New Books in Western European Studies
Episodes
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...
Donatella della Porta, “Legacies and Memories in Movements: Justice and Democracy in Southern Europe” (Oxford UP, 2018)
21 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
How do transitions to democracy affect the shape and participation of social movements in the present? In their new book, Legacies and Memories in Mov...
Shira Klein, “Italy’s Jews From Emancipation to Fascism” (Cambridge UP, 2018)
21 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
What was Italy’s role in the Holocaust? Why is it that Italy is known as the Axis power that was benevolent to Jews, despite a scholarly consensus t...
Gillian B. Fleming, “Juana I: Legitimacy and Conflict in Sixteenth-Century Castile” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018)
17 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Labeled in history as “mad,” Juana of Castile was in fact a complex figure whose sometimes emotional nature was exploited by the men around her as...
Erik Jensen, “Barbarians in the Greek and Roman World” (Hackett Publishing, 2018)
15 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Today the word “barbarian” has a derogatory connotation for most people. Yet in the classical world it was one that was often used not as a pejora...
Nathan Marcus, “Austrian Reconstruction and the Collapse of Global Finance, 1921-1931” (Harvard UP, 2018)
08 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In Austrian Reconstruction and the Collapse of Global Finance, 1921–1931 (Harvard University Press, 2018), Nathan Marcus, analyzes the events that t...
Katelyn Knox, “Race on Display in Twentieth- and Twenty First-Century France” (Liverpool UP, 2016)
17 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Katelyn Knox’s book, Race on Display in Twentieth- and Twenty First–Century France (Liverpool University Press, 2016) examines francophone litera...
Sandra Ott, “Living with the Enemy: German Occupation, Collaboration and Justice in the West Pyrenees, 1940-1948” (Cambridge UP, 2017)
09 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In her new book, Living with the Enemy: German Occupation, Collaboration and Justice in the West Pyrenees, 1940-1948 (Cambridge University Press, 2017...
Jo Farb Hernandez, “Singular Spaces: From the Eccentric to the Extraordinary in Spanish Art Environments” (Raw Vision, 2013)
28 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Singular Spaces: From the Eccentric to the Extraordinary in Spanish Art Environments (Raw Vision, 2013) is an audacious tome. A comprehensive survey o...
Chad Alan Goldberg, “Modernity and the Jews in Western Social Thought” (U Chicago Press, 2017
27 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book, Modernity and the Jews in Western Social Thought (University of Chicago Press, 2017), Chad Alan Goldberg looks at how social thinkers...
Thomas Weber, “Becoming Hitler: The Making of a Nazi” (Basic Books, 2017)
27 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Few would dispute that Hitler’s ideas led to war and genocide. Less clear however, is how and when those ideas developed. In his latest book, Becomi...
Motti Inbari, “Jewish Radical Ultra-Orthodoxy Confronts Modernity, Zionism, and Women’s Equality” (Cambridge UP, 2016)
23 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Jewish ultra-Orthodoxy, in its numerous manifestations, continues to exert profound influence on the Jewish world, even as it undergoes pressure to ch...
Erin Hochman, “Imagining a Greater Germany: Republican Nationalism and the Idea of Anschluss” (Cornell UP, 2016)
21 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In her new book, Imagining a Greater Germany: Republican Nationalism and the Idea of Anschluss (Cornell University Press, 2016), Erin Hochman, Associa...
Ada Rapoport-Albert, “Hasidic Studies: Essays in History and Gender” (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2018)
20 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Hasidic Studies: Essays in History and Gender is a collection of essays that spans over 40 years and challenges many received notions about the histor...
Robert Darnton, “A Literary Tour de France: The World of Books on the Eve of the French Revolution” (Oxford UP, 2018)
15 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Five decades ago, a young scholar named Robert Darnton followed up on a footnote that took him to the archives of the “Typographical Society of Neuc...
Adriana M. Brodsky, “Sephardi, Jewish, Argentine: Community and National Identity, 1880-1960” (Indiana UP, 2016)
14 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
How do immigrant populations navigate between ancestral ties and connections to their new homes? How do their plural histories create layered identiti...
Yair Mintzker, “The Many Deaths of Jew Suss: The Notorious Trial and Execution of an Eighteenth-Century Court Jew” (Princeton UP, 2017)
12 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Joseph Suss Oppenheimer became the “court Jew” of Carl Alexander, Duke of Wurttemberg in 1733. When Carl Alexander died, Oppenheimer was put on tr...
James Chappel, “Catholic Modern: The Challenge of Totalitarianism and the Remaking of the Church” (Harvard UP, 2018)
07 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In 1900 the Catholic Church stood staunchly against religious freedom and the secular state. By the 1960s, that position was reversed and Catholics be...
Kathryn Woolard, “Singular and Plural: Ideologies of Linguistic Authority in Twenty-First Century Catalonia” (Oxford UP, 2016)
06 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Kathryn Woolard is Professor Emerita and Research Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, San Diego. She has authored seminal works...
Sterling Murray, “The Career of an Eighteenth-Century Kapellmeister: The Life and Music of Antonio Rosetti” (U Rochester Press, 2014)
05 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Though he never enjoyed the fame of his contemporaries Mozart and Haydn, Antonio Rosetti was a successful composer whose works received a wide audienc...
Daniel B. Schwartz, “The First Modern Jew: Spinoza and the History of an Image” (Princeton UP, 2012)
02 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Benedito/Baruch/Benedict Spinoza (1623-1677) lived at the crossroads of Dutch, scholastic, and Jewish worlds. Excommunicated from the Jewish community...
Julia Kerscher, “Autodidacticism, Artistry, Media Practice” (Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2016)
28 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In her new book, Autodidacticism, Artistry, Media Practice (Autodidaktik, Artistik, Medienpraktik [Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2016]), Julia Kerscher, p...
Nathan Stoltzfus, “Hitler’s Compromises: Coercion and Consensus in Nazi Germany” (Yale UP, 2016)
26 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
How did the Nazi regime respond to protest? How did Hitler’s desire for popular authority shape the relationship between state and society? Nathan S...
Mark Edward Ruff, “The Battle for the Catholic Past in Germany, 1945-1980” (Cambridge UP, 2017)
21 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Historical debates about the actions of the Roman Catholic Church in relationship to the Third Reich have never been restricted to academic presses an...
Larry Wolff, “The Singing Turk” (Stanford UP, 2016)
19 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In The Singing Turk: Ottoman Power and Operatic Emotions on the European Stage from the Siege of Vienna to the Age of Napoleon (Stanford University Pr...
Mahon Murphy, “Colonial Captivity during the First World War: Internment and the Fall of the German Empire, 1914-1919” (Cambridge UP, 2017)
14 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The First World War was not limited the trenches on the Western Front. Nor was the system of internment camps it spawned. In his new book, Colonial Ca...
Dagomar Degroot, “The Frigid Golden Age: Climate Change, the Little Ice Age, and the Dutch Republic, 1560 -1720” (Cambridge UP, 2018)
14 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Historians, writes Dagomar Degroot, rarely feature in discussions about global warming. With his new book, The Frigid Golden Age: Climate Change, the ...
Brian Jenkins, “Lord Lyons: A Diplomat in an Age of Nationalism and War” (McGill-Queens UP, 2014)
08 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Described upon his death in 1887 as the ideal diplomatist, Richard Lyons served Great Britain in a variety of roles over the course of a long and dist...
Jean Beaman, “Citizen Outsider: Children of North African Immigrants in France” (U California Press, 2017)
08 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
What does it mean to be a citizen? Every country has its own legal codes that confer a set of rights on official members. But full citizenship is ofte...
Benjamin R. Gampel, “Anti-Jewish Riots in the Crown of Aragon and the Royal Response, 1391-1392” (Cambridge UP, 2016)
06 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Benjamin R. Gampel‘s award winning volume Anti-Jewish Riots in the Crown of Aragon and the Royal Response, 1391-1392 (Cambridge University Press, 20...
David Gerlach, “The Economy of Ethnic Cleansing: The Transformation of German-Czech Borderlands after World War II” (Cambridge UP, 2017)
05 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book, The Economy of Ethnic Cleansing: The Transformation of German-Czech Borderlands after World War II (Cambridge University Press, 2017)...
Mark Sedgwick, “Western Sufism: From the Abbasids to the New Age” (Oxford UP, 2017)
31 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In his work, Western Sufism: From the Abbasids to the New Age (Oxford University Press, 2017), Mark Sedgwick maps the ideational processes that have l...
David Cannadine, “Victorious Century: The United Kingdom, 1800-1906” (Viking, 2018)
26 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Sir David Cannadine, Professor of History at Princeton University, president of the British Academy, and the general editor of the Oxford Dictionary o...
Claire Eldridge, “From Empire to Exile” (Manchester UP, 2016)
26 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The French-Algerian War that erupted in 1954 ended with the emergence of an independent Algeria in 1962, but it was not until decades later that a bro...
Benjamin Teitelbaum, “Lions of the North: Sounds of the New Nordic Radical Nationalism” (Oxford UP, 2017)
24 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Music is frequently connected to leftist politics and seen as the soundtrack to social protest movements, most notably the civil rights movement. But ...
Angus McLaren, “Playboys and Mayfair Men: Crime, Class, Masculinity, and Fascism in 1930s London” (Johns Hopkins UP, 2017).
23 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In December of 1937, four men robbed a representative of the diamond company Cartier of eight diamond rings in the Hyde Park Hotel. What made this cri...
David Stevenson, “1917: War, Peace, and Revolution” (Oxford UP, 2018)
22 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In 1917: War, Peace, and Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2018), David Stevenson examines a pivotal chapter of the First World War. Two and a half...
Monica Mattfeld, “Becoming Centaur: Eighteenth-Century Masculinity and English Horsemanship” (Penn State UP, 2017)
19 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Monica Mattfeld’s Becoming Centaur: Eighteenth-Century Masculinity and English Horsemanship (Penn State University Press, 2017) explores the complex...
Lena Wetenkamp, “Europe Narrated, Contextualized and Remembered” (Koenigshausen and Neumann, 2017)
16 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Lena Wetenkamp‘s Europe Narrated, Contextualized and Remembered: The Discourse of ‘Europe’ in Contemporary German Literature (Europa erzhalt, ve...
Amos Goldberg, “Trauma in First Person: Diary Writing during the Holocaust” (Indiana UP, 2017)
10 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In his most recent work, Trauma in First Person: Diary Writing during the Holocaust (Indiana University Press, 2017), Amos Goldberg examines Jewish di...
Martin Kalb, “Coming of Age: Constructing and Controlling Youth in Munich, 1942-1973” (Berghahn Books, 2016)
03 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book, Coming of Age: Constructing and Controlling Youth in Munich, 1942-1973 (Berghan Books, 2016), Martin Kalb, Assistant Professor of His...
Sarah Fishman, “From Vichy to the Sexual Revolution: Gender and Family Life in Postwar France” (Oxford UP, 2017)
29 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In her latest book, From Vichy to the Sexual Revolution: Gender and Family Life in Postwar France (Oxford University Press, 2017), Sarah Fishman offer...
Edward Ross Dickinson, “Dancing in the Blood” (Cambridge UP, 2017)
29 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book, Dancing in the Blood: Modern Dance and European Culture on the Eve of the First World War (Cambridge University Press, 2017), Edward ...
Robbert-Jan Adriaansen, “The Rhythm of Eternity: The German Youth Movement and the Experience of the Past, 1900-1933” (Berghahn Books, 2015)
19 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The German youth movement of the late Kaiserreich and ill-fated Weimar Republic has been a subject of controversy since its inception. The longing for...
Anthony J. La Vopa, “The Labor of the Mind: Intellect and Gender in Enlightenment Cultures” (Penn Press, 2017)
19 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Anthony J. La Vopa is professor emeritus of history at North Carolina State University. His book, The Labor of the Mind: Intellect and Gender in Enlig...
Sam White, “A Cold Welcome: The Little Ice Age and Europe’s Encounter with North America” (Harvard UP, 2017)
15 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Sam White’s brand new book A Cold Welcome: The Little Ice Age and Europe’s Encounter with North America (Harvard University Press, 2017) turns the...
Steven P. Remy, “The Malmedy Massacre: The War Crimes Trial Controversy” (Harvard UP, 2017)
13 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book, The Malmedy Massacre: The War Crimes Trial Controversy (Harvard University Press, 2017), Steven Remy, professor of history at City Un...
David Head, “Privateers of the Americas: Spanish American Privateering from the United States in the Early Republic” (U. Georgia Press, 2015)
12 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
When the nations of Latin America fought for their independence in the early 19th century, they commissioned privateers stationed in the United States...
Lars Rensmann, “The Politics of Unreason: The Frankfurt School and the Origins of Modern Antisemitism” (SUNY Press, 2017)
11 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book, The Politics of Unreason: The Frankfurt School and the Origins of Modern Antisemitism (SUNY Press, 2017) , Lars Rensmann, Professor o...
Monica Ricketts, “Who Should Rule? Men of Arms, the Republic of Letters, and the Fall of the Spanish Empire” (Oxford UP, 2017)
07 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Monica Ricketts’ new book Who Should Rule? Men of Arms, the Republic of Letters, and the Fall of the Spanish Empire (Oxford University Press, 2017) ...
Christian Kirchmeier “Morality and Literature: A Historical Typology” (Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2013)
01 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book Morality and Literature: A Historical Typology (Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2013)—in German: Moral und Literatur. Eine historische Typologi...
Catherine Zuckert, “Machiavelli’s Politics” (U. Chicago Press, 2017)
30 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Catherine Zuckert‘s new book, Machiavelli’s Politics (University of Chicago Press, 2017), systematically analyzes all the texts that Machiavelli w...
Guenter Lewy, “Perpetrators: The World of the Holocaust Killers” (Oxford UP, 2017)
29 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
“Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous.” Thus begins Guenter Lewy’s latest book, Perpetrators: The World of the ...
Andrew S. Tompkins, “Better Active than Radioactive! Anti-Nuclear Protest in 1970s France and West Germany” (Oxford UP, 2016)
28 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in western Europe over the 1970s. Observers feared Germany was becoming “ungovernable” and Fra...
Andreas Gehrlach, “Thieves: Stealing in Literature, Philosophy, and Myth” (Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2016)
24 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book Thieves: Stealing in Literature, Philosophy, and Myth (Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2016)—in German: Diebe: Die heimliche Aneignung als Ursp...
Kathryn Brown. ed., “Perspectives on Degas” (Routledge, 2016)
22 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Edgar Degas died in the fall of 1917. Marking this 100th anniversary, Kathryn Brown‘s edited collection, Perspectives on Degas (Routledge, 2016) bri...
Pamela Swett, “Selling under the Swastika: Advertising and Commercial Culture in Nazi Germany” (Stanford UP, 2013)
16 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In her new book, Selling under the Swastika: Advertising and Commercial Culture in Nazi Germany (Stanford University Press, 2013), Pamela Swett, Profe...
Nicholas O’Shaughnessy, “Marketing the Third Reich: Persuasion, Packaging, and Propaganda” (Routledge, 2017)
06 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
One of the defining characteristics of the Nazi regime that ruled Germany from 1933 until 1945 was its attention to presentation as a means of winning...
Theodore Vial, “Modern Religion, Modern Race” (Oxford UP, 2016)
06 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The categories religion and race share a common genealogy. The modern understanding of these terms emerges within the European enlightenment but grasp...
Edin Hajdarpasic, “Whose Bosnia? Nationalism and Political Imagination in the Balkans, 1840-1914” (Cornell UP, 2015)
31 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
It seemed that everyone wanted Bosnia in the late nineteenth century: Serbian and Croatian nationalists; Ottoman, Habsburg, Muslim and Yugoslav moveme...
Christian Ingrao, “Believe and Destroy: Intellectuals in the SS War Machine” (Polity Press, 2015)
26 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
How did a generation of Germany’s best and brightest become radicalized? What convinced young intellectuals to join the SS and perpetrate genocide i...
Rebecca Mitchell, “Nietzsche’s Orphans: Music, Metaphysics, and the Twilight of the Russian Empire” (Yale UP, 2015)
23 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
At the close of the nineteenth century, Europe was teeming with apocalyptic dreams of destruction and renewal. In Nietzsche’s Orphans: Music, Metaph...
Pieter M. Judson, “The Habsburg Empire: A New History” (Harvard UP, 2016)
18 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Pieter Judson established himself as one of the top scholars of the East Central Europe with his first two books Exclusive Revolutionaries (University...
Alexander Prusin, “Serbia under the Swastika: A World War II Occupation” (U. Illinois Press, 2017)
11 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In Serbia under the Swastika: A World War II Occupation (University of Illinois Press, 2017), Alexander Prusin delineates the Nazi occupation of Yugos...
Andrew Smith, “Terror and Terroir: The Winegrowers of the Languedoc and Modern France” (Manchester University Press, 2016)
06 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Andrew Smith‘s Terror and Terroir: The Winegrowers of the Languedoc and Modern France (Manchester University Press, 2016) is a political history of ...
Paige Bowers, “The General’s Niece: The Little-Known de Gaulle Who Fought to Free Occupied France” (Chicago Review Press, 2017)
19 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
When Charles de Gaulle issued his famous call in June 1940 for the French people to continue fighting Nazi Germany, among those within Occupied France...
Max Bergholz, “Violence as a Generative Force: Identity, Nationalism and Memory in a Balkan Community” (Cornell UP, 2016)
25 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
People study atrocities and mass violence for a variety of reasons. When asked, many offer thoughtful intellectual or political explanations for their...
Anthony Kaldellis, “Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood: The Rise and Fall of Byzantium, 955 A.D. to the First Crusade” (Oxford UP, 2017)
23 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In the 10th century, a succession of Byzantine rulers reversed centuries of strategic policy by embarking on a series of campaigns that dramatically r...
Alice Weinreb, “Modern Hungers: Food and Power in Twentieth-Century Germany” (Oxford UP, 2017)
13 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Food is a hot topic these days, and not just among the folks posting pictures of their dinner on Instagram. A growing number of scholars in many field...
Hussein Fancy, “The Mercenary Mediterranean: Sovereignty, Religion, and Violence in the Medieval Crown of Aragon” (U of Chicago Press, 2016)
12 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Hussein Fancy’s book The Mercenary Mediterranean: Sovereignty, Religion, and Violence in the Medieval Crown of Aragon (University of Chicago Press, ...
Sarah Bond, “Trade and Taboo: Disreputable Professions in the Roman Mediterranean” (U of Michigan Press, 2016)
12 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Dominant social norms and expectations shape how individuals and their public activities are understood. In Roman antiquity, various shifts influenced...
Carla Pestana, “The English Conquest of Jamaica: Oliver Cromwell’s Bid for Empire” (Harvard UP, 2017)
12 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Carla Pestana’s new book The English Conquest of Jamaica: Oliver Cromwell’s Bid for Empire (Harvard University Press, 2017) is a rousing look at a...
Richard Rubin, “Back Over There” (St. Martin’s Press, 2017)
06 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The majority of the books we profile on New Books in Military History are traditional research narratives, monographs written by historians and author...
Eric Ash, “The Draining of the Fens: Projectors, Popular Politics, and State Building in Early Modern England” (Johns Hopkins, 2017)
02 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Today “The Fens” is largely a misnomer, as the area of eastern England is now largely flat, dry farmland. Until the early modern era, however, it ...
Bruce O’Neill, “The Space of Boredom: Homelessness in the Slowing Global Order” (Duke University Press, 2017)
28 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In The Space of Boredom: Homelessness in the Slowing Global Order (Duke University Press, 2017) Bruce O’Neill explores how people cast aside by glob...
Matthew Gillis, “Heresy and Dissent in the Carolingian Empire: The Case of Gottschalk of Orbais” (Oxford UP, 2017)
26 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In the popular imagination, heresy belongs to the Christian Middle Ages in much the way that the Crusades or courtly culture do. Non-specialists in th...