Tag: german politics and society

Berghahn Books at the GSA 2015 Conference!

We are delighted to inform you that we will be attending the annual German Studies Association conference in Washington D.C., on October 1-4, 2015. Please stop by our stand to browse our latest selection of books at discounted prices & pick up some free journal samples. If you are unable to attend, we would like to provide you with a special discount offer. For the next 30 days, receive a 25% discount on all German Studies titles found on our website. At checkout, simply enter the discount code GSA15.

We hope to see you in Washington D.C.!

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Here is a preview of some of our newest releases on display:

GERMANS AGAINST NAZISM
Nonconformity, Opposition and Resistance in the Third Reich: Essays in Honour of Peter Hoffmann
Edited by Francis R. Nicosia and Lawrence D. Stokes†
New and Revised Paperback Edition

Continue reading “Berghahn Books at the GSA 2015 Conference!” →

In History: 71st anniversary of D-Day

“You must prepare the invasion of Europe because we will never win this war unless we bring the war against Hitler on his own land” – Winston Churchill

June 6th will mark the 71st anniversary of The Normandy landings, the day when Western Allies landed in northern France, opening the long-awaited “Second Front” against Nazi Germany. The largest seaborne invasion in history, the operation began the invasion of German-occupied Western Europe, led to the restoration of the French Republic, and contributed to an Allied victory in the war.

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Of related interest, please take a look at some of Berghahn’s recent books on WWII:

 

TO THE BOMB AND BACK
Finnish War Children Tell Their World War II Stories
Edited by Sue Saffle
Foreword by Kai Rosnell Continue reading “In History: 71st anniversary of D-Day” →

In History: Churchill delivers Iron Curtain speech

On March 5th 1946, in one of the most famous orations of the Cold War period, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill condemned the Soviet Union’s policies in Europe and declared, “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.” Churchill’s speech is considered one of the opening volleys announcing the beginning of the Cold War. Read More

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Berghahn presents a selection of relevant Cold War titles:

 

COLD WAR CULTURES
Perspectives on Eastern and Western European Societies
Edited by Annette Vowinckel, Marcus M. Payk, and Thomas Lindenberger

Continue reading “In History: Churchill delivers Iron Curtain speech” →

Author of ‘Jesus Reclaimed’ Earns German Decoration

The President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Joachim Gauck, honoured Rabbi Walter Homolka with the Officers Cross of the Federal Merit Order.

 

On February 27, 2015, the Prime Minister of the State of Brandenburg, Dr. Dietmar Woidke, handed over the insignia in the state chancellery in Potsdam.

 

Woidke thanked Rabbi Homolka for the establishment of the Abraham Geiger  College in 1999 as the first rabbinical school in Continental Europe after the Holocaust.
Homolka’s initiative in 2013 also formed the School of Jewish Theology of the University of Potsdam, Germany’s Jewish Divinity School. Rabbi Homolka is a professor of Modern Jewish Thought there.

 

 

On the day of the honour Germany’s nationwide tabloid BILD voted Homolka “winner of the day.”

 

 

Rabbi Walter Homolka is author of Jewish Identity in Modern Times: Leo Baeck and German Protestantism (1995) and Jesus Reclaimed: Jewish Perspectives on the Nazarene (2015), and co-editor, with Albert Friedlander, of The Gate to Perfection: The Idea of Peace in Jewish Thought (1994). He is the rector of the Abraham Geiger College, Germany’s first rabbinical seminary after the Holocaust, and a professor of Modern Jewish Thought at the School of Jewish Theology of the University of Potsdam in Germany.

 

25th Anniversary of the Fall of the Wall

From 1961 to 1989, the city of Berlin was divided by the most visible sign of the Cold War: a wall more than 140km (87 miles) long. On 9 November 1989, East German authorities announced they would allow free access between east and west Berlin. Crowds of euphoric East Germans crossed and climbed on to the wall, leading to a reunited Germany.

 

Berlin is marking the 25th anniversary of the fall of the wall by “rebuilding” it with glowing white balloons. Some 8,000 illuminated helium balloons will trace a 15km-long section of the wall, snaking around the city, for just one weekend (7 to 9 November). The installation will come to an end on the evening of 9 November, when volunteers will release the balloons and set them free, soaring into the night sky to the strains of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, played by the European Youth Orchestra. The balloons are made out of a biodegradable material so will not harm the environment. For a full story and more information on the event please visit ibtimes.co.uk

 

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Browse Berghahn relevant titles:

 

THE PATH TO THE BERLIN WALL
Critical Stages in the History of Divided Germany
Manfred Wilke
Translated from the German by Sophie Perl

Continue reading “25th Anniversary of the Fall of the Wall” →

In History

June 6th marked the 70th anniversary of The Normandy landings, the day when Western Allies landed in northern France, opening the long-awaited “Second Front” against Nazi Germany. The largest seaborne invasion in history, the operation began the invasion of German-occupied Western Europe, led to the restoration of the French Republic, and contributed to an Allied victory in the war.

 

On related topic, please take a look at some of Berghahn’s WWII books.

 

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EXPERIENCE AND MEMORY
The Second World War in Europe
Edited by Jörg Echternkamp and Stefan Martens

Modern military history, inspired by social and cultural historical approaches, increasingly puts the national histories of the Second World War to the test. New questions and methods are focusing on aspects of war and violence that have long been neglected. What shaped people’s experiences and memories? What differences and what similarities existed in Eastern and Western Europe? How did the political framework influence the individual and the collective interpretations of the war? Finally, what are the benefits of Europeanizing the history of the Second World War? Experts from Belgium, Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, and Russia discuss these and other questions in this comprehensive volume.

 

 

Continue reading “In History” →

A Lived Journey: Tracing ‘The Path to the Berlin Wall’

The Berlin Wall may have been erected in 1961, but the figurative foundation was laid in 1945, as the Soviet Union’s Communist Party and its allies made selections of their areas of influence. In The Path to the Berlin Wall: Critical Stages in the History of Divided Germany, author Manfred Wilke traces the events that led to the eventual construction of the Berliner Mauer. Wilke’s original volume was translated from German into English by Sophie Perl. Following is Perl’s interview with the author about his book.

Continue reading “A Lived Journey: Tracing ‘The Path to the Berlin Wall’” →

Hot Off the Presses – New Journal Releases for March

German Politics and Society
Volume 32, Issue 1
This special issue is titled West Germany’s Cold War Radio: The Crucible of the Transatlantic Century.

Girlhood Studies
Volume 7, Issue 1
This special issue is titled Cultural Studies and the Re-description of Girls in Crisis.

French Politics, Culture & Society
Volume 32, Issue 1
The special issue is titled Representations, History, and Wartime France.

Historical Reflections
Volume 40, Issue 1
The special issue is titled War, Occupation, and Empire in France and Germany.

International Journal of Social Quality
Volume 3, Issue 2
This issue assembles contributions to inquire into the future of the “social” from an interdisciplinary perspective, drawing on sociology, political science, and law.

Learning and Teaching
Volume 6, Issue 3
This special issue is titled The Ethnography of the University, and it is dedicated to William F. Kelleher (1950-2013), inspiring teacher, brilliant thinker, activist scholar and co-founder of the Ethnography of the University initiative.

Projections
Volume 8, Issue 1
This issue ranges across avant-garde cinema, tear-jerking melodramas, the nature of historical trauma, and narratives that assume playful, game-like formats and that may be found in title sequences and trailers.

Regions & Cohesion
Volume 4, Issue 1
This issue opens with an article that furthers our critical analysis of regional social policy. This article is followed by two more that examine North American border politics as well as a Leadership Forum section and a Review Essay.

Social Analysis
Volume 58, Issue 1
The special issue is titled War Magic and Warrior Religion: Sorcery, Cognition, and Embodiment.

Transfers
Volume 4, Issue 1
The articles in this issue examine a variety of topics.

 

Understanding Europe before, after 1945

In Between Yesterday and Tomorrow: German Visions of Europe, 1926-1950, published last month, author Christian Bailey seeks to understand how Germans became such “good Europeans” after 1945. Whereas many histories of European integration tend to largely focus on the diplomatic goings-on between elites, this book focuses on how support for a united Europe was cultivated in civil society. Below, the author and his colleague Benno Gammerl share a dialogue about Bailey’s recent volume.

 

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Benno Gammerl: Your book convincingly challenges what one could call the negative founding myth of post-1945 European integration. According to this well-established narrative the European Union ultimately resulted from the wish to once and for all prevent falling back into the perils of fascism and total war. You highlight earlier visions of Europe instead that date back to the interwar period and that have at times commanded much wider popular support than the let-us-avoid-our-earlier-mistakes-rhetoric. Which positive aims and motivations sustained these European projects?

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Key to Transformation is Understanding the ‘Fatherland’

The parallels between the political environment of the “Arab Spring” countries and Cold War Germany can be striking, according to Alexander Clarkson, author of Fragmented Fatherland: Immigration and Cold War Conflict in the Federal Republic of Germany, 1945-1980. In these cases, when diaspora communities returned to their countries of origin, there was an energy for activism and a flurry of political activity. Following, Clarkson notes that taking a page from West German history could prove useful in modern Libyan, Syrian and Tunisian politics.

 

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In the chaotic days after the Ghadaffi regime lost control of the city of Benghazi in February 2011, hundreds of exiled Libyans returned to the liberated parts of their country to help play a role in the transformation of a state that had been under authoritarian rule for more than forty years.

Continue reading “Key to Transformation is Understanding the ‘Fatherland’” →