International Day of Action for Women’s Health

May 28 is the International Day of Action for Women’s Health. For over 30 years, women’s rights advocates and allies in the sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) movement worldwide have commemorated this day in diverse ways. Visit the campaign’s website for more information and ways to participate. At a time when women’s human […]

Meet the Author: Gaëlle Fisher

Dr. Gaëlle Fisher’s recent monograph, Resettlers and Survivors: Bukovina and the Politics of Belonging in West Germany and Israel, 1945–1989, explores some of the more complex reverberations of World War II. It is the third volume in Berghahn’s growing Worlds of Memory series, published in collaboration with the Memory Studies Association. Located on the border […]

A place for sexually variant and gender non-conforming America

On May 17th 1990, the World Health Organization decided to declassify homosexuality as a mental disorder. 14 years later, the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia was established to expose the relentless violence and discrimination experienced by lesbian, gay, bisexuals, transgender, intersex people and all other people with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities or […]

An Interview with Courtney Work

Courtney Work is Assistant Professor in the Department of Ethnology, National Chengchi University (Taiwan). She studied at Cornell University, and has published multiple papers on the intersections of religion, traditional practices, and the politics of land, global development, and climate change. She is the author of the forthcoming title Tides of Empire: Religion, Development, and Environment […]

Marcel Mauss, a gift to the social sciences

Marcel Mauss (May 10, 1872—Feb. 10, 1950), celebrated author of The Gift and nephew of Émile Durkheim, was a French sociologist and anthropologist whose contributions include a highly original comparative study of the relation between forms of exchange and social structure. His views on the theory and method of ethnology are thought to have influenced […]

In commemoration of the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe

Today marks the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, commemorating the conclusion of World War II. On May 8, 1945, the Allies formally accepted Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender, marking the end of the war on the European continent. In the spirit of this day, browse our new and featured titles on the history of […]

Freed from Fear and Sadness: The New Germany

Michael Meng and Adam R. Seipp The writing of German history since 1945 has often, if not excessively, been shaped by critical and negative attitudes; or, as Baruch Spinoza would put it, by excessive fear and sadness in the face of human suffering. Ruination, mourning, absence, destruction, and failure are the leitmotifs of postwar German historiography. Amid […]

Building Bridges and Scaling Spires: A Brief History of Berghahn Books

Introducing the new Berghahn eBooks Library

We are pleased to announce an expanding list of eBooks available for download directly via our site. Right now we have nearly 1000 titles online. You can use the new eBooks browse filter to view eBooks by subject - for example:

All eBooks purchased through our site can be downloaded to your preferred eBook reader and are also stored in your personalized login area at my.berghahnbooks.com for easy access.

See the FAQ page for more details.

New in Paperback

The Man Who Invented Aztec Crystal Skulls

The Adventures of Eugène Boban

Jane MacLaren Walsh and Brett Topping

“This is a most satisfying biography/social history; it is scholarship at its most entrancing and enlightening. It should be read and reread.” • Fortean Times

New in Paperback

Burgundy

The Nature of Sociology

Marcel Mauss

Having taken over the leadership of the French school of sociology after the death of his uncle, Emile Durkheim, in 1917, Mauss, celebrated author of The Gift, re-launched the flagship journal, the Année sociologique. Here are two of Mauss's most significant statements on the social sciences. The first, written with Fauconnet, outlines the methodological orientations of the school. The second examines the internal organization of sociology as a division of intellectual labor. The essays are of interest to anthropologists as well as sociologists for Mauss, like Durkheim, did not distinguish in detail the two disciplines.

New in Paperback

Shakespeare and His Biographical Afterlives

Edited by Paul Franssen and Paul Edmondson

New Shakespeare biographies are published every year, though very little new documentary evidence has come to light. Inevitably speculative, these biographies straddle the line between fact and fiction. Shakespeare and His Biographical Afterlives explores the relationship between fiction and non-fiction within Shakespeare’s biography, across a range of subjects including feminism, class politics, wartime propaganda, children’s fiction, and religion, expanding beyond the Anglophone world to include countries such as Germany and Spain, from the seventeenth century to present day.

Featured Title

A Dramatic Reinvention

German Television and Moral Renewal after National Socialism, 1956–1970

Stewart Anderson

“This engagingly written book presents an original take on the familiar topic of postwar Germany’s ‘coming to terms with the past,’ with a strong emphasis on television as a significant agent of change” • Paul Moore, University of Leicester

Featured Title

Selfishness and Selflessness

New Approaches to Understanding Morality

Edited by Linda L. Layne

“This is a fascinating and timely collection that throws a much-needed light on the idea and practice of selfishness and selflessness. In so doing, it follows the moral turn in the humanities and the social sciences to its logical conclusion: the writing of a social history and an ethnography of moralities.” • Mark Roodhouse, University of York

Featured Title

Revisiting Austria

Tourism, Space, and National Identity, 1945 to the Present

Gundolf Graml

“Revisiting Austria is one of the best works that I have read on the issue of coming to terms with the Nazi past—in this case, Austria’s difficulty in confronting it. The author’s suggestions that this legacy is less repressed than disruptive is a significant contribution.” • Shelley Baranowski, University of Akron

Featured Series

Series:

Studies in Linguistic Anthropology

“I have no doubt that this fine, timely monograph will inform and delight professors and students, cognitive scientist, writers and language enthusiasts alike.” • Esther Pascual, Zheijang University

Mixed Harvest

Stories from the Human Past

Rob Swigart

In unforgettable stories of the human journey, a combination of storytelling and dialogue underscore an excavation into the deep past of human development and its consequences. Through a first encounter between a Neanderthal woman and the Modern Human she called Traveler, to the emergence and destruction of the world’s first cities, Mixed Harvest tells the tale of the Sedentary Divide, the most significant event since modern humans emerged. Rob Swigart’s latest work humanizes the rapid transition to agriculture and pastoralism with a grounding in the archaeological record.

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Ritual Retellings

Luangan Healing Performances through Practice

Isabell Herrmans

Belian is an exceptionally lively tradition of shamanistic curing rituals performed by the Luangans, a politically marginalized population of Indonesian Borneo. This volume explores the significance of these rituals in practice and asks what belian rituals do — socially, politically, and existentially — for particular people in particular circumstances...

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