New Books in Western European Studies
Episodes
Robert Matzen, "Dutch Girl: Audrey Hepburn and World War II" (GoodKnight Books, 2019)
16 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Audrey Hepburn was justly known for her long acting career, yet her early life is largely unknown. In his book, Robert Matzen describes how she lived ...
Craig Benjamin, "Empires of Ancient Eurasia: The First Silk Roads Era, 100 BCE-250 CE" (Cambridge UP, 2018)
12 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In the late second century BCE, a series of trading route developed between China in the east and Rome’s empire in the west. Craig Benjamin’s Empi...
Jeremy Black, "Charting the Past: The Historical Worlds of Eighteenth-Century England" (Indiana UP, 2018)
11 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Eighteenth-century England was a place of both the enlightenment and progress: new ideas abounded in science, politics, transportation, commerce, phil...
Sigrid Lien, "Pictures of Longing: Photography and the Norwegian-American Migration" (U Minnesota Press, 2018)
08 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In one of history’s largest migrations, hundreds of thousands of Norwegians immigrated to North American during the 1800s and early 1900s. In additi...
Christian Goeschel, "Mussolini and Hitler: The Forging of the Fascist Alliance" (Yale UP, 2018)
02 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book, Mussolini and Hitler: The Forging of the Fascist Alliance (Yale University Press, 2018), Christian Goeschel, Senior Lecturer in Moder...
Joel Elliot Slotkin, "Sinister Aesthetics: The Appeal of Evil in Early Modern Literature" (Palgrave, 2017)
29 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Why did creative writers in early modern England write so forcefully about the relationship between aesthetics and morality? How did they imagine crea...
Kurt Raaflaub, "The Landmark Julius Caesar: The Complete Works" (Pantheon, 2017)
26 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
That the Roman leader Gaius Julius Caesar is so well remembered today for his achievements as a general is largely due to his skills as a writer. In T...
Stéphane Henaut and Jeni Mitchell, "A Bite-Sized History of France: Gastronomic Tales of Revolution, War, and Enlightenment" (The New Press, 2018)
25 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
From the cassoulet that won a war to the crêpe that doomed Napoleon, from the rebellions sparked by bread and salt to the new cuisines forged by empi...
Paul J. Kosmin, "Time and Its Adversaries in the Seleucid Empire" (Harvard UP, 2018)
21 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In the aftermath of Alexander the Great’s conquests, the Seleucid kings ruled a vast territory stretching from Central Asia to Anatolia, Armenia to ...
Margaret Arnold, "The Magdalene in the Reformation" (Harvard UP, 2018)
20 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Mary Magdalene’s story of conversion from sinner to saint is one of Christianity’s most compelling and controversial stories. The identity of this...
Sheilagh Ogilvie, "The European Guilds: An Economic Analysis" (Princeton UP, 2019)
20 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Guilds were prominent in medieval and early modern Europe, but their economic role has seldom been studied. In The European Guilds: An Economic Analys...
Discussion of Massive Online Peer Review and Open Access Publishing
19 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In the information age, knowledge is power. Hence, facilitating the access to knowledge to wider publics empowers citizens and makes societies more de...
Seth Bernard, "Building Mid-Republican Rome: Labor, Architecture, and the Urban Economy" (Oxford UP, 2018)
14 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Building Mid-Republican Rome: Labor, Architecture, and the Urban Economy (Oxford University Press, 2018), offers a holistic treatment of the developme...
Prakash Shah, "Western Foundations of the Caste System" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017)
13 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The Indian caste system is an ancient, pervasive institution of social organization within the subcontinent – or is it? Join me as I speak with Dr. ...
Jennifer Ronyak, "Intimacy, Performance, and the Lied in the Early Nineteenth Century" (Indiana UP, 2018)
08 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The Lied is one of the most important genres of nineteenth-century Romantic music, and one of the most intriguing. Balanced between public and private...
Alexander Langlands, "Cræft: An Inquiry into the Origins and True Meaning of Traditional Crafts" (Norton, 2017)
04 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Alexander Langlands is a British archaeologist, historian, writer, and broadcaster. His most recent book, Cræft: An Inquiry into the Origins and Tr...
Chet Van Duzer, "Henricus Martellus’s World Map at Yale (c. 1491): Multispectral Imaging, Sources, and Influence" (Springer, 2019)
01 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Chet Van Duzer, an accomplished historian of cartography, trains his sight in this book on one uniquely important map produced in early modern Europe....
Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen, "The Ideas that Made America: A Brief History" (Oxford UP, 2019)
28 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen's The Ideas that Made America: A Brief History (Oxford University Press, 2019) is a sweeping examination of the key ideas t...
Geraldine Heng, "The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages" (Cambridge UP, 2018)
26 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages (Cambridge University Press 2018), Geraldine Heng collects a remarkable array of medieval approac...
Matthew Bingham, "Orthodox Radicals: Baptist Identity in the English Revolution" (Oxford UP, 2019)
26 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Matthew Bingham, who teaches theology and church history at Oak Hill College, London, has written what must be one of the most startling accounts of r...
Daniel Unowsky, “The Plunder: The 1898 Anti-Jewish Riots in Habsburg Galicia” (Stanford UP, 2018)
19 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Daniel Unowsky's book isn't about a genocide or other incident of mass violence. Instead, The Plunder examines a series of riots against Jews in Hab...
Jeremy Black, "Britain and Europe: A Short History" (Hurst, 2019)
13 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
It was a pleasure, earlier today, to speak to Jeremy Black, professor of history at the University of Exeter, about his new book, Britain and Europe: ...
Stefanos Geroulanos, "Transparency in Postwar France: A Critical History of the Present" (Stanford UP, 2017)
12 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
What does it mean to do a “microhistory” of a concept? Stefanos Geroulanos pursues just such a project in the 22 chapters of Transparency in Postw...
Robin Wallace, "Hearing Beethoven: A Story of Musical Loss and Discovery" (UChicago Press, 2018)
07 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Music lovers and researchers alike have long been fascinated by the story of Ludwig van Beethoven who became profoundly deaf as an adult and could not...
Kevin Ingram, "Converso Non-Conformism in Early Modern Spain: Bad Blood and Faith from Alonso de Cartagena to Diego Velázquez" (Palgrave, 2018)
07 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
It was a delight to catch up with Kevin Ingram, professor of history at Saint Louis University, Madrid, to discuss his very impressive new book. Conve...
Zeb Tortorici, "Sins Against Nature: Sex and Archives in Colonial New Spain" (Duke UP, 2018)
01 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In Sins Against Nature: Sex and Archives in Colonial New Spain (Duke University Press, 2018), Zeb Tortorici analyzes a vast corpus of documents in ord...
Sam Friedman and Daniel Laurison, "The Class Ceiling: Why it Pays to be Privileged" (Policy Press, 2019)
31 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Who gets in to top professions? In The Class Ceiling: Why it pays to be privileged (Policy Press, 2019), Drs Sam Friedman, an associate professor of s...
Jodi Campbell, "At the First Table: Food and Social Identity in Early Modern Spain" (U Nebraska Press, 2017)
29 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Jodi Campbell is Professor of History at Texas Christian University. She has written extensively on Spanish drama, royal history and women’s history...
David L. Hoffmann, "The Stalin Era" (Cambridge UP, 2018)
29 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book The Stalinist Era(Cambridge University Press, 2018), David L. Hoffmann focuses on the myriad ways in which Stalinist practices had the...
George R. Boyer, "The Winding Road to the Welfare State: Economic Insecurity and Social Welfare Policy in Britain" (Princeton UP, 2019)
28 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The creation of the postwar welfare state in Great Britain did not represent the logical progression of governmental policy over a period of generatio...
Dagmar Herzog, "Unlearning Eugenics: Sexuality, Reproduction, and Disability in Post-Nazi Europe" (U Wisconsin Press, 2018)
25 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In her new book, Unlearning Eugenics: Sexuality, Reproduction, and Disability in Post-Nazi Europe (University of Wisconsin Press, 2018), Dagmar Herzog...
Elizabeth A. Fraser, "Mediterranean Encounters: Artists Between Europe and the Ottoman Empire, 1774–1839" (Penn State UP, 2017)
23 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Elizabeth A. Fraser's Mediterranean Encounters: Artists Between Europe and the Ottoman Empire, 1774–1839 (Penn State University Press, 2017) takes i...
Andrew Lambert, "Seapower States: Maritime Culture, Continental Empires and the Conflict That Made the Modern World" (Yale UP, 2018)
23 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Andrew Lambert, Professor of Naval History at King’s College, London, author of eighteen books, and winner of the prestigious Anderson Medal—turns...
Volker Berghahn, "Journalists between Hitler and Adenauer: From Inner Emigration to the Moral Reconstruction of West Germany" (Princeton UP, 2018)
18 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
What can the lives of journalists under Hitler and Adenauer reveal? How did they navigate the Third Reich as "internal emigrants"? How did the emergin...
Julian Jackson, "De Gaulle" (Harvard UP, 2018)
16 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Charles de Gaulle is one of the greatest figures of twentieth century history. If Sir Winston Churchill was (in the words of Harold Macmillan) the "gr...
John Witte, Jr., "The Western Case for Monogamy over Polygamy" (Cambridge UP, 2018)
15 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
John Witte, Jr.'s The Western Case for Monogamy over Polygamy (Cambridge University Press, 2018) is an extensively researched book showcasing the auth...
Kathryn Lomas, "The Rise of Rome: From the Iron Age to the Punic Wars" (Harvard UP, 2018)
15 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
By the third century BC, the once-modest settlement of Rome had conquered most of Italy and was poised to build an empire throughout the Mediterranean...
Sarah Thomsen Vierra, "Turkish Germans in the Federal Republic of Germany: Immigration, Space, and Belonging, 1961-1990" (Cambridge UP, 2018)
14 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
After years of being overlooked, there has been a growing interest among academic historians in the history of Turkish Guest Workers in West Germany. ...
Angelos Chaniotis, "Age of Conquests: The Greek World from Alexander to Hadrian" (Harvard UP, 2018)
08 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The world that Alexander remade in his lifetime was transformed once more by his death in 323 BCE. In Age of Conquests: The Greek World from Alexander...
Michael Cotey Morgan, "The Final Act: The Helsinki Accords and the Transformation of the Cold War" (Princeton UP, 2018)
03 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Just when you thought that you knew everything and anything pertaining to the Cold War and the ending of it, along comes University of North Carolina ...
Hassan Malik, "Bankers and Bolsheviks: International Finance and the Russian Revolution" (Princeton UP, 2018)
03 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Lumbering late Tsarist Russia and international finance? Is there anything there? The Bolsheviks and finance? How can there be anything there? It...
Anne Reinhardt, "Navigating Semi-Colonialism: Shipping, Sovereignty, and Nation-Building in China, 1860–1937" (Harvard U Asia Center, 2018)
02 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
At a time when trade between China and the outside world is rarely out of the news, it remains important to remember that in centuries past global com...
Irmak Karademir Hazir, "Enter Culture, Exit Arts? The Transformation of Cultural Hierarchies in European Newspaper Culture Sections, 1960–2010" (Routledge, 2018)
26 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
How has European culture changed since the 1960s? In Enter Culture, Exit Arts? The Transformation of Cultural Hierarchies in European Newspaper Cultur...
Matthew Gabriele, "Apocalypse and Reform from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages" (Routledge, 2018)
21 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Apocalypse and Reform from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages (Routledge, 2018) is a rich, comparative study, drawing on the scholarship of eleven auth...
Harry O. Maier, "New Testament Christianity in the Roman World" (Oxford UP, 2018)
20 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
I had the opportunity to catch up with Harry O. Maier, professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the Vancouver School of Theology, to discu...
Noah Benezra Strote, "Lions and Lambs: Conflict in Weimar and the Creation of Post-Nazi Germany" (Yale UP, 2017)
13 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
It has long been assumed that stability was imposed on Germany after World War II; that the United States in particular taught Germans, among other th...
Paola Bertucci, "Artisanal Enlightenment: Science and the Mechanical Arts in Old Regime France" (Yale UP, 2018)
06 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Paola Bertucci's Artisanal Enlightenment: Science and the Mechanical Arts in Old Regime France (Yale University Press, 2018) is an innovative new look...
McKenzie Wark, "General Intellects: Twenty-One Thinkers for the Twenty-First Century" (Verso, 2017)
06 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
McKenzie Wark’s new book offers 21 focused studies of thinkers working in a wide range of fields who are worth your attention. The chapters of Gener...
Daniel Siemens, “Stormtroopers: A New History of Hitler’s Brownshirts” (Yale UP, 2017)
26 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book, Stormtroopers: A New History of Hitler’s Brownshirts (Yale University Press, 2017, Daniel Siemens, professor of European history a...
Eric D. Weitz, “Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy” (Princeton UP, 2018)
20 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
What can the Weimar Republic teach us about how democracies fail? How could the same vibrancy that gave us cultural touchstones spawn Nazism? In his n...
Lee Bidgood, “Czech Bluegrass: Notes from the Heart of Europe” (U Illinois Press, 2017)
14 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Although bluegrass music is typically associated with the bluegrass state of Kentucky and Appalachia, the genre is actually played in many pockets all...
Michael Brenner, “A History of Jews in Germany Since 1945: Politics, Culture, and Society” (Indiana UP, 2018)
12 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In A History of Jews in Germany Since 1945: Politics, Culture, and Society (Indiana University Press, 2018), edited by Michael Brenner, Professor of...
Edward J. Watts, “Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell into Tyranny” (Basic Books, 2018)
05 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Despite enduring for nearly five centuries, the Roman Republic ended in a series of crises and wars that discredited the idea of republics in the West...
M. L. Rozenblit and J. Karp, “World War I and the Jews: Conflict and Transformation in Europe, the Middle East, and America” (Berghahn, 2017)
30 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
How was Jewish life affected by the First World War? How did Jews around the world understand, engage with, and influence the Great War and surroundin...
Iain Provan, “The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture” (Baylor UP, 2017)
29 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Exactly five centuries after Martin Luther posted his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg, Christians continue to debate the best...
Naomi Seidman, “The Marriage Plot, Or, How Jews Fell In Love With Love, And With Literature” (Stanford UP, 2016)
29 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In The Marriage Plot, Or, How Jews Fell In Love With Love, And With Literature (Stanford University Press, 2016), Naomi Seidman, Chancellor Jackman P...
Shannon Fogg, “Stealing Home: Looting, Restitution, and Reconstructing Jewish Lives in France, 1942-1947” (Oxford UP, 2017)
25 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
While the history of the Second World War and Jewish persecution in France has been widely studied, the return of survivors in the aftermath of deport...
Patricia Lorcin and Todd Shepard, “French Mediterraneans: Transnational and Imperial Histories” (U Nebraska Press, 2016)
24 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Following a 2011 meeting of the annual Mediterranean Workshop at the University of Minnesota, Patricia Lorcin (a co-convener) approached Todd Shepard ...
Dirk H. Ehnts, “Modern Monetary Theory and European Macroeconomics” (Routledge, 2017)
23 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Today we spoke with with Dirk H. Ehnts to talk about his new book Modern Monetary Theory and European Macroeconomics (Routledge, 2017). This is a very...
Michael G. Hanchard, “The Spectre of Race: How Discrimination Haunts Western Democracies” (Princeton UP, 2018)
19 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Michael G. Hanchard’s new book The Spectre of Race: How Discrimination Haunts Western Democracies (Princeton University Press, 2018) is a rich and...
Ivan Simic, “Soviet Influences on Postwar Yugoslav Gender Policies” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018)
18 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book Soviet Influences on Postwar Yugoslav Gender Policies (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), Ivan Simic explores how Yugoslav communists learned...
Venus Bivar, “Organic Resistance: The Struggle over Industrial Farming in Postwar France” (UNC Press, 2018)
16 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In Organic Resistance: The Struggle over Industrial Farming in Postwar France (University of North Carolina Press, 2018), Venus Bivar documents the de...
Dániel Margócsy, et al., “The Fabrica of Andreas Vesalius: A Worldwide Descriptive Census, Ownership, and Annotations of the 1543 and 1555 Editions” (Brill, 2018)
11 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The Fabrica of Andreas Vesalius: A Worldwide Descriptive Census, Ownership, and Annotations of the 1543 and 1555 Editions (Brill, 2018) is a masterful...
Sara J. Brenneis, “Spaniards in Mauthausen: Representations of a Nazi Concentration Camp, 1940-2015” (U Toronto, 2018)
10 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
To be quite honest, I had no idea there were any Spanish prisoners at Mauthausen. That’s perhaps an unusual way to begin a blog post. But it refl...
Larry E. Jones, “Hitler versus Hindenburg: The 1932 Presidential Elections and the End of the Weimar Republic” (Cambridge UP, 2016)
08 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The failure of democracy during the Weimar Republic is currently at the center of public discussion due to the global populist wave of the last few ye...
David Stuttard, “Nemesis: Alcibiades and the Fall of Athens” (Harvard UP, 2018)
05 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Among the many personages associated with the Peloponnesian War, none are as colorful as the Athenian general Alcibiades. In Nemesis: Alcibiades and t...
B. P. Owensby and R. J. Ross, “Justice in a New World: Negotiating Legal Intelligibility in British, Iberian, and Indigenous America” (NYU Press, 2018)
28 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Justice in a New World: Negotiating Legal Intelligibility in British, Iberian, and Indigenous America (New York University Press, 2018), edited by Bri...
Lorenzo Zamponi, “Social Movements, Memory and Media: Narrative in Action in the Italian and Spanish Student Movements” (Palgrave, 2018)
25 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
How do social movements remember the past? How do collective memories affect their current strategic choices? In his book Social Movements, Memory and...
Giulio Ongaro, “Peasants and Soldiers: The Management of the Venetian Military Structure in the Mainland Dominion between the 16th and 17th Centuries” (Routledge, 2017)
25 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Giulio Ongaro, currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Economics Department at the University of Milan-Bicocca has just published Peasants and Sol...
Sir John Elliott, “Scots and Catalans: Union and Disunion” (Yale UP, 2018)
18 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Sir John Elliott, Regius Professor Emeritus of Modern History at Oxford University, one of the premier historians writing in English on Spanish and Eu...
Quinn Slobodian, “Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism” (Harvard UP, 2018)
18 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The relationship between neoliberals and the state is one that has been endlessly debated. Are neoliberals anti-statist? Or are they advocates of a st...
Joseph Ben Prestel, “Emotional Cities: Debates on Urban Change in Berlin and Cairo, 1860-1910” (Oxford UP, 2017)
12 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Joseph Ben Prestel talks with us about Emotional Cities: Debates on Urban Change in Berlin and Cairo, 1860-1910 (Oxford University Press, 2017), blen...
Benjamin Carter Hett, “The Death of Democracy: Hitler’s Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic” (Henry Holt, 2018)
11 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The downfall of the Weimar Republic in Germany has long fascinated historians, but this catastrophe gained increasing prominence as a touchstone for c...
Peter Heather, “Rome Resurgent: War and Empire in the Age of Justinian” (Oxford UP, 2018)
10 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In the 6th century CE, the Roman emperor Justinian embarked upon a series of wars that seemed to herald the restoration of the Roman empire in the wes...
Megan Ward, “Seeming Human: Artificial Intelligence and Victorian Realist Character” (OSU Press, 2018)
07 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Artificial intelligence and Victorian literature: these two notions seem incompatible. AI brings us to the age of information and technology, whereas ...
Jonathan Smyth, “Robespierre and the Festival of the Supreme Being: The Search for a Republican Morality” (Manchester UP, 2016)
05 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In his speech delivered to the National Convention on 18 Floréal (May 7, 1794), Maximilien Robespierre shocked his listeners as he attacked the propo...
Simon Levis Sullam, “The Italian Executioners: The Genocide of the Jews of Italy” (Princeton UP, 2018)
28 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book, The Italian Executioners: The Genocide of the Jews of Italy (Princeton University Press, 2018), Simon Levis Sullam, associate profess...
Richard S. Hopkins, “Planning the Greenspaces of Nineteenth-Century Paris” (LSU Press, 2015)
22 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Beginning in the mid-1800s, Paris experienced an unprecedented growth in the development of parks, squares, and gardens. This greenspace was part of N...
Irina Dumitrescu, “The Experience of Education in Anglo-Saxon Literature” (Cambridge UP, 2018)
03 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
A sharply observed study of the representations of education found in Anglo-Saxon texts, Irina Dumitrescu’s The Experience of Education in Anglo-Sax...
Richard Ivan Jobs, “Backpack Ambassadors: How Youth Travel Integrated Europe” (U Chicago Press, 2017)
24 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Ever go backpacking through Europe? In Backpack Ambassadors: How Youth Travel Integrated Europe (University of Chicago Press, 2017), Richard Ivan Jobs...
Mirjam Zadoff, “Werner Scholem: A German Life” (U Penn Press, 2018)
23 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In Werner Scholem: A German Life (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018), Mirjam Zadoff, Director of the Munich Documentation Centre for the Histor...
Steven and Ben Nadler, “Heretics!: The Wondrous (and Dangerous) Beginnings of Modern Philosophy” (Princeton UP, 2017)
23 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
This entertaining, enlightening, and humorous graphic narrative tells the exciting story of the seventeenth-century thinkers who challenged authority ...
Konrad Jarausch, “Broken Lives: How Ordinary Germans Experienced the 20th Century” (Princeton UP, 2018)
20 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book, Broken Lives: How Ordinary Germans Experienced the 20th Century (Princeton University Press, 2018), Konrad Jarausch, the Lurcy Prof...
William D. Godsey, “The Sinews of Habsburg Power: Lower Austria in a Fiscal-Military State, 1650-1820” (Oxford UP, 2018)
17 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
During the 17th and 18th centuries, Austria established itself as one of the dominant powers of Europe, despite possessing much more limited fiscal re...
Alexander Bevilacqua, “The Republic of Arabic Letters: Islam and the European Enlightenment” (Harvard UP, 2018)
16 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In The Republic of Arabic Letters: Islam and the European Enlightenment (Harvard University Press, 2018), Alexander Bevilacqua uncovers a different...
Frank L. Holt, “The Treasures of Alexander the Great: How One Man’s Wealth Shaped the World” (Oxford UP, 2016)
11 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Most studies of the Macedonian conqueror Alexander III focus on the military aspects of his life and reign. Yet Alexander’s campaigns would not have...
Gary Bruce, “Through the Lion Gate: A History of the Berlin Zoo” (Oxford UP, 2017)
09 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book, Through the Lion Gate: A History of the Berlin Zoo (Oxford University Press, 2017), Gary Bruce, professor of history at the Universi...
Adis Maksic, “Ethnic Mobilization, Violence, and the Politics of Affect: The Serb Democratic Party and the Bosnian War” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).
05 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Within the space of only six months in 1990, the Serb Democratic Party (SDS) managed to win the majority of the Serb vote in Bosnia-Herzegovina. In hi...
Jennifer A. Miller, “Turkish Guest Workers in Germany: Hidden Lives and Contested Borders, 1960s to 1980s” (U Toronto Press, 2018)
04 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
During the 1960s, West Germany eagerly courted workers from Turkey to manage a labor shortage during the country’s Economic Miracle. This program ca...
Pamela Potter, “Art of Suppression: Confronting the Nazi Past in Histories of the Visual and Performing Arts” (U California Press, 2016)
27 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In her new book, Art of Suppression: Confronting the Nazi Past in Histories of the Visual and Performing Arts (University of California Press, 2016), ...
Ben Clift, “The IMF and the Politics of Austerity in the Wake of the Global Financial Crisis by Ben Clift” (Oxford UP, 2018)
15 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
I was joined in Oxford by Ben Clift, Professor of Political Economy, Deputy Head of Department and Director of Research at the Department of Politics ...
Samuel England, “Medieval Empires and the Cultures of Competition: Literary Duels at Islamic and Christian Courts” (Edinburgh UP, 2017)
13 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In his thrilling and sparkling new book, Medieval Empires and the Cultures of Competition: Literary Duels at Islamic and Christian Courts (Edinburgh U...
James Retallack, “Red Saxony: Election Battles and the Spectre of Democracy in Germany, 1860 to 1918” (Oxford UP, 2017)
12 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
How can political modernization reinforce authoritarianism? What brought middle-class liberals and conservative monarchists to make common cause in la...
Frances Kneupper, “The Empire at the End of Time: Identity and Reform in Late Medieval German Prophecy” (Oxford UP, 2016)
11 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
What sounds like the title of a Hollywood movie is actually a result of meticulous historical research. Frances Courtney Kneupper‘s new book The Em...
Ashoka Mody, “Eurotragedy: A Drama in Nine Acts” (Oxford UP, 2018)
08 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
For decades the implementation of a single European currency was seen by its advocates as a vital step in the post-World War II movement toward greate...
Albert Gurganus, “Kurt Eisner: A Modern Life” (Camden House, 2018)
06 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Though Germany was convulsed by violent unrest in the weeks following the end of the First World War, one of the few places where a new republican gov...
Rebecca Erbelding, “Rescue Board: The Untold Story of America’s Efforts to Save the Jews of Europe” (Doubleday, 2018)
31 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In her new book, Rescue Board: The Untold Story of America’s Efforts to Save the Jews of Europe (Doubleday, 2018), Rebecca Erbelding examines the W...
Christina Scharff, “Gender, Subjectivity, and Cultural Work: The Classical Music Profession” (Routledge, 2018)
29 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
What sort of inequalities characterize classical music today? In Gender, Subjectivity, and Cultural Work: The Classical Music Profession (Routledge,...
Stephan Resch, “Stefan Zweig und der Europa-Gedanke” (Königshausen & Neumann, 2017)
24 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In Stefan Zweig und der Europa-Gedanke (Königshausen & Neumann, 2017), Stephan Resch analyzes the Austrian author’s relationship with Europe and th...
Donni Wang, “Before the Market: The Political Economy of Olympianism” (Common Ground, 2018)
23 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Did capitalism exist in ancient Greece, the cradle of democracy and western civilization? I was joined to discuss this and other issues with Donni Wan...