Category: New Book Releases

Today In History

Born on July 30, 1863, Henry Ford was an American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production. Although Ford did not invent the automobile or the assembly line, he developed and manufactured the models of automobiles that converted its use from an expensive curiosity into a practical transport that middle class Americans could afford. His global vision resulted in many technical and business innovations which greatly impacted the context of the twentieth century.

 

“Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.” – Henry Ford

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Berghahn is happy to present some relevant titles in the area of transportation and industrial development:

 

forthcoming!

ATLANTIC AUTOMOBILISM
The Emergence and Persistence of the Car, 1895-1940
Gijs Mom

Volume 1, Explorations in Mobility Series

Continue reading “Today In History” →

Giving a Voice: Sharing Work of the Late Willem Assies

Renowned Dutch anthropologist Willem Assies’ lifework was a study of Latin American politics. Up to his unexpected death in 2010, Assies had made strides in bringing awareness to the situations of the downtrodden, those considered “voiceless.” In Dignity for the Voiceless: Willem Assies’s Anthropological Work in Context, editors Ton Salman, Salvador Marti i Puig, and Gemma van der Haar have given the political anthropologist his own voice once again. Following, the editors provide further insight into their recently published volume.

 

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In 2010, Willem Assies, an astute and prolific Latin Americanist and political anthropologist, died unexpectedly, at the age of 55. The book launched today brings together some of his finest writing. Assies would always gave central stage to the collective and multi-layered actor and not the system — but he would constantly do so within the context of restrictions, pressures, conditioning factors and contradictions, to provide the actor with a real setting of operation.

Continue reading “Giving a Voice: Sharing Work of the Late Willem Assies” →

A Swiss Interpretation of the American Park

The Swiss National Park is a re-figuring of the American National Park, but with an emphasis on science. This idea of a scientific park is the focus of Patrick Kupper’s Creating Wilderness: A Transnational History of the Swiss National Park, published this month. Below, read an excerpt from the author’s Turku Book Prize-winning book.

 

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Today’s national parks differ vastly around the globe, not only in appearance but also in purpose: they shall protect biodiversity, landscape, or wilderness and serve for tourism, edification, or research. The term “national park” provides a common denominator for all this diversity, yet the denominator itself is indistinct. How shall one cope with this irritating complexity?

 

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The Wounds of our Warriors

Just because one cannot see wounds does not mean they are not there. Pamela Moss and Michael J. Prince analyze war-derived psychological trauma in their co-authored volume, Weary Warriors: Power, Knowledge, and the Invisible Wounds of Soldiers. Following, the authors share their personal backgrounds and further insight into their volume.

 

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How were you drawn to the topic of invisible wounds of combatants?

 

Michael J. Prince: In a personal way, my interest in the subject of weary warriors comes from being the son of a Second World War veteran. My father served in the Royal Canadian Air Force overseas as flying officer, wireless operator and air gunner, so I grew up in a family in which these topics were, at times, discussed. In a professional way, my work on developments in welfare states highlighted the significant place of wars, soldiers, and veterans in the struggles around the formation of social programs.

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Simulated Shelves: Browse July’s New Books

We are delighted to present a selection of our newly published, and soon to be published, July titles from our core subjects of Anthropology, Cultural Studies, Film Studies, History and Medical Anthropology.

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AMERICANS IN TUSCANY
Charity, Compassion, and Belonging
Catherine Trundle

 

Since the time of the Grand Tour, the Italian region of Tuscany has sustained a highly visible American and Anglo migrant community. Today American women continue to migrate there, many in order to marry Italian men. Confronted with experiences of social exclusion, unfamiliar family relations, and new cultural terrain, many women struggle to build local lives. Continue reading “Simulated Shelves: Browse July’s New Books” →

Excerpt Examines ‘Brazil’

Matthew Campora’s newly published Subjective Realist Cinema focuses in on “fragmented narratives and multiple realities” in films from Mulholland Drive to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Following is an excerpt from the volume, which turns its gaze to Brazil. This is the second entry from the author, the first of which can be read here.

 

[N. Katherine] Hayles and [Nicholas] Gessler explore what they call “slipstream” fiction, defined as “works that occupy a borderland between mainstream and science fiction because they achieve a science-fictional feeling without the usual defamiliarization devices” (482).

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Connecting Germany and Asia: A History

The relationship between the people of Germany and Asia strengthened in the second half of the twentieth century, resulting in the burgeoning of the academic field of Asian German studies in recent years. Beyond Alterity: German Encounters with Modern East Asia is a collection of this scholarship. Following, editors Qinna Shen and Martin Rosenstock discuss their love of subject, the collection and how the field will grow in the future.

 

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What drew you to study the relationship between Germany and Asia? What inspired your love of your subject? When?

 

Qinna Shen: I’m a Chinese Germanist. I started to learn German in Beijing, then attended Heidelberg University before coming to the States for my doctoral degree.

Continue reading “Connecting Germany and Asia: A History” →

Today In History

 

Statehood Day is a holiday that takes place on June 25th in Slovenia & Croatia to commemorate both countries’ declaration of independence from Yugoslavia in 1991.

On related subjects from Berghahn Central & Eastern Europe List:

 

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STRANGERS EITHER WAY
The Lives of Croatian Refugees in their New Home
Jasna Čapo Žmegač
Translated by Nina H. Antoljak and Mateusz M. Stanojević

 

Croatia gained the world’s attention during the break-up of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. In this context its image has been overshadowed by visions of ethnic conflict and cleansing, war crimes, virulent nationalism, and occasionally even emergent regionalism. Instead of the norm, this book offers a diverse insight into Croatia in the 1990s by dealing with one of the consequences of the war: the more or less forcible migration of Croats from Serbia and their settlement in Croatia, their “ethnic homeland.” This important study shows that at a time in which Croatia was perceived as a homogenized nation-in-the-making, there were tensions and ruptures within Croatian society caused by newly arrived refugees and displaced persons from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Refugees who, in spite of their common ethnicity with the homeland population, were treated as foreigners; indeed, as unwanted aliens. Continue reading “Today In History” →

Looking at Tourism through Anthropology’s Lens

Just in time for summer vacation, Tourism Imaginaries: Anthropological Approaches will soon be available for purchase. This collection features a diverse group of scholars who dive deeper into the idea of “tourist” around the world, from Cambodia to Belize to the Netherlands. Following, editors Noel Salazar and Nelson H. H. Graburn give a glimpse into their work with the volume, their histories with the topic, and where they themselves like to “play tourist.”

 

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What drew you to study the seductive draw of tourism?

 

Salazar: It may sound odd, but I became interested in tourism (as an object of study) while working for an NGO specialized in aiding refugees. At the end of the 1990s, the organization sent me on a mission to a remote refugee camp in northern Uganda, on the border with Sudan.

Continue reading “Looking at Tourism through Anthropology’s Lens” →

Women in History

Eighty six years ago on June 18, 1928, Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic as a passenger aboard a Fokker tri-motor aircraft that was piloted by Wilmer Stultz and Louis Gordon. Just four years later, in 1932 Amelia Earhart was the first woman to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean. She completed her 2,026 mile journey in under 15 hours after departing from Harbour Grace, Newfoundland.

Forty five years later on same date, June 18, 1983, Sally Ride became the first American woman to fly to space as a crew member on space shuttle Challenger for STS-7.

To celebrate women in history we invite you to browse through some of our Gender Studies titles:

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GENDER HISTORY IN A TRANSNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
Networks, Biographies, Gender Orders
Edited by Oliver Janz and Daniel Schönpflug Continue reading “Women in History” →