis' book Building Socialism: The Communist Party and the Making of the S...

Maria Falina, "Religion and Politics in Interwar Yugoslavia: Serbian Nationalism and East Orthodox Christianity" (Bloombury, 2023)

05 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The persistence of religion in modern Europe and the challenges of transitioning from a religious to a secular state has all too often been overlooked...

Melis Hafez, "Inventing Laziness: The Culture of Productivity in Late Ottoman Society" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

04 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Neither laziness nor its condemnation are new inventions, however, perceiving laziness as a social condition that afflicts a 'nation' is. In the early...

Christopher Miller, "The War Came To Us: Life and Death in Ukraine" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

04 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his unprovoked, full-scale invasion of Ukraine just before dawn on 24 February 2022, it marked his late...

Stipe Odak et al., "Jasenovac Concentration Camp: An Unfinished Past" (Routledge, 2023)

31 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Jasenovac Concentration Camp: An Unfinished Past (Routledge, 2023), Kuznar, Lucic and Odak provide a wide-ranging collection of essays about th...

Archaeology and Nomadism in the Russian Empire: An interview with Ismael Biyashev

29 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the second half of the 19th century, both professional and amateur archaeologists, surveyors, and explorers of the “periphery” of the Russian ...

Ronan Bolton, "Making Energy Markets: The Origins of Electricity Liberalisation in Europe" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022)

24 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Ronan Bolton's book Making Energy Markets: The Origins of Electricity Liberalisation in Europe (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) charts the emergence and ...

Oyman Başaran, "Circumcision and Medicine in Modern Turkey" (U Texas Press, 2023)

23 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Turkey, circumcision is viewed as both a religious obligation and a rite of passage for young boys, as communities celebrate the ritual through gat...

Ilkim Büke Okyar, "Arabs in Turkish Political Cartoons, 1876-1950: National Self and Non-National Other" (Syracuse UP, 2023)

22 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The emergence of Turkish nationalism prior to World War I opened the way for various ethnic, religious, and cultural stereotypes to link the notion of...

Nataša Jagdhuhn, "Post-Yugoslav Metamuseums: Reframing Second World War Heritage in Postconflict Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022)

22 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Nataša Jagdhuhn's Post-Yugoslav Metamuseums: Reframing Second World War Heritage in Postconflict Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia (Palgr...

Paul Hanebrink, "In Defense of Christian Hungary: Religion, Nationalism, and Antisemitism, 1890–1944" (Cornell UP, 2018)

21 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this important historical account of the role that religion played in defining the political life of a modern national society, Paul A. Hanebrink s...

Jeffrey S. Kopstein and Jason Wittenberg, "Intimate Violence: Anti-Jewish Pogroms on the Eve of the Holocaust" (Cornell UP, 2018)

19 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Why do pogroms occur in some localities and not in others? Jeffrey S. Kopstein and Jason Wittenberg examine a particularly brutal wave of violence tha...

Béla Bodó, "Black Humor and the White Terror" (Routledge, 2023)

19 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Béla Bodó's book Black Humor and the White Terror (Routledge, 2023) examines political humor as a reaction to the lost war, the post-war chaos, an...

Jade McGlynn, "Memory Makers: The Politics of the Past in Putin's Russia" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

14 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Why aren't ordinary Russians more outraged by Putin's invasion of Ukraine? Inside the Kremlin's own historical propaganda narratives, Russia's invasio...

Alfred J. Rieber, "Stalin As Warlord" (Yale UP, 2022)

12 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Second World War was arguably the defining moment in the history of the Soviet Union. In Stalin as Warlord (Yale University Press, 2022), eminen...

Serhii Plokhy, "The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History" (Norton, 2023)

11 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Despite repeated warnings from the White House, Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 shocked the world. Why did Putin start the war--and why ...

Oksana Lutsysyna, "Ivan and Phoebe" (Deep Vellum, 2023)

11 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Ivan and Phoebe (Deep Vellum, 2023) spotlights the uproarious generation that led the Ukrainian independence movement of 1990; from subjugation to re...

Jane Rogoyska, "Surviving Katyn: Stalin's Polish Massacre and the Search for Truth" (Oneworld, 2021)

09 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Committed in utmost secrecy in April-May 1940 by the NKVD on the direct orders of Joseph Stalin, for nearly fifty years the Soviet regime succeeded in...

Andrew Harding, "A Small, Stubborn Town: Life, Death and Defiance in Ukraine" (Ithaka, 2023)

07 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From 2-13 March 2022 - only a week into Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine - Russian forces tried and failed to take and hold Voznesensk, a small...

James Crossland, "The Rise of Devils: Fear and the Origins of Terrorism" (Manchester UP, 2023)

06 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the dying light of the nineteenth century, the world came to know and fear terrorism. Much like today, this was a time of progress and dread, in wh...

Mikhail Shishkin, "My Russia: War Or Peace?" (RiverRun Press, 2023)

05 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In his timely My Russia: War or Peace? (RiverRun Press, 2023), Mikhail Shishkin provides a searing account of Russian political culture that explain...

Danny Orbach, "Fugitives: A History of Nazi Mercenaries During the Cold War" (Pegasus Books, 2022)

05 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Danny Orbach about his book Fugitives: A History of Nazi Mercenaries During the Cold War (Pegasus Books, 2022). Shrouded in gover...

Apostolos Andrikopoulos, "Argonauts of West Africa: Unauthorized Migration and Kinship Dynamics in a Changing Europe" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

05 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In rapidly changing and highly precarious contexts, unauthorized African migrants turn to kinship in search of security, stability, and predictability...