New Books in Eastern European Studies
Episodes
Galina Oustinova-Stjepanovic, "Monumental Names: Archival Aesthetics and the Conjuration of History in Moscow" (Routledge, 2022)
02 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Monumental Names: Archival Aesthetics and the Conjuration of History in Moscow (Routledge, 2022) asks us to consider: what stands behind the propens...
Chris Webb, "The Belzec Death Camp: History, Biographies, Remembrance" (Ibidem, 2016)
31 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Chris Webb's The Belzec Death Camp: History, Biographies, Remembrance (Ibidem, 2016) is a comprehensive account of the Belzec death camp in Poland, ...
Radu Ioanid, "The Holocaust in Romania: The Destruction of Jews and Roma Under the Antonescu Regime, 1940-1944" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022)
28 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Holocaust in Romania: The Destruction of Jews and Roma Under the Antonescu Regime, 1940-1944 (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022), Radu Ioanid explores i...
Business in Socialist Hungary
28 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Philip Scranton, University Board of Governors Professor Emeritus of the history of industry and technology at Rutgers University-Camden, talks about ...
Maria Sonevytsky, "Wild Music: Sound and Sovereignty in Ukraine" (Wesleyan UP, 2019)
28 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In Wild Music: Sound and Sovereignty in Ukraine (Wesleyan UP, 2019), Maria Sonevytsky tracks vernacular Ukrainian discourses of “wildness” as th...
Robert Holzmann and Fernando Restoy, "Central Banks and Supervisory Architecture in Europe: Lessons from Crises in the 21st Century" (Edward Elgar, 2022)
27 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Since 2020, Europe's financial sector has been severely stress-tested by a global pandemic and a major land war yet, compared to the period between 20...
Postscript: Narrative and Influence Activities in the Russo-Ukraine War
26 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For almost a year now, we have been absorbing news and information about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. There are a variety of different, or competin...
Frank Wolff, "Yiddish Revolutionaries in Migration: The Transnational History of the Jewish Labour Bund" (Haymarket Books, 2021)
25 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Frank Wolff's ground-breaking Yiddish Revolutionaries in Migration: The Transnational History of the Jewish Labour Bund (Haymarket Books, 2021) in...
Michael Fleming, "In the Shadow of the Holocaust: Poland, the United Nations War Crimes Commission, and the Search for Justice" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
25 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the midst of the Second World War, Central and East European governments-in-exile struggled to make their voices heard as they reported back to the...
Mostafa Minawi, "Losing Istanbul: Arab-Ottoman Imperialists and the End of Empire" (Stanford UP, 2022)
23 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Mostafa Minawi's Losing Istanbul: Arab-Ottoman Imperialists and the End of Empire (Stanford University Press, 2022) offers an intimate history of ...
Podcast Series: Hell on Earth--The 30 Years War and the Violent Birth of Capitalism
22 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Hell on Earth: The 30 Years War and the Violent Birth of Capitalism is a new 10-part series from the creators of Hell of Presidents — one of Ent...
The Future of the European Left
20 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Why is it so hard for left wing parties in the West to win elections? Some such as the UK Labour Party have headed to the centre. The history of Labou...
Tricia Starks, "Cigarettes and Soviets: Smoking in the USSR" (Cornell UP, 2022)
11 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Seeing cigarette smoking as a cultural phenomenon of Western modernity is perhaps easier when the test case is outside the US where the narrative is ...
Franziska Exeler, "Ghosts of War: Nazi Occupation and Its Aftermath in Soviet Belarus" (Cornell UP, 2022)
06 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How do states and societies confront the legacies of war and occupation, and what do truth, guilt, and justice mean in that process? In Ghosts of W...
The Russo-Ukrainian War from a Military Point of View
03 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On February 24 2022, Vladimir Putin shocked the world by invading Ukraine. In this short interview, veteran military historian Jeremy Black looks at t...
Paul Nelles and Rosa Salzberg, "Connected Mobilities in the Early Modern World: The Practice and Experience of Movement" (Amsterdam UP, 2022)
02 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Paul Nelles (Carleton University) and Rosa Salzberg (University of Trento) talk about early modern culture, travel and the joys of editing their new v...
Svetlana Lavochkina, "Carbon: Song of Crafts" (Lost Horse Press, 2020)
31 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Donetsk, the black gem of Ukraine―Eden and Sodom in one, a stew steaming with coal fever, Manifest Destiny of Europe's east: Svetlana Lavochkina sen...
Aaron Moulton, "The Influencing Machine" (Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, 2022)
31 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1990s, a network of twenty Soros Centres for Contemporary Art sprung up across Eastern Europe: Almaty, Belgrade, Budapest, Kiev, Ljubljana, Pra...
Sean Patterson, "Makhno and Memory: Anarchist and Mennonite Narratives of Ukraine's Civil War, 1917-1921" (U Manitoba Press, 2020)
28 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the chaos of the end of WWI, the Russian Civil War, and a brief period of Ukrainian independence there occurred a series of massacres of German Men...
Julia Elsky, "Writing Occupation: Jewish Émigré Voices in Wartime France" (Stanford UP, 2020)
28 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Among the Jewish writers who emigrated from Eastern Europe to France in the 1910s and 1920s, a number chose to switch from writing in their languages ...
Ian Garner, "Stalingrad Lives!: Stories of Combat and Survival" (McGill-Queen's Press, 2022)
26 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the fall of 1942, only the city of Stalingrad stood between Soviet survival and defeat as Hitler’s army ran rampant. With the fate of the USSR ha...
Kenneth B. Moss, "An Unchosen People: Jewish Political Reckoning in Interwar Poland" (Harvard UP, 2021)
24 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The early 1930s constituted an ambiguous moment for the roughly three million Jews that resided in the Polish Republic. On the one hand, as recent sch...
Mariëlle Wijermars et al., "The Palgrave Handbook of Digital Russia Studies" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2020)
24 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How has digitalisation changed Russian politics? How has Russia’s invasion of Ukraine changed Russia studies? What is special about Russia’s appro...
Elena Goodwin, "Translating England into Russian: The Politics of Children's Literature in the Soviet Union and Modern Russia" (Bloomsbury, 2021)
23 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
From governesses with supernatural powers to motor-car obsessed amphibians, the iconic images of English children's literature helped shape the view o...
The Future of Global Trade: A Discussion with Shannon K. O'Neil
22 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Critics of globalisation come in many forms from environmentalists to trade unionists and many others in between. In the midst of all the controversy ...
Andreas Guidi, "Generations of Empire: Youth from Ottoman to Italian Rule in the Mediterranean" (U Toronto Press, 2022)
22 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1912, Italy occupied Rhodes, an Ottoman town inhabited by Greek Orthodox, Muslims, Jews, and Catholics. Rhodes became a territory of Italy's empire...
Sandra Frimmel, "Art Judgements: Art on Trial in Russia After Perestroika" (Vernon Press, 2021)
21 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Since the turn of the millennium, there has been an unusually large number of court cases against artists and curators in Russia. Focusing on prominen...
Jane Freeland, "Feminist Transformations and Domestic Violence Activism in Divided Berlin, 1968-2002" (Oxford UP, 2022)
20 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Feminist Transformations and Domestic Violence Activism in Divided Berlin, 1968-2002 (Oxford University Press, 2022), Jane Freeland traces the de...
Zvi Preigerzon, "Memoirs of a Jewish Prisoner of the Gulag" (Cherry Orchard Books, 2022)
20 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Alex Lahav about his edition and translation Memoirs of a Jewish Prisoner of the Gulag (Cherry Orchard Books, 2022). Zvi Preigerz...
Muhammet Koçak, "Turkey-Russia Relations in the Twenty-First Century: Cooperation and Competition Amid Systemic Turbulence" (Lexington, 2022)
19 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Turkey and Russia are two of the most significant powerhouses in Eurasia. The foreign policies of two countries directly impact the regional dynamics ...
Kiril Feferman, "The Holocaust in the Crimea and the North Caucasus" (Yad Vadhem, 2016)
17 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Kiril Feferman's The Holocaust in the Crimea and the North Caucasus (Yad Vadhem, 2016) presents a comprehensive account of the Jews in the Crimea an...
Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way, "Revolution and Dictatorship: The Violent Origins of Durable Authoritarianism" (Princeton UP, 2022)
16 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Revolution and Dictatorship: The Violent Origins of Durable Authoritarianism (Princeton UP, 2022) explores why dictatorships born of social revolutio...
Beverley Chalmers, "Betrayed: Child Sex Abuse in the Holocaust" (Grosvenor House, 2020)
15 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Beverley Chalmers's book Betrayed: Child Sex Abuse in the Holocaust (Grosvenor House, 2020) exposes a taboo aspect of Holocaust history; the sexual ...
Joanne Yao, "The Ideal River: How Control of Nature Shaped the International Order" (Manchester UP, 2022)
14 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Environmental politics has traditionally been a peripheral concern for international relations theory, but increasing alarm over global environmental ...
Vladislav M. Zubok, "Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union" (Yale UP, 2021)
13 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1945 the Soviet Union controlled half of Europe and was a founding member of the United Nations. By 1991, it had an army four million strong with f...
Anca Parvulescu and Manuela Boatcă, "Creolizing the Modern: Transylvania across Empires" (Cornell UP, 2022)
10 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The episode features Anca Parvulescu and Manuela Boatca, co-authors of an extraordinary, field-shifting new book – Creolizing the Modern: Transylv...
Yannis Stouraitis, "Identities and Ideologies in the Medieval East Roman World" (Edinburgh UP, 2022)
10 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Identities and Ideologies in the Medieval East Roman World (Edinburgh UP, 2022) examines ideas, beliefs and practices of identification in the medie...
Emily Channell-Justice, "Without the State: Self-Organization and Political Activism in Ukraine" (U Toronto Press, 2022)
09 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Without the State: Self-Organization and Political Activism in Ukraine (U Toronto Press, 2022) explores the 2013-14 Euromaidan protests - a wave of d...
James Mark and Paul Betts, "Socialism Goes Global: The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the Age of Decolonisation" (Oxford UP, 2022)
09 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Socialism Goes Global: The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the Age of Decolonisation (Oxford UP, 2022) is the first work to provide a broad histor...
Jay Michaelson, "The Heresy of Jacob Frank: From Jewish Messianism to Esoteric Myth" (Oxford UP, 2022)
06 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In The Heresy of Jacob Frank: From Jewish Messianism to Esoteric Myth (Oxford University Press, 2022), Jay Michaelson explores the religious philoso...
Ruti G. Teitel, "Transitional Justice" (Oxford UP, 2000)
04 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Societies that are throwing off the yoke of authoritarian rule and beginning to build democracies face a daunting question: should they punish the rep...
Andrew Spria, "Foreshadowed: Malevich’s "Black Square" and Its Precursors" (Reaktion Books, 2022)
03 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When Kasimir’s Malevich’s Black Square was produced in 1915, no one had ever seen anything like it before. And yet it does have precedents. In f...
Sofya Glazunova, "Digital Activism in Russia: The Communication Tactics of Political Outsiders" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022)
30 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Digital Activism in Russia: The Communication Tactics of Political Outsiders (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022) examines various forms of Russian online ant...
Nathanael Aschenbrenner and Jake Ransohoff, "The Invention of Byzantium in Early Modern Europe" (Dumbarton Oaks, 2021)
30 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A gulf of centuries separates the Byzantine Empire from the academic field of Byzantine studies. The Invention of Byzantium in Early Modern Europe o...
Olena Braichenko et al., "Ukraine: Food and History" (O. Braichenko, 2020)
30 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ukraine: Food and History (O. Braichenko, 2020) tells about the past and present of Ukrainian cuisine. It includes recipes of dishes that everyone c...
What will be the Role of Europe in the Changing World Order?
29 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The transatlantic relationship, arguably the bedrock of the world’s post-World War II international security architecture, came under significant th...
Eugenia Roussou, "Orthodox Christianity, New Age Spirituality and Vernacular Religion: The 'Evil Eye' in Greece" (Bloomsbury, 2021)
29 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Eugenia Roussou's book Orthodox Christianity, New Age Spirituality and Vernacular Religion: The 'Evil Eye' in Greece (Bloomsbury, 2021) thoroughly i...
Darra Goldstein, "The Kingdom of Rye: A Brief History of Russian Food" (U California Press, 2022)
28 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Kingdom of Rye: A Brief History of Russian Food (U California Press, 2022) unearths the foods and flavors of the Russian land. Preeminent food s...
Dalibor Roháč, "Governing the EU in an Age of Division" (Edward Elgar, 2022)
25 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"An important distinction exists between the politics of rules at which the EU is quite adept and the politics driven by events - which requires impro...
Kees Boterbloem, "Russia and the Dutch Republic, 1566–1725: A Forgotten Friendship" (Lexington Books, 2021)
24 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Once upon a time, it was said that Russia was isolated and ignorant until Peter the Great opened Russia to the West and ushered in modernization. Whil...
Eli Gumener, "A Ukrainian Chapter: A Jewish Aid Worker’s Memoir Of Sorrow" (Slavica, 2022)
23 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Michael Eli Nutkiewicz about his translation A Ukrainian Chapter: A Jewish Aid Worker’s Memoir Of Sorrow (Slavica, 2022). Eli...
Gary Kates, "The Books that Made the European Enlightenment: A History in 12 Case Studies" (Bloomsbury, 2022)
23 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In The Books that Made the European Enlightenment: A History in 12 Case Studies (Bloomsbury Academic, 2022), Gary Kates looks at the multifaceted...
Constantin Noica, "Pray for Brother Alexander" (Punctum Books, 2018)
22 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Constantin Noica's (1909-1987) Pray for Brother Alexander (Punctum Books, 2018; translated by Octavian Gabor) is a meditation on responsibility, f...
What is the Future of Populism?
21 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The world's wealthier countries have in recent years faced challenges from right-wing populist parties and movements that may rejuvenate origins from ...
Holger Afflerbach, "On a Knife Edge: How Germany Lost the First World War" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
09 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In On a Knife Edge: How Germany Lost the First World War (Cambridge UP, 2022), Holger Afflerbach argues that the outcome of the war was actually in...
Natasha Lance Rogoff, "Muppets in Moscow: The Unexpected Crazy True Story of Making Sesame Street in Russia" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022)
09 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the timing appeared perfect to bring Sesame Street to millions of children living in the ...
Daniel Scarborough, "Russia's Social Gospel: The Orthodox Pastoral Movement in Famine, War, and Revolution" (U Wisconsin Press, 2022)
07 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The late Russian Empire experienced rapid economic change, social dislocation, and multiple humanitarian crises, enduring two wars, two famines, and t...
Sara Jones, "Towards a Collaborative Memory: German Memory Work in a Transnational Context" (Berghahn Books, 2022)
04 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Focusing on the memory of the German Democratic Republic, Towards a Collaborative Memory: German Memory Work in a Transnational Context (Berghahn Bo...
Jonathan Brunstedt, "The Soviet Myth of World War II: Patriotic Memory and the Russian Question in the USSR" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
03 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In The Soviet Myth of World War II: Patriotic Memory and the Russian Question in the USSR (Cambridge UP, 2021), Jonathan Brunstedt examines how Sovi...
Eleanor Knott, "Kin Majorities: Identity and Citizenship in Crimea and Moldova" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2022)
02 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Moldova, the number of dual citizens has risen exponentially in the last decades. Before annexation, many saw Russia as granting citizenship to-or ...
Michael Herzfeld, "Subversive Archaism: Troubling Traditionalists and the Politics of National Heritage" (Duke UP, 2022)
02 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Subversive Archaism: Troubling Traditionalists and the Politics of National Heritage (Duke UP, 2022), Michael Herzfeld explores how individuals ...
Nicholas Micinski, "Delegating Responsibility: International Cooperation on Migration in the European Union" (U Michigan Press, 2022)
31 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Delegating Responsibility: International Cooperation on Migration in the European Union (U Michigan Press, 2022) explores the politics of migration i...
Matthias Bernt, "The Commodification Gap: Gentrification and Public Policy in London, Berlin and St. Petersburg" (Wiley, 2022)
28 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Commodification Gap: Gentrification and Public Policy in London, Berlin and St. Petersburg (Wiley, 2022) provides an insightful institutionalist ...
Anna Triandafyllidou and Ruby Gropas, "What is Europe?" (Routledge, 2022)
28 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As they worked on the second edition of What is Europe? (Routledge, 2022), Anna Triandafyllidou and Ruby Gropas admit that they struggled to keep up...
Anton Weiss-Wendt and Nanci Adler, eds., "The Future of the Soviet Past: The Politics of History in Putin's Russia" (Indiana UP, 2021)
28 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In post-Soviet Russia, there is a persistent trend to repress, control, or even co-opt national history. By reshaping memory to suit a politically con...
Anna Triandafyllidou and Ruby Gropas, "What is Europe?" (Routledge, 2022)
28 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As they worked on the second edition of What is Europe? (Routledge, 2022), Anna Triandafyllidou and Ruby Gropas admit that they struggled to keep up...
Ágúst Magnússon, "Kierkegaard and Eastern Orthodox Thought: A Comparative Philosophical Analysis" (Gorgias Press, 2019)
28 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Today I talked to Ágúst Magnússon about his new book Kierkegaard and Eastern Orthodox Thought: A Comparative Philosophical Analysis (Gorgias Pre...
John Jeffries Martin, "A Beautiful Ending: The Apocalyptic Imagination and the Making of the Modern World" (Yale UP, 2022)
27 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Martin’s A Beautiful Ending: The Apocalyptic Imagination and the Making of the Modern World (Yale, 2022) is a survey of Early Modern Eu...
The Future of Vladimir Putin: A Discussion with Philip Short
25 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
President Vladmir Putin – the son of a foreman at a railway carriage works – is today one of the most powerful individuals on earth. What drives h...
Transitional Justice in Post-Communist Europe
25 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
An alienated society divided into groups and classes suspicious of one another does not pose an especially great problem for an authoritarian regime t...
A Most Similar Comparison: The Authoritarianism of Poland and Hungary with Edit Zgut-Przybylska
24 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The leadership of Hungary and Poland seemingly shared the same playbook when it came to undermining judicial independence, consolidating electoral pow...
Miglena S. Todorova, "Unequal under Socialism: Race, Women, and Transnationalism in Bulgaria" (U Toronto Press, 2021)
24 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Unequal under Socialism: Race, Women, and Transnationalism in Bulgaria (U Toronto Press, 2021) examines the formation of racial, gender, and national...
Thomas E. Burman et al., "The Sea in the Middle: The Mediterranean World, 650-1650" (U California Press, 2022)
21 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Sea in the Middle: The Mediterranean World, 650-1650 (U California Press, 2022) presents an original and revisionist narrative of the developmen...
Orli Fridman, "Memory Activism and Digital Practices After Conflict: Unwanted Memories" (Amsterdam UP, 2022)
19 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
With Memory Activism and Digital Practices after Conflict: Unwanted Memories (Amsterdam UP, 2022), Orli Fridman traces the emergence of memory acti...
Ewa Stańczyk, "Comics and Nation: Power, Pop Culture, and Political Transformation in Poland" (Ohio State UP, 2022)
11 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Comics and Nation: Power, Pop Culture, and Political Transformation in Poland (Ohio State UP, 2022) offers a fresh perspective on the role of popular...
Loukas Tsoukalis, "Europe's Coming of Age" (Polity Press, 2022)
11 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The EU, writes Loukas Tsoukalis, is “a strange vehicle … unlike any others on the roads of the world, surely not a flashy vehicle – rather slow ...
Alexander Mikaberidze, "Kutuzov: A Life in War and Peace" (Oxford UP, 2022)
10 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Every Russian knows him purely by his patronym. He was the general who triumphed over Napoleon's Grande Armée during the Patriotic War of 1812, not m...
Daniel B. Rowland, "God, Tsar, and People: The Political Culture of Early Modern Russia" (Northern Illinois UP, 2020)
06 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In God, Tsar and People: The Political Culture of Early Modern Russia (Northern Illinois UP, 2020), Dr. Daniel Rowland collects close to 50 years o...
How to Avoid More Damage from the Russian War on Ukraine
06 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Western coalition supporting Ukraine in its war with Russia has so far been thought to be solid and reliable, but there may be vulnerabilities in ...
Ofer Fridman, "Russian 'Hybrid Warfare': Resurgence and Politicization" (Oxford UP, 2022)
06 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When Russia occupied the Crimea in 2014, a term appeared called “hybrid warfare” to describe the doctrine and strategies of the Russian military. ...
The Future of the Legitimate Opposition: A Discussion with Alexander S. Kirshner
04 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Alexander Kirshner’s book Legitimate Opposition (Yale UP, 2022) can be seen as a reaction to the politics of Donald Trump and the questions he has...
Ion Popa, "The Romanian Orthodox Church and the Holocaust" (Indiana UP, 2017)
03 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 1930, about 750,000 Jews called Romania home. At the end of World War II, approximately half of them survived. Only recently, after the fall of Com...
NBN Classic: Catherine Baker, “Race and the Yugoslav Region: Postsocialist, Post-Conflict, Postcolonial?” (Manchester UP, 2018)
02 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This episode proved remarkably popular, so we're reposting it as an NBN classic for those who missed it the first time. Catherine Baker’s fascinatin...
Sean Brennan, "The KGB and the Vatican: Secrets of the Mitrokhin Files" (CUA Press, 2022)
30 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
One of the greatest ironies of the history of Soviet rule is that, for an officially atheistic state, those in the political police and in the Politbu...
Andreea Kaltenbrunner, "For the Faith, Against the State: Old Calendarism in Romania (1924-1936)" (De Gruyter, 2022)
27 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In For the Faith, Against the State: Old Calendarism in Romania (1924-1936)* (De Gruyter, 2022), Andreea Kaltenbrunner uses Old Calendarism, a mov...
Donald Ostrowski, "Russia in the Early Modern World: The Continuity of Change" (Lexington, 2022)
27 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Russia in the Early Modern World: The Continuity of Change (Lexington, 2022), Donald Ostrowski takes on the long-lived narrative that Peter the...
Sibel Oktay, "Governing Abroad: Coalition Politics and Foreign Policy in Europe" (U Michigan Press, 2022)
26 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
From Austria to New Zealand, coalition governments often pave the road to foreign policy. In Western Europe, nearly 90 percent of postwar governments ...
Mila Dragojević, "Amoral Communities: Collective Crimes in Time of War" (Cornell UP, 2019)
23 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How does violence against civilians become permissible in wartime? Why do some communities experience violence while others do not? In her new book, M...
Andrey V. Ivanov, "A Spiritual Revolution: The Impact of Reformation and Enlightenment in Orthodox Russia, 1700–1825" (U Wisconsin Press, 2020)
22 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The ideas of the Protestant Reformation, followed by the European Enlightenment, had a profound and long-lasting impact on Russia’s church and socie...
Máté Rigó, "Capitalism in Chaos: How the Business Elites of Europe Prospered in the Era of the Great War" (Cornell UP, 2022)
20 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Capitalism in Chaos: How the Business Elites of Europe Prospered in the Era of the Great War (Cornell UP, 2022) explores an often-overlooked conseque...
Sasha Senderovich, "How the Soviet Jew Was Made" (Harvard UP, 2022)
14 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Russian Revolution of 1917 transformed the Jewish community of the former tsarist empire. The Pale of Settlement on the empire’s western borderl...
Joseph Torigian, "Prestige, Manipulation, and Coercion: Elite Power Struggles in the Soviet Union and China After Stalin and Mao" (Yale UP, 2022)
07 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Unfortunately, one takeaway for readers of this book should be the difficulty that not only outside analysts but even party insiders face when trying ...
Alexandr Dugin, Russia’s Imperial Philosopher: Into the Mind of a Russian Political Theorist
06 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We look at the mind behind Russia’s imperial vision, Aleksandr Dugin. Political theorist Matt McManus walks us through this far-right thinker’s st...
Fritz Bartel, "The Triumph of Broken Promises: The End of the Cold War and the Rise of Neoliberalism" (Harvard UP, 2022)
05 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Why did the Cold War come to a peaceful end? And why did neoliberal economics sweep across the world in the late twentieth century? In this pathbreaki...
Tommi Koivula and Heljä Ossa, "NATO’s Burden-Sharing Disputes: Past, Present and Future Prospects" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022)
01 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In NATO’s Burden-Sharing Disputes: Past, Present and Future Prospects (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), Dr. Tommi Koivula & Heljä Ossa argues that burd...
The Future of the European Union: A Discussion with Luuk van Middelaar
30 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Brexit debate has been so all-consuming and filled with so much misinformation that many Brits and others can overlook some the challenges facing ...
Lavinia Stan and Nadya Nedelsky, "Encyclopedia of Transitional Justice" (Cambridge UP, 2013)
26 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This comprehensive three-volume reference work collects and summarizes the wealth of information available in the field of transitional justice. Trans...
Christina E. Crawford, "Spatial Revolution: Architecture and Planning in the Early Soviet Union" (Cornell UP, 2022)
19 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Spatial Revolution: Architecture and Planning in the Early Soviet Union (Cornell UP, 2022) is the first comparative parallel study of Soviet architec...
Mark D. Steinberg, "Russian Utopia: A Century of Revolutionary Possibilities" (Bloomsbury, 2021)
19 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It has long been a cliché to argue that Russian revolutionary movements have been inspired by varieties of 'utopian dreaming' – claims which, altho...
Alex Drace-Francis, "The Making of Mămăligă: Transimperial Recipes for a Romanian National Dish" (Central European UP, 2022)
19 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Mămăligă, maize porridge or polenta, is a universally consumed dish in Romania and a prominent national symbol. But its unusual history has rarely ...