Tag: history

Fall of the Berlin Wall, 9 November 1989

35th anniversary

This year marks the 35th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall (9 November 1989)!

To celebrate the Fall of the Berlin Wall, we want to spotlight our Books Series on German Studies. These series span further than only our most recent publications, and include a number of Open Access books, entirely free to read! These blog will be looking at…

Last month, we created a collection of our most recent German Studies titles for German Unity Day, which you can read here.

Lastly, we would like to highlight that our website allow you to Browse by Area: Germany here.

Berghahn Books Series on German Studies

Studies in German History

General Editors: Simone Lässig, Director of the German Historical Institute, Washington,
with the assistance of Patricia C. Sutcliffe, Editor, German Historical Institute.

Published in Association with the German Historical Institute, Washington

To be published March 2025
Volume 30
Open Access
Volume 29
Open Access
Volume 28
Open Access
Volume 27
Volume 26
Volume 25
Open Access
Volume 24
Volume 23

Perspectives on the History of German Jews

The volumes in this series provide concise introductions to different fields of German-Jewish history with a focus on the topics of politics, society, gender and religion across the last two centuries. Reflecting the latest research developments, these titles are not only valuable resources for scholars but are also accessible to a wider audience. The authors, all experts of German-Jewish history and mostly working at German universities, focus on socio-historical perspectives, including questions of social and cultural history.

The series was first published in German by Schoeningh, now an imprint of Brill. It was edited by Stefanie Schüler-Springorum and Rainer Liedtke on behalf of the Wissenschaftliche Arbeitsgemeinschaft (Academic Working Group) of the Leo Baeck Institute in Germany. The volumes have all been updated for publication in English.

Volume 3
Volume 2
Volume 1

Vermont Studies on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust

Editorial Committee: Jonathan D. Huener, University of Vermont, Susanna Schrafstetter, University of Vermont, and Alan E. Steinweis, University of Vermont

The University of Vermont has been an important venue for research on the Holocaust since Raul Hilberg began his work there in 1956. These volumes reflect the scholarly activity of UVM’s Miller Center for Holocaust Studies. They combine original research with interpretive synthesis, and address research questions of interdisciplinary and international interest.

Volume 9
Volume 8
Volume 7
Volume 6

New German Historical Perspectives

Series Editor: Paul Betts (Executive Editor), St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford

Established in 1987 this special St. Antony’s series showcases pioneering new work by leading German historians on a range of topics concerning the history of modern Germany, Europe, and the wider world. Publications address pressing problems of political, economic, social, and intellectual history informed by contemporary debates about German and European identity, providing fresh conceptual, international, and transnational interpretations of the recent past.

Volume 13
Volume 12
Volume 11
Volume 10

Monographs in German History

The complexities and peculiarities of German history present challenges on various levels, not least on that of historiography. This series offers a platform for historians who, in response to those challenges, produce important and stimulating contributions to the various debates that take place within the discipline.

Volume 38
Volume 37
Volume 36
Volume 35
Volume 34
Volume 33
Volume 32
Volume 31
Open Access

Culture & Society in Germany

Volume 6
Volume 5
Volume 4
Volume 3

Policies and Institutions: Germany, Europe, and Transatlantic Relations

Volume 5
Volume 4
Volume 3
Volume 2

Modern German Studies

A Series of the German Studies Association

This series offers books on modern and contemporary Germany, concentrating on themes in history, political science, literature and German culture. Publications will include works in English and English translations of significant works in other languages.

Volume 6
Volume 5
Volume 4
Volume 3

You might also be interested in…

Last month, we created a collection of our most recent German Studies titles for German Unity Day, which you can read here.

Indigenous Peoples’ Day

Today is Indigenous Peoples’ Day! Berghahn recognizes the significance of indigenous cultures and in the spirit of this day, we have collected some of our relevant titles below.

Enacted Relations

Performing Knowledge in an Australian Indigenous Community

Franca Tamisari

“This is an excellent exploration and exegesis of Yolngu performance in all its varied forms from ceremonial to popular song and dance … This book is a highly satisfying and compelling read as its penetrating argument utilizes a sophisticated interweaving of theory and ethnography to demonstrate how learning ‘The Law’ is a foundational sense of being in and part of the boneland, (ngaraka), knowing the stories, being able to relate appropriately to kin and country and having the skills, knowledge, rights and ability to perform the songs and dances.” • Fiona Magowan, Queen’s University Belfast.

Volume 15, ASAO Studies in Pacific Anthropology

Read freely available introduction.

Creation and Creativity in Indigenous Lowland South America

Anthropological Perspectives

Edited by Ernst Halbmayer and Anne Goletz

“This volume is an outstanding piece of scholarship, which, from the standpoint of the processes of creation and creativity, accomplishes, in a good measure, a critique and reassessment of current styles on analyzing Amazonian sociality.” • Juan Alvaro Echeverri, Universidad Nacional de Colombia

Read freely available introduction.

Open Access

Indigenous Resurgence

Decolonialization and Movements for Environmental Justice

Edited by Jaskiran Dhillon

“Although the essays were already published a while ago, they have not lost any of their relevance, and one can only wish that thanks to the volume being available through Open Access many people will discover this topical publication.” • Amerindian Research

Read freely available introduction, and more with Open Access.

I Dreamed the Animals

Kaniuekutat: The Life of an Innu Hunter

Georg Henriksen

“Through his own life story, Kaniuekutat speaks to many issues of importance facing the Innu in contemporary times, with an eye on tradition and the lessons of the past…A valuable text for students of anthropology, Native studies, and history.”  ·  Choice

Read freely available introduction.

About the Hearth

Perspectives on the Home, Hearth and Household in the Circumpolar North

Edited by David G. Anderson, Robert P. Wishart, and Virginie Vaté

“Each chapter offers something interesting for the reader…One can list bright and sometimes provocative ideas put forth by each contributor…The main advantage of this book is the ability to spark interest among the most diverse groups of specialists in the field of indigenous cultures.” · Social Anthropology/Anthropologie sociale

Nordic Paths to Modernity

Edited by Jóhann Páll Árnason and Björn Wittrock

“…the articles, taken together, provide an exciting picture of the diversity that is unified in the Nordic region… [and] a significant contribution to the discussion of multiple modernities.”  ·  Scandinavian-Canadian Studies/Études scandinaves au Canada

Read freely available introduction.

Animism in Rainforest and Tundra

Personhood, Animals, Plants and Things in Contemporary Amazonia and Siberia

Edited by Marc Brightman, Vanessa Elisa Grotti, and Olga Ulturgasheva

“This thoughtful volume is extraordinarily rich and will prompt all of us interested in these questions to think about them from fresh perspectives.” • Anthropological Forum

Read freely available introduction.

The 1926/27 Soviet Polar Census Expeditions

Edited by David G. Anderson

“The contributors have made excellent use of recently opened archives and interviews with descendants of the people surveyed to provide a uniquely human portrait of this seminal project. While the chapters focus most thoroughly on the Nenets, Khanty, and Yakut, the analysis is of broader relevance to an understanding of Siberian peoples during the first stages of the sovietization of the Far North. This book will prove of unique value to historians of the Soviet period as well as to cultural anthropologists specializing in polar peoples. Highly recommended.” • Choice

Indigenous Peoples and Demography

The Complex Relation between Identity and Statistics

Edited by Per Axelsson and Peter Sköld

“This interesting collection looks at changes in population studies and examines indigeneity in contexts as different as Australia and Norway. It is particularly valuable with respect to two broad geographic categories: countries originally settled by British colonists, and states in northern Europe… the study of categorization and enumeration offers valuable insights on how ethnic boundaries are established, and how–inevitably–they are challenged and contested.”  ·  Choice

Read freely available introduction.

Narrating the Future in Siberia

Childhood, Adolescence and Autobiography among the Eveny

Olga Ulturgasheva

“This thought-provoking and highly original work, relevant especially for students of the anthropology of childhood, supplies an important new chapter to native Siberian ethnography. Highly recommended for anyone seriously interested in today’s Siberia, all levels.”  ·  Choice

The New Media Nation

Indigenous Peoples and Global Communication

Valerie Alia

“In sum, New Media Nationoffers scholars of minorities, of digital media and of globalizing indigeneities the opportunity to understand how the practices of producing meanings through discourses of resistance contribute over time to the development and re-invigoration of alternative discourses often thought to have been dissolved by the spread of ‘mass media’. By engaging in micro-analyses of specific cultural discourses and their elaboration in specific emergent media situations, Alia alerts her readers to the importance of the complexity of the local.” • Discourse & Communication

Volume 2, Anthropology of Media

Read freely available introduction.

Hunters in the Barrens

The Naskapi on the Edge of the White Man’s World

Georg Henriksen

“Valuable as an example of the anthropology of development and modernization prevalent in northern Canada at the time, the book transcends this genre in the acuity of its ethnographic analysis and beautifully captures a moment – Henriksen began fieldwork in 1966 – when Mushuau Innu were making the transition to permanent communities… This book is important for Algonquian and circumpolar specialists, as well as for students wishing to understand dynamics of hunting societies in modernity. It has also become significant as a historical record both of the Innu people and of anthropology in northern Canada.”  ·  Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

Read freely available introduction.

Names and Nunavut

Culture and Identity in the Inuit Homeland

Valerie Alia

“…a thought-provoking book. Alia lays out the intricacies of Inuit naming so clearly, describes the Arctic environment so vividly, and conveys such a rich sense of Inuit values, concerns, and humour that readers are likely to hunger for more information and to pose ethnographic and on mastic questions that press forward the horizons of Inuit ethnography. Names and Nunavut is a welcome addition to Arctic ethnography and should be of interest not only to linguists and anthropologists working in the Arctic but to anyone interested in the relationship between onomasty, personhood, and cosmology and to anyone looking for fresh insights to the micropractices of linguistic and onomastic colonialism”  ·  NAMES: A Journal of Onomastics

Read freely available introduction.

Cultivating Arctic Landscapes

Knowing and Managing Animals in the Circumpolar North

Edited by David G. Anderson and Mark Nuttall

“The edited work contains one of the most interesting sets of northern papers to appear in a very long time…each paper is excellent…this book will hopefully provoke considerable thought…This is a work that should be discussed in terms of the particulars of the various papers, but also for the overview it provides.” – Polar Record

German Unity Day

Commemorating German Reunification

German Unity Day is celebrated on October 3rd. Tag der Deutschen Einheit celebrates the 1990 reunification of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic with ceremonial acts and the citizens’ festival Bürgerfest.

In the spirit of this day, we have compiled some of our German Studies titles below.

You can browse our books by area: Germany here.

Shifting Paradigms in Contemporary German Politics and Policy

Edited by Eric Langenbacher

Germany has undergone more change in the past two years than it has experienced in decades. In the fall of 2021, the Social Democratic Party unexpectedly surged to first place in the Bundestag elections, going on to lead a coalition of SPD, Greens, and Free Democrats that promised to “dare more progress” domestically. Then just two months after the new government was installed, Russia invaded Ukraine. The contributions in this volume investigate the altered state of German politics and predict the trajectory of Europe’s leading power in the transformed geopolitical environment.

Read freely available introduction.

Shaping Tomorrow’s World

A Twentieth-Century History of West German, Cold War, and Global Futures Studies

Elke Seefried

“This new book marks a milestone in the still young field that investigates the history of the future.” • Historische Zeitschrift

Read freely available introduction.

Intimate Histories

African Americans and Germany since 1933

Nadja Klopprogge

Intimate Histories focuses on intimate relations as sites of shared pasts connecting African American and German history in the years between 1933 and 1990. By tracing topics that include anti-miscegenation laws, forced sterilization, casual sexual encounters, marriage, and friendships, Intimate Histories broadens our understanding of African American–German relations during the so-called “century of extremes.”

Volume 12, Explorations in Culture and International History

Read freely available introduction.

Don’t Need No Thought Control

Western Culture in East Germany and the Fall of the Berlin Wall

Gerd Horten

“Horten has written a fascinating, very readable, analytically sharp monograph, based on an impressive amount of primary and secondary sources… The average East German, not the few dissidents or the few fanatics on top, are the real heroes of his narrative.” • H-Soz-Kult

Read freely available introduction.

Children are Everywhere

Conspicuous Reproduction and Childlessness in Reunified Berlin

Meghana Joshi

“There are some unique and important discussions [in this book] that I have not seen elaborated elsewhere and certainly not brought together in one place.” • Heide Castañeda, University of South Florida

Volume 53, Fertility, Reproduction and Sexuality: Social and Cultural Perspectives

Read freely available introduction.

German Division as Shared Experience
Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Postwar Everyday
Edited by Erica Carter, Jan Palmowski, and Katrin Schreiter

“All told, this volume successfully brings together its fascinating chapters into a powerful interdisciplinary analysis. German Division as Shared Experience is a significant achievement that will serve as a bedrock for future research on the ‘entanglement’ of the Cold War Germanies. The editors and contributors have produced a genuinely pathbreaking book.” • The Journal of Modern History

Read freely available introduction.

Friendship without Borders

Women’s Stories of Power, Politics, and Everyday Life across East and West Germany

Phil Leask

“Beginning and advanced students can learn much from this highly readable book. Its bottom-up view of postwar German history is revealing even to the expert. Its subtle and perceptive interpretations of attitudes about gender and womanhood, Heimat and the German past, politics and everyday life are enlightening. It provokes one to think about friendship, the psychology of groups, and ageing in new and refreshing ways. A most worthwhile read.” • German History

Read freely available introduction.

The Politics of Personal Information

Surveillance, Privacy, and Power in West Germany

Larry Frohman

“This is an important book crafted by a master of intellectual history. It will be widely consumed and discussed among German historians and a wide range of intellectuals interested in the origins of the modern surveillance state. Essential.” • Choice

Read freely available introduction.

Inside Party Headquarters

Organizational Culture and Practice of Rule in the Socialist Unity Party of Germany

Rüdiger Bergien

Everyday life in the East German Socialist Unity Party revolved heavily around maintaining the “party line” in all areas of society, whether through direct authority or corruption. Spanning a long period of the GDR’s history, from 1946 through 1989, Rüdiger Bergien presents the first study that examines the complexities of the central party’s communist apparatus. He focuses on their role as ideological watchdogs, as they fostered an underbelly and “inner life” for their employees to integrate the party’s pillars throughout East German society. Inside Party Headquarters reviews not only the party’s modes power and state interaction, but also the processes of negotiation and disputation preceding formal Politburo decisions, advancing the available detail and discourse surrounding this formative and volatile stretch of German history.

Read freely available introduction.

France and the German Question, 1945–1990

Edited by Frédéric Bozo and Christian Wenkel

“These impressively researched chapters persuasively demonstrate that France was a leader in addressing postwar concerns with West Germany. Furthermore, the authors argue that France sought a constructive relationship with West Germany as early as 1945. From the economic rebuilding of the 1950s through de Gaulle’s desire to transform the continent and negotiations with the Eastern bloc following Ostpolitik to Mitterand’s support for German reunification within a European framework, this collection makes clear that the fates of the two countries were often inextricably linked. Highly Recommended.” • Choice

Read freely available introduction.

The Guardians of Concepts

Political Languages of Conservatism in Britain and West Germany, 1945-1980

Martina Steber

Since 1945, what ‘conservative’ means has troubled intellectuals, politicians and parties in the United Kingdom and West Germany. In Britain conservatism was an accepted term of the political vocabulary, denoting a particular tradition of political thought and practice. In West Germany, by contrast, conservatism was a difficult concept for the young democracy to swallow. It carried a heavy antiliberal and antidemocratic burden and led people to question whether there was a place for conservatism within democratic culture after all.

The Guardians of Concepts scrutinizes the debates about conservatism in the UK and the Federal Republic of Germany from the late 1940s to the early 1980s. Informed by historical semantics, it conceives of conservatism as a flexible linguistic structure, and shows the importance of language for the self-understanding of many conservatives, who not by chance, have regarded themselves as the guardians of concepts. The intense national and transnational debates about the meaning of conservatism had far-reaching consequences and continue to influence politics today.

Volume 9, Studies in British and Imperial History

Read freely available introduction.

End Game

The 1989 Revolution in East Germany

Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk

“This story is so far little known and not a big topic of the German public. Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk closes our knowledge gaps in an impressive way” • Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Volume 26, Studies in German History

Read freely available introduction.

Open Access

Comrades in Arms

Military Masculinities in East German Culture

Tom Smith

“This book is important because it opens avenues of research into queerness in East Germany’s National People’s Army (NVA)… Smith’s book is commendable for breaking barriers in masculinity studies and offering a refreshing second look at the NVA… Highly Recommended. All readers.” • Choice

Read freely available introduction.

Gendering Post-1945 German History

Entanglements

Edited by Karen Hagemann, Donna Harsch, and Friederike Brühöfener

“This volume achieves a tremendous feat in its breadth, though its forte lies in its diverse contexts, uses, and understandings of gender—including its co-constituency with race and sexuality… This collection offers a much-needed re-narrativization of a divided Germany that centers gender, race, and sex in the shaping of citizenry during postwar nation-making.” • Feminist German Studies

Read freely available introduction.

Rethinking Social Movements after ’68

Selves and Solidarities in West Germany and Beyond

Edited by Belinda Davis, Friederike Brühöfener, and Stephen Milder

“A volume on social movements in the 1970s and 1980s is very welcome and timely. Now that there exists a solid corpus of monographs on the Long Sixties, serious research on the 1970s is slowly beginning to see the light of day – less so on the 1980s. Thus, Rethinking Social Movements after ’68 will begin to fill a growing need.” • Gerd-Rainer Horn, Sciences Po

Volume 31, Protest, Culture & Society

Read freely available introduction.

A History Shared and Divided

East and West Germany since the 1970s

Frank Bösch

“…the range and rigour make this handbook a useful point of entry for specialists and students alike interested in understanding the transformation of Germany in the last half century.” • European History Quarterly

Read freely available introduction.

The History of the Stasi

East Germany’s Secret Police, 1945-1990

Jens Gieseke

“Gieseke treats… many issues with careful and lucid analysis, confining himself to the known facts. He rejects the hyperbolic in favor of more mundane explanations. The truth is bad enough… Essential.” • Choice

Read freely available introduction.

The Path to the Berlin Wall

Critical Stages in the History of Divided Germany

Manfred Wilke

“…constitutes a superlative model of combining biography with the study of nationalism. The latter constitutes the most novel contribution of this well-researched, straightforward historical depiction of Kohl’s ideology and its impact upon the continuing development of German national identity… Recommended” · Choice

Berghahn Journals

GERMAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY

Editor: Jeffrey J. Anderson, Georgetown University

German Politics and Society is a joint publication of the BMW Center for German and European Studies (of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University) and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). These centers are represented by their directors on the journal’s Editorial Committee.

German Politics and Society is a peer-reviewed journal published and distributed by Berghahn Journals. It is the only American publication that explores issues in modern Germany from the combined perspectives of the social sciences, history, and cultural studies.

AUTHOR ARTICLE: Researching Remembrance

Alex Tomić discusses her new book, The Legacy of Serbia’s Great War: Politics and Remembrance, which examines the centenary events memorializing the First World War with the retreat at its core and provides a persuasive account of the ways in which the remembrance of Serbian history has been manipulated for political purposes. 

I started researching the remembrance of the First World War in Serbia in the run up to the centenary, just over ten years ago. Apart from reading, classifying and analysing, I also needed to visit some of the sites of remembrance, attend ceremonies, museum openings, concerts… whatever I was able to manage while working full-time in the Hague. My husband (was) volunteered as a travelling companion so for the next few years our holidays were spent visiting First World War monuments, usually located at military cemeteries. Apart from places in Serbia and Greece, we also visited memorial sites in France, Belgium, Slovenia, Italy and the Netherlands (although the Netherlands was neutral, there is a twist in Chapter 8 …). Some trips stand out.

Continue reading “AUTHOR ARTICLE: Researching Remembrance” →

Women’s Equality Day

Women’s Equality Day is celebrated each year on August 26th to commemorate the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, granting women the right to vote.

Today the observance of Women’s Equality Day has grown to mean much more than just sharing the right to the vote, but also calls attention to women’s continuing efforts toward full equality. Numerous International organisations continue to work to provide women across the globe with equal opportunities to education and employment, pushing against suppression and violence towards women and against the discrimination and stereotyping which still occur in every society. For more information on the history and for further resources please visit www.nwhp.org

Use code 19TH to explore a special issue of Aspasia devoted to women’s and gender history. Redemption details.

Continue reading “Women’s Equality Day” →

Author Article: Servants of Culture: Paternalism, Policing, and Identity Politics in Vienna, 1700-1914

Ambika Natarajan discusses her new book, Servants of Culture: Paternalism, Policing, and Identity Politics in Vienna, 1700-1914, which provides an account of Habsburg servant law since the eighteenth century and uncovers the paternalistic and maternalistic assumptions and anxieties which turned the interest of socio-political players in improving poor living and working conditions into practices that created restrictive gender and class hierarchies.

Continue reading “Author Article: Servants of Culture: Paternalism, Policing, and Identity Politics in Vienna, 1700-1914” →

Berghahn Books and the German Historical Institute Washington Announce New Open Access Agreement

April 26, 2023, Brooklyn, New York, and Washington, D.C.—The German Historical Institute Washington (GHI) and Berghahn Books are pleased to announce that we have reached an agreement to transition the Studies in German History series to Open Access.

Continue reading “Berghahn Books and the German Historical Institute Washington Announce New Open Access Agreement” →

Celebrating the Life and Career of Reinhart Koselleck

Reinhart Koselleck (23 April 1923 – 3 February 2006), a German historian widely considered one of the most influential European theorists of history and historiography in the twentieth century.

Constantly probing and transgressing the boundaries of mainstream historical writing, he created numerous innovative approaches and exposed himself to a large range of impulses from other academic disciplines. His writings responded to the work of German philosophers such as Martin Heidegger and Hans Georg Gadamer and of political thinkers such as Carl Schmitt. Koselleck’s thought also responded and added to the work of internationally renowned scholars such as Hayden White, Michel Foucault, and Quentin Skinner.

We are proud to offer a selection of texts and FREE access to Contributions to the History of Concepts journal concerning Koselleck’s essential contributions to the fields. Scroll down for details.

Continue reading “Celebrating the Life and Career of Reinhart Koselleck” →

Celebrating International Day for Monuments & Sites, also known as World Heritage Day!

Celebrated yearly on April 18th, the International Day for Monuments and Sites, also known as World Heritage Day, encourages local communities and individuals throughout the world to consider the importance of cultural heritage to their lives and to promote awareness of its diversity and vulnerability and the efforts required to protect and conserve it. For information on this year’s theme please visit ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites) webpage www.icomos.org.

In joining the celebration, Berghahn is excited to present relevant Heritage Studies titles and Journals, as well as highlight our Explorations in Heritage Studies series.

Continue reading “Celebrating International Day for Monuments & Sites, also known as World Heritage Day!” →