New Books in Western European Studies
Episodes
Michael E. Stewart, “The Soldier’s Life: Martial Virtues and Manly Romanitas In the Early Byzantine Empire” (Kismet Press, 2016)
22 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The prowess of the Roman empire was imbued with courage and militarism. Symbolised by the combative male soldier, Michael Edward Stewart‘s tool of h...
Meredith K. Ray, “Margherita Sarrocchi’s Letters to Galileo: Astronomy, Astrology, and Poetics in 17th-Century Italy” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016)
13 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Meredith K. Ray’s new book contextualizes and translates a range of seventeenth-century letters, mostly between Margherita Sarrocchi (1560-1617) and...
Mark Braude, “Making Monte Carlo: A History of Speculation and Spectacle” (Simon and Schuster, 2016)
09 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Mark Braude’s Making Monte Carlo: A History of Speculation and Spectacle (Simon and Schuster, 2016) tells the captivating story of the rise of Monte...
Elana Shapira, “Style and Seduction: Jewish Patrons, Architecture, and Design in Fin de Siecle Vienna” (Brandeis UP, 2016)
02 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In Style and Seduction: Jewish Patrons, Architecture, and Design in Fin de Siecle Vienna (Brandeis University Press, 2016), Elana Shapira, Lecturer at...
Jeroen Dewulf, “The Pinkster King and the King of Kongo: The Forgotten History of America’s Dutch-Owned Slaves” (U. Press of Mississippi, 2016)
27 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
The Pinkster King and the King of Kongo: The Forgotten History of America’s Dutch-Owned Slaves (University Press of Mississippi, 2016) presents the ...
Ryan Vieira, “Time and Politics: Parliament and the Culture of Modernity in Nineteenth-Century Britain and the British World” (Oxford UP, 2015)
24 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
How did the idea of time change during the nineteenth century? In Time and Politics: Parliament and the Culture of Modernity in Nineteenth-Century Bri...
Matthew James Crawford, “The Andean Wonder Drug: Cinchona Bark and Imperial Science in the Spanish Atlantic, 1630-1800” (U. Pittsburgh Press, 2016)
23 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Matthew James Crawford’s new book is a fascinating history of an object that was central to the history of science, technology, and medicine in the ...
Mark Glickman, “Stolen Words: The Nazi Plunder of Jewish Books” (The Jewish Publication Society, 2016)
17 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In Stolen Words: The Nazi Plunder of Jewish Books (The Jewish Publication Society, 2016), Rabbi Mark Glickman, of Temple Bnai Tikvah in Calgary, exami...
Noah Lederman, “A World Erased: A Grandson’s Search for His Family’s Holocaust Secrets” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2017)
01 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Part detective story, part travelogue, Noah Lederman decided to write A World Erased: A Grandson’s Search for his Family’s Holocaust Secrets (Rowm...
Stephen Brockmann, “The Writers’ State: Constructing East German Literature, 1945-1959” (Camden House, 2015)
27 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Stephen Brockmann’s The Writers’ State: Constructing East German Literature, 1945-1959 (Camden House, 2015) introduces readers to a specific atmos...
Surekha Davies, “Renaissance Ethnography and the Invention of the Human: New Worlds, Maps, and Monsters” (Cambridge UP, 2016)
12 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
You find a lot of strange things on late medieval and “Age of Discovery” era maps. Of course there are weird beasts of every sort: dragons, griffi...
Devin Naar, “Jewish Salonica: Between the Ottoman Empire and Modern Greece” (Stanford UP, 2016)
19 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In Jewish Salonica: Between the Ottoman Empire and Modern Greece (Stanford University Press, 2016) Devin Naar delves deep into the archives to produce...
Richard Griffiths, “What Did You Do During the War? The Last Throes of British Pro-Nazi Right, 1940-1945” (Routledge, 2016)
18 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
During the mid- to late 1930s, a small but socially prominent group of right-wing Britons took a public stance in support of the Nazi regime in German...
Paul Benneworth et al., “The Impact and Future of Arts and Humanities Research” (Palgrave, 2016)
13 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
What is the future for Arts and Humanities in Europe? The podcast discusses these questions with Paul Benneworth, one of the authors, along with Magnu...
Larrie Ferreiro, “Brothers at Arms: Independence and the Men of France and Spain Who Saved It” (Knopf, 2016)
02 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Was the War for American Independence really about American independence? It depends on who you ask. In his new book, Brothers at Arms: American Inde...
Benjamin Martin, “The Nazi-Fascist New Order for European Culture” (Harvard UP, 2016)
29 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Benjamin Martin’s The Nazi-Fascist New Order for European Culture (Harvard University Press, 2016) examines the attempt by Nazi Germany and Fascist ...
Federica Goffi, “Time Matter(s): Invention and Reimagination in Built Conservation” (Routledge, 2013)
23 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Assistant Professor Federica Goffi fills a blind spot in current architectural theory and practice with this book, Time Matter(s): Invention and Re-Im...
Coll Thrush, “Indigenous London: Native Travelers at the Heart of Empire” (Yale UP, 2016)
18 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Scholars have long treated cities as spaces in which indigenous people have little presence and less significance. This notion that urbanity and indig...
James Kloppenberg, “Toward Democracy: The Struggle for Self-Rule in European and American Thought” (Oxford UP, 2016)
21 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
James Kloppenberg is the Charles Warren Professor of American history at Harvard University. Toward Democracy: The Struggle for Self-Rule in European ...
Kelly Watson, “Insatiable Appetites: Imperial Encounters with Cannibals in the North Atlantic World” (NYU Press, 2015)
11 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Kelly Watson’s Insatiable Appetites: Imperial Encounters with Cannibals in the North Atlantic World (New York University Press, 2015) explores the h...
Stevphen Shukaitis, “The Composition of Movements to Come: Aesthetics and Cultural Labor after the Avant-Garde” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2016)
05 Oct 2016
Contributed by Lukas
How is the notion of the avant-garde in art relevant today? What can contemporary social movements learn from the Situationists? What is the meaning o...
Richard Bourke, “Empire and Revolution: The Political Life of Edmund Burke” (Princeton UP, 2015)
30 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Richard Bourke, Professor in the History of Political Thought in the School of History at Queen Mary University of London, began developing his histor...
Megan C. Thomas, “Orientalists, Propagandists, and Ilustrados: Filipino Scholarship and the End of Spanish Colonialism” (U. of Minnesota Press, 2012 )
30 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In Orientalists, Propagandists and Ilustrados: Filipino Scholarship and the End of Spanish Colonialism (University of Minnesota Press, 2012), Megan Th...
Stuart Elden “Foucault’s Last Decade” (Polity Press, 2016)
21 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Why did Michel Foucault radically recast the project of The History of Sexuality? How did he work collaboratively? What was the influence of Antiquity...
Carsten Schapkow, “Role Model and Countermodel: The Golden Age of Iberian Jewry and German Jewish Culture during the Era of Emancipation” (Lexington Books, 2015)
19 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Why were German Jews so fascinated by Iberian Sephardic history? In Role Model and Countermodel: The Golden Age of Iberian Jewry and German Jewish Cul...
Sarah Abrevaya Stein, “Extraterritorial Dreams: European Citizenship, Sephardi Jews, and the Ottoman Twentieth Century” (U. of Chicago Press, 2016)
19 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah Abrevaya Stein’s rich new book, Extraterritorial Dreams: European Citizenship, Sephardi Jews, and the Ottoman Twentieth Century (University of...
Jessica Greenberg , “After the Revolution: Youth, Democracy, and the Politics of Disappointment in Serbia” (Stanford University Press, 2014)
12 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Jessica Greenberg’s After the Revolution: Youth, Democracy, and the Politics of Disappointment in Serbia (Stanford University Press, 2014) explores ...
Caroline Ford, “Natural Interests: The Contest over Environment in Modern France” (Harvard UP, 2016)
12 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Caroline Ford’s Natural Interests: The Contest over Environment in Modern France (Harvard University Press, 2016) explores the roots of French envir...
Emile Chabal, “A Divided Republic: Nation, State and Citizenship in Contemporary France” (Cambridge UP, 2015)
24 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Emile Chabal’s A Divided Republic: Nation, State and Citizenship in Contemporary France (Cambridge University Press, 2015) is an in-depth analysis o...
Anders Ingram, “Writing the Ottomans: Turkish History in Early Modern England” (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2015)
22 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
You read a lot about “Orientalism,” that is, the often odd ways in which Westerners tried to understand predominantly Middle Eastern peoples and c...
Todd Green, “The Fear of Islam: An Introduction to Islamophobia in the West” (Fortress Press, 2015)
17 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Islamophobia, both as a term and concept, has a storied and complicated history, and understanding its many layers in our current historical moment re...
Peter Trawny, “Heidegger and the Myth of a Jewish World Conspiracy” (U. of Chicago Press, 2015)
15 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In Heidegger and the Myth of a Jewish World Conspiracy (University of Chicago Press, 2015), Peter Trawny, professor of philosophy and founder and dire...
Kieko Matteson, “Forests in Revolutionary France: Conservation, Community, and Conflict, 1669-1848” (Cambridge UP, 2015)
03 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Kieko Matteson’s Forests in Revolutionary France: Conservation, Community, and Conflict, 1669-1848 (Cambridge University Press, 2015) is an impressi...
Jack Jacobs, “The Frankfurt School, Jewish Lives, and Antisemitism” (Cambridge UP, 2015)
02 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In The Frankfurt School, Jewish Lives, and Antisemitism (Cambridge University Press, 2015), Jack Jacobs, Professor of Political Science at John Jay Co...
Paul M. Cobb, “The Race for Paradise: An Islamic History of the Crusades” (Oxford UP, 2014)
25 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The Crusades loom large in contemporary popular consciousness. However, our public understanding has largely been informed from a western perspective,...
Mitchell Yockelson, “Forty-Seven Days: How Pershing’s Warriors Came of Age to Defeat the German Army in WWI” (NAL Caliber, 2016)
25 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In Forty-Seven Days: How Pershing’s Warriors Came of Age to Defeat the German Army in World War I (NAL Caliber, 2016), National Archives historian a...
John Freed, “Frederick Barbarossa: The Prince and the Myth” (Yale UP, 2016)
15 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
For all of his importance as a medieval ruler, there are surprisingly few biographies in English of the German emperor Frederick Barbarossa (c. 1122-1...
Vanessa Ogle, “The Global Transformation of Time: 1870-1950” (Harvard UP, 2015)
13 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
From the 1880s onward, Beirut-based calendars and almanacs were in high demand as they packaged at least four different calendars into one, including:...
Daniel Jutte, “The Age of Secrecy: Jews, Christians, and the Economy of Secrets, 1400-1800” (Yale UP, 2015)
12 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In his expansive The Age of Secrecy: Jews, Christians, and the Economy of Secrets, 1400-1800 (Yale University Press, 2015), Daniel Jutte suggests new ...
Jessa Crispin, “The Dead Ladies Project: Exiles, Expats, and Ex-Countries” (U. of Chicago Press, 2015)
01 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Biography is a genre of largely unexamined power: a literary field that preserves stories of lived lives and, through them, perpetuates notions that t...
Ethan Katz, “The Burdens of Brotherhood: Jews and Muslims from North Africa to France” (Harvard UP, 2015)
28 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In The Burdens of Brotherhood: Jews and Muslims from North Africa to France (Harvard University Press, 2015), Ethan Katz examines and interrogates Jew...
Ayten Gundogdu, “Rightlessness in an Age of Rights: Hannah Arendt and the Contemporary Struggles of Migrants” (Oxford UP, 2015)
26 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
How does one “rethink and revise the key concepts of Hannah Arendt’s political theory in light of the struggles of asylum seekers, refugees, and u...
Sven-Erik Rose, “Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany, 1789-1848” (Brandeis UP, 2014)
20 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany, 1789-1848 (Brandeis University Press, 2014), Sven-Erik Rose, Associate Professor of German at the Univers...
Ana Foteva, “Do the Balkans Begin in Vienna? The Geopolitical and Imaginary Borders Between the Balkans and Europe” (Peter Lang, 2014)
19 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Starting with Metternich’s declaration that the Balkans begin at Rennweg (a street in the Third District of Vienna), Ana Foteva draws on novels, pla...
Stefan Ihrig, “Justifying Genocide: Germany and the Armenians from Bismarck to Hitler” (Harvard UP, 2016)
18 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
At least twice in past interview descriptions I’ve used the famous phrase attributed to Hitler: “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation ...
Kenyon Zimmer, “Immigrants Against the State” (U of Illinois Press, 2015)
16 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In Immigrants Against the State: Yiddish and Italian Anarchism in America (University of Illinois, 2015), Kenyon Zimmer, Assistant Professor of Histor...
Jeremy Ahearne, “Government through Culture and the Contemporary French Right” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014)
08 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
How did two right wing presidents use culture to govern France? In Government through Culture and the Contemporary French Right (Palgrave Macmillan, 2...
Daniel Tilles, “British Fascist Antisemitism and Jewish Responses, 1932-1940” (Bloomsburg, 2015)
06 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In British Fascist Antisemitism and Jewish Responses, 1932-1940 (Bloomsbury, 2015), Daniel Tilles, Assistant Professor of History at the Pedagogical U...
Kristin Ross, “Communal Luxury: The Political Imaginary of the Paris Commune” (Verso, 2015)
28 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
One hundred and forty-five years ago this week, the French state massacred thousands of its own people during the semaine sanglante (bloody week) of t...
Todd Endelman, “Leaving the Jewish Fold: Conversion and Radical Assimilation in Modern Jewish History” (Princeton UP, 2015)
23 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In Leaving the Jewish Fold: Conversion and Radical Assimilation in Modern Jewish History (Princeton University Press, 2015), Todd Endelman looks acros...
Nicole Rudolph, “At Home in Postwar France: Modern Mass Housing and the Right to Comfort” (Berghahn Books, 2015)
17 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Nicole Rudolph‘s At Home in Postwar France: Modern Mass Housing and the Right to Comfort (Berghahn Books, 2015) contributes to a growing body of sch...
Michael Broer, “Napoleon: Soldier of Destiny” (Pegasus, 2015)
13 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Most biographers writing about the life and achievements of Napoleon Bonaparte have focused on his dramatic personality or his military campaigns. In ...
Ayesha Ramachandran, “Worldmakers: Global Imagining in Early Modern Europe” (U of Chicago Press, 2015)
11 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
At what point does the world end? More importantly, how did this idea of a whole, unified world emerge to begin with? In Worldmakers: Global Imagining...
Robert Holub, “Nietzsche’s Jewish Problem: Between Anti-Semitism and Anti-Judaism” (Princeton UP, 2016)
09 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In Nietzsche’s Jewish Problem: Between Anti-Semitism and Anti-Judaism (Princeton University Press, 2016), Robert Holub, Ohio Eminent Scholar and Pro...
Ingrid Carlberg, “Raoul Wallenberg: The Biography” (MacLehose Press, 2016)
04 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
What makes a person? What makes an act heroic? And what determines a person’s fate? These are the questions driving the narrative in Ingrid Carlberg...
John M. Efron, “German Jewry and the Allure of the Sephardic” (Princeton UP, 2016)
29 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In German Jewry and the Allure of the Sephardic (Princeton University Press, 2016), John M. Efron, Koret Professor of Jewish History at the University...
Michael Goebel, “Anti-Imperial Metropolis: Interwar Paris and the Seeds of Third World Nationalism” (Cambridge UP, 2015)
28 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Michael Goebel‘s Anti-Imperial Metropolis: Interwar Paris and the Seeds of Third World Nationalism (Cambridge University Press, 2015) thinks globall...
Seth Kimmel, “Parables of Coercion: Conversion and Knowledge at the End of Islamic Spain” (U of Chicago Press, 2015)
08 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In his path clearing new book, Parables of Coercion: Conversion and Knowledge at the End of Islamic Spain (University of Chicago Press, 2015), Seth Ki...
Suzanne Brown-Fleming, “Nazi Persecution and Postwar Repercussions” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2016)
31 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Suzanne Brown-Fleming suggests that most people think the archives of the International Tracing Service is largely a list of names and addresses. I wa...
Daniella Doron, “Jewish Youth and Identity in Postwar France: Rebuilding Family and Nation” (Indiana UP, 2015)
21 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In Jewish Youth and Identity in Postwar France: Rebuilding Family and Nation (Indiana UP, 2015), Daniella Doron, Lecturer in Holocaust and Genocide St...
Robert Priest, “The Gospel According to Renan: Reading, Writing, and Religion in Nineteenth-Century France” (Oxford UP, 2014)
10 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Robert Priest‘s The Gospel According to Renan: Reading, Writing, and Religion in Nineteenth-Century France (Oxford University Press, 2014) is a fasc...
James Nott, “Going to the Palais: A Social and Cultural History of Dancing and Dance Halls in Britain, 1918-1960” (Oxford UP, 2016)
02 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book Going to the Palais: A Social and Cultural History of Dancing and Dance Halls in Britain, 1918-1960 (Oxford University Press, 2016), c...
Kennetta H. Perry, “London is the Place for Me: Black Britons, Citizenship, and the Politics of Race (Oxford UP, 2015)
02 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Between the late 1940s and the early 1960s, hundreds of thousands of people from the British Commonwealth migrated the United Kingdom with plans to se...
Justin E. H. Smith, “Nature, Human Nature, and Human Difference: Race in Early Modern Philosophy” (Princeton UP, 2015)
02 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Justin E. H. Smith‘s new book is a fascinating historical ontology of notions of racial difference in the work of early modern European writers. Nat...
Stefan Ihrig, “Ataturk in the Nazi Imagination” (Harvard UP, 2014)
24 Feb 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In Ataturk in the Nazi Imagination (Harvard University Press, 2014), historian Stefan Ihrig examines the history of Mustafa Kemal and Republican Turke...
Caroline Shaw, “Britannia’s Embrace: Modern Humanitarianism and the Imperial Origins of Refugee Relief” (Oxford UP, 2015)
16 Feb 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Published in October 2015, Caroline Shaw‘s timely new book, Britannia’s Embrace: Modern Humanitarianism and the Imperial Origins of Refugee Relief...
Carin Berkowitz, “Charles Bell and the Anatomy of Reform” (University of Chicago Press, 2015)
16 Feb 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Carin Berkowitz‘s new book takes readers into the world of nineteenth century London to explore the landscape of medicine and surgery along with Cha...
Timothy Snyder, “Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning” (Tim Duggan Books, 2015)
28 Jan 2016
Contributed by Lukas
It’s rare when an academic historian breaks through and becomes a central part of the contemporary cultural conversation. Timothy Snyder does just ...
Nicholas Walton, “Genoa, ‘La Superba’: The Rise and Fall of a Merchant Pirate Superpower” (Hurst, 2015)
19 Jan 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Italians have a reputation for being rather, well, ineffectual. Everyone ‘knows’ that Italian trains don’t run on time unless Italy is ruled by ...
Erik Linstrum, “Ruling Minds: Psychology in the British Empire” (Harvard UP, 2016)
30 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In Ruling Minds: Psychology in the British Empire (Harvard University Press, 2016), Erik Linstrum examines how the field of psychology was employed in...
Elizabeth M. Williams, “The Politics of Race in Britain and South Africa” (I. B. Tauris, 2015)
18 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In 1951 a West-Indian seaman was killed in Cape Town by two white policemen. His murder had initiated protests and demonstrations in the Caribbean and...
Sarah Maza, “Violette Noziere: A Story of Murder in 1930s Paris” (U. of California Press, 2012)
18 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
On August 21, 1933, the teenaged Violette Noziere attempted to kill both her parents. At first, seemingly so clearcut, the case ultimately came to be...
Peter Thorsheim, “Waste into Weapons: Recycling in Britain during the Second World War” (Cambridge UP, 2015)
17 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In Waste into Weapons: Recycling in Britain during the Second World War (Cambridge University Press 2015), Peter Thorsheim explores the role of waste ...
Brian P. Copenhaver, “Magic in Western Culture: From Antiquity to the Enlightenment” (Cambridge UP, 2015 )
15 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Belief in magic was pervasive in Greco-Roman times, persisted through the Renaissance, and then fell off the map of intellectual respectability in the...
Kim Wunschmann, “Before Auschwitz: Jewish Prisoners in the Prewar Concentration Camps” (Harvard University Press 2015)
12 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In Before Auschwitz: Jewish Prisoners in the Prewar Concentration Camps (Harvard University Press, 2015), Kim Wunschmann, DAAD Lecturer in Modern Euro...
Maud S. Mandel, “Muslims and Jews in France: History of a Conflict” (Princeton University Press, 2014)
11 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In Muslims and Jews in France: History of a Conflict (Princeton University Press, 2014), Maud S. Mandel, Dean of the College at Brown University, chal...
Stefan Berger, “The Past as History: National Identity and Historical Consciousness in Modern Europe” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014)
11 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
A historiographical paradigm opened in the late 1970s with groundbreaking works on nationalism. To a large extent these were constructivist interpreta...
Yarimar Bonilla, “Non-Sovereign Futures: French Caribbean Politics in the Wake of Disenchantment” (U of Chicago Press, 2015)
10 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
As overseas departments of France, the islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique are frequently described as anomalies within the postcolonial Caribbean. Y...
Sarah Abrevaya Stein, “Saharan Jews and the Fate of French Algeria” (U of Chicago, 2014)
07 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In Saharan Jews and the Fate of French Algeria (University of Chicago, 2014), Sarah Abrevaya Stein, professor of history and the Maurice Amado Chair i...
Nicholas Stargardt, “The German War: A Nation Under Arms, 1939-1945” (Basic Books, 2015)
18 Nov 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In all of the thousands upon thousands of books written about Nazi Germany, it’s easy to lose track of some basic questions. What did Germans think ...
Jerome Bourdon, “Histoire de la television sous de Gaulle” (Presses des Mines, 2014)
17 Nov 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Jerome de Bourdon‘s Histoire de la television sous de Gaulle (Presses des Mines, 2014) is a revised version of a book that first appeared in 1990. T...
Am Johal, “Ecological Metapolitics: Badiou and the Anthropocene” (Atropos Press, 2015)
08 Nov 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The French philosopher Alain Badiou is not best known for his engagement with ecological matters per se. Badiou’s insights regarding being, truth, a...
Roland Clark, “Holy Legionary Youth: Fascist Activism in Interwar Romania” (Cornell UP, 2015)
03 Nov 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Holy Legionary Youth: Fascist Activism in Interwar Romania (Cornell University Press, 2015) is an in-depth study of the Legion of the Archangel Michae...
Claire McLisky, et al., “Emotions and Christian Missions: Historical Perspectives” (Palgrave McMillan, 2015)
28 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Published by Palgrave in 2015, Emotions and Christian Missions: Historical Perspectives brings together scholars from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, ...
Malick Ghachem’s “The Old Regime and the Haitian Revolution” (Cambridge UP, 2012)
27 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Malick Ghachem‘s recent book The Old Regime and the Haitian Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2012) takes a long look at Haiti’s colonial hi...
James E. Strick, “Wilhelm Reich, Biologist” (Harvard UP, 2015)
06 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
“Life must have a father and mother…Science! I’m going to plant a bomb under its ass!” The author of the line above – who scrawled it in hi...
Jonathyne Briggs, “Sounds French: Globalization, Cultural Communities, and Pop Music, 1958-1980” (Oxford UP, 2015)
30 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
“Pop pop pop pop musik” -M Jonathyne Briggs‘ new book, Sounds French: Globalization, Cultural Communities, and Pop Music, 1958-1980(Oxford Univ...
Tom Junes, “Student Politics in Communist Poland: Generations of Consent and Dissent” (Lexington, 2015)
26 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In the conventional narratives of Communist Poland, and Eastern Europe more generally, student activism tends to get short shrift. While the role of s...
Kimberly Arkin, “Rhinestones, Religion, and the Republic: Fashioning Jewishness in France” (Stanford UP, 2013)
24 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In Fictions of Conversion: Jews, Christians, and Cultures of Change in Early Modern England (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), Jeffrey S. Shoul...
Richard C. Keller, “Fatal Isolation: The Devastating Paris Heat Wave of 2003” (University of Chicago Press, 2015)
23 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In August 2003, a heat wave in France killed close to 15,000 people, the majority of whom were over 75. Prominent among the dead were a group of victi...
Shelly Cline, “Women at Work: The SS Aufseherin and the Gendered Perpetration of the Holocaust” (Ph. D. Diss, U of Kansas, 2014)
22 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Is it ok–practically and ethically–to feel sympathetic toward the guards of concentration camps? Today’s interview marks the conclusion of my s...
Dana Simmons, “Vital Minimum: Need, Science, and Politics in Modern France” (U of Chicago Press, 2015)
15 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Dana Simmons‘s marvelous and thoughtful new book takes on a question that many of us likely take for granted: “What is a need; what is a want, a d...
John McMillian, “Beatles vs. Stones” (Simon and Schuster, 2013)
14 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
John McMillian‘s Beatles vs. Stones (Simon and Schuster, 2013) presents a compelling composite biography of the two seminal bands of the 1960s, exam...
Terrance J. Finnegan, “A Delicate Affair on the Western Front: America Learns How to Fight a Modern War in the Woevre Trenches” (The History Press, 2015)
14 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In his second book, author Terrance J. Finnegan describes America’s early experience fighting the Germans during World War I. Finnegan’s A Delicat...
David Snowdon, “Writing the Prizefight: Pierce Egan’s Boxiana World” (Peter Lang, 2013)
04 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
When ESPN anchor Stuart Scott passed away from cancer this past January, he was widely hailed for his innovative style, which mixed heavy does of Afri...
Jeffrey S. Shoulson, “Fictions of Conversion: Jews, Christians, and Cultures of Change in Early Modern England” (U of Pennsylvania Press, 2013)
03 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In Fictions of Conversion: Jews, Christians, and Cultures of Change in Early Modern England (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), Jeffrey S. Shoul...
Tabetha Ewing, “Rumor, Diplomacy, and War in Enlightenment Paris” (Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment, 2014)
31 Aug 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Tabetha Ewing‘s Rumor, Diplomacy and War in Enlightenment Paris (Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment, 2014) is all about the on dit, the ...
Kelly J. Whitmer, “The Halle Orphanage as Scientific Community: Observation, Eclecticism, and Pietism in the Early Enlightenment” (U of Chicago Press, 2015)
30 Aug 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Kelly J. Whitmer‘s new book offers a history of science set in the Halle Orphanage, a building that was founded in the middle of the 1690s in the Pr...
Dan Stone, “The Liberation of the Camps: The End of the Holocaust and its Aftermath” (Yale UP, 2015)
25 Aug 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Every year I ask my students to tell me when the Holocaust ended. Most of them are surprised to hear me say that it has not yet. Today’s podcast is...
Christine Desan, “Making Money: Coin, Currency, and the Coming of Capitalism” (Oxford UP, 2015)
25 Aug 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Christine Desan, teaches about the international monetary system, the constitutional law of money, constitutional history, political economy, and lega...