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…
General Editors: Simone Lässig, Director of the German Historical Institute, Washington, with the assistance of Patricia C. Sutcliffe, Editor, German Historical Institute.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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Last month, we created a collection of our most recent German Studies titles for German Unity Day, which you can read here.
The 30th of September is International Translation Day, celebrated on the same day as the feast of St. Jerome, who is considered the patron saint of translators. The United Nations established International Translation Day in 2017 “to pay tribute to the work of language professionals, which plays an important role in bringing nations together, facilitating dialogue, understanding and cooperation, contributing to development and strengthening world peace and security”. Read more from the UN page here.
In the spirit of this day, we have compiled some of our translated titles from 2024 below, with freely available introductions, and linked some of our 2023 titles at the bottom of this page.
A Different Migration History of London’s East End, 1780-1850
Ole Münch
Translated by Angela Davies and Jozef van der Voort from German
In the early Victorian age, the streets of East London were home to migrants from different regions and religions. In the midst of this area lay the famous Rag Fair street market, sustained by trade routes stretching across the globe. The market’s history demonstrates that it was not only a place of economic exchange, but also an intercultural contact zone where Jewish and Irish migrants mingled, entered client relationships and forged political alliances. Reconstructing the varied (partly multiethnic) group-building processes operating in the market, Rag Fair draws on approaches across migration history, economic history, economic anthropology and the sociology of political movements to uncover the social mechanisms at work in the old clothing trade.
Rodeo, cattle ranching, and bullfighting converge in the arenas of race, gender, and ethics in Reversible America. In Southwestern California, these sports manifest in spectacular expressions of transcultural interactions that continue to develop through border crossings. Using an interdisciplinary scope, this unique look into the subculture negotiates the paradoxes and connections between the popular American performances, Iberian bullfighting, and Native American hunting methods, along with the relationship between human and non-human beings, and systems of value across borders.
Edited by Enrico Heitzer, Martin Jander, Anetta Kahane, and Patrice G. Poutrus Translated from the German
“It is a combination of the expertise of academics and professional practitioners, enhanced by personal insights, that make this volume unique and especially intriguing.”• Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs
Miriam Rürup, edited by Jake Schneider Translated by Bill Templer from German
Tracing the social history of modern German Jews from the end of the 18th century up to the aftermath of World War II, Miriam Rürup follows their ascent into the middle and upper middle classes through repeated experiences of setbacks but also of self-assertion. In doing so it is explained how Jewish life changed under the auspices of emancipation and what impact these changes had on the demographic and social profile of the Jewish minority. With a focus on the daily interactions between Jews and other Germans when choosing a home, profession, or school, for example, Social History of German Jews shows the contrasting processes of integration and exclusion in a new light.
War, Emotion, and Extreme Violence in Colonial Namibia
Matthias Häussler Translated from the German by Elizabeth Janik
“The author impressively demonstrates that emotions can be the driving force behind cruelty and is able to portray the brutalization of ordinary soldiers, who ultimately also became ‘motor[s] of extermination,’ more clearly than previous studies have done. Fear, bitterness, and frustration in the face of military failures led to violence…Häussler’s work is an innovative, at times brilliant study that deserves a wide readership – hopefully, and thanks to the translation, now also in English-speaking countries.”• Central European History
From Italian Supremacy to Subservience to the Reich (1932-1943)
Monica Fioravanzo
Translated by Ian Mansbridge from Italian
By shedding light on an often-overlooked aspect of Fascism and Nazism, this book examines the ambitious plans for a new European order conceived by Italian intellectuals, historians, geographers, politicians, and even student representative of the Fascist University Groups (GUF). Through expert reconstruction of the debate on this envisaged order’s development, Monica Fioravanzo opens a window into the theoretical arena that shaped relationships between German, Italy and the other Axis nations and provides insight into how the project was anticipated to unite the Fascist regime in Italy and the Nazi Reich.
This concise overview traces the Gender history of German-Jews from the early modern period to the present day and provides a unique perspective on both men and women as historical actors in the German lands. By adopting new perspectives on the German-Jewish experience, Stefanie Schüler-Springorum introduces and examines gender narratives and opportunities across a wide range of individual circumstances and during times of discrimination, persecution and deportation. While being directed against all Jews the effects of Nazi policy had remarkably different results, depending on gender, class, marital status, age and religious affiliation. The picture that emerges here of German Jewry in modern times is consequently more vibrant and nuanced.
Transnational Hispanic Commemorations and Spanish Nationalism
Javier Moreno-Luzón
Translated by Nick Rider from Spanish
Commemorations that shaped major elements of Spanish identity at the beginning of the 20th century are full of centennials and anniversaries that elaborate and renew the Spanish national mythology. In Centennial Fever Javier Moreno-Luzón, one of the most prominent Spanish historians of his generation, studies the milestones that defined transnational dimensions of celebration at the beginning of the 20th century including the Peninsular War, the first Spanish Constitution, the independence of Latin American States, the “discovery” of the Pacific Ocean and the death of Miguel de Cervantes and the publication of Don Quixote of La Mancha. Through these truly global events, a cultural community is created, called “Hispanoamerica” or “La Raza”, on which Spanish nationalism has become dependent.
This Saturday 31st of August, cinemas across the UK will be offering largely discounted tickets in celebration of National Cinema Day, sharing the experience and enjoyment of the big screen with audiences.
In the spirit of this day, we have compiled our latest titles in cinema studies below.
For more content, you can browse our Film & Television subject page here.
The British Glamour Film and the Permissive Society
Benjamin Halligan
“Halligan thrives when exploring a text’s cultural contradictions and the cracks in the philosophies underpinning the work. However, the book’s greatest asset is in taking these films (which rarely appear in most histories of British cinema) seriously.”• Choice
Media Cultures and Knowledge Production in Cold War Europe
Edited by Mariana Ivanova and Juliane Scholz
“With a focus on global scientific culture during the Cold War, this anthology incisively demonstrates how scientific media were never simply transparent tools for research or pedagogy, but also crucial components within powerful geopolitical institutions.”• Benjamin Schultz-Figueroa, Seattle University.
More than 30 years after the collapse of the German Democratic Republic, its cinema continues to attract scholarly attention. Documenting Socialism moves beyond the traditionally analyzed feature film production and places East Germany’s documentary cinema at the center of history behind the Iron Curtain. Covering questions of gender, race and sexuality and the complexities of diversity under the political and cultural environments of socialism, the specialist contributions in this volume cohere into an introductory milestone on documentary film production in the GDR.
Contemporary screen industries such as film and television have become primary sites for visualizing borders, migration, maps, and travel as processes of separation and dislocation, but also connection. Migration, Dislocation and Movement on Screen pulls case studies in film and television industries from throughout Europe, North Africa, and Asia to interrogate the nature of movement via moving images. By combining theoretical, interdisciplinary engagements with empirical research, this volume offers a new way to look at screen media’s representations of our contemporary world’s transnational and cosmopolitan imaginaries.
The Central European Imaginary in the Films of Stanley Kubrick
Edited by Nathan Abrams and Jeremi Szaniawski
“With some fascinating insights into an unusual topic new to Kubrick studies, this wide-ranging collection of essays firmly and persuasively situates Stanley Kubrick’s work in the art and culture of Central Europe.”• Robert Kolker, the University of Maryland, author of A Cinema of Loneliness, co-author of Kubrick: An Odyssey
Wilhelm Thiele between Vienna, Berlin, and Hollywood
Edited by Jan-Christopher Horak and Andréas-Benjamin Seyfert
William Thiele is remembered today as the father of the sound film operetta with seminal classics such as Drei von der Tankstelle (1930). While often considered among the most accomplished directors of Late Weimar cinema, as an Austrian Jew he was vilified during the onset of the Nazi regime in 1933 and fled to the United States where he continued making films until the end of his career in 1960. Enchanted by Cinema closely examines the European musical film pioneer’s work and his cross-cultural perspective across forty years of filmography in Berlin and Hollywood to account for his popularity while discussing issues of ethnicity, exile, comedy, music, gender, and race.
Propaganda played an essential role in influencing the attitudes and policies of German National Socialism on racial purity and euthanasia, but little has been said on the impact of medical hygiene films. Cinematically Transmitted Disease explores these films for the first time, from their inception during the Weimar era and throughout the years to come. In this innovative volume, author Barbara Hales demonstrates how medical films as well as feature films were circulated among the German people to embed and enforce notions of scientific legitimacy for racial superiority and genetically spread “incurable” diseases, creating and maintaining an instrumental fear of degradation in the German national population.
Edges of Noir challenges the notion that noir film nearly vanished after 1958 until its subsequent “neo-noir” revival between 1973 and 1981. The 1960s, regardless of critical neglect, include some of the most provocative films of the post-World War II decades. Often formally disruptive and experimental, films including Shock Corridor (1963), Mirage (1965), The 3rd Voice (1960), and Point Blank (1967) evoke controversial issues of the era, deriving dynamic influences amongst exploitation cinema, sensationalistic American B movies, and the European New Wave movement. Whether the focus is on nuclear destruction, mind control, or surveillance, late noir films, above all else, vividly portray the collective fears from the time.
While histories of Czech cinema often highlight the quality of Czechoslovak New Wave films made in the 1960s, post-socialist Czech cinema receives little attention. Through a methodology of historical reception, Stories between Tears and Laughter explores how attitudes towards post-socialist Czech cinema have shifted but still viewed it as popular cinema. By analysing publicity materials, reviews and articles, Richard Vojvoda offers a new perspective on the notions of cultural value and quality that have been shaping the history of post-socialist Czech cinema.
“This collection provides a comprehensive analysis of Eastern European film culture and ecocinema, integrating them expertly to provide a deep historical and geocultural analysis of variations in ecocinematic representations and the ways these film cultures have been engaging with environmental matters. The contextualization of existing scholarship with the particularities of Eastern European political and cultural history is exciting and innovative.”• Pietari Kaapa, University of Warwick
“This illuminating book offers a powerful synthesizing account of the films of Theo Angelopoulos by framing them within a biographical context. By positioning Angelopoulos’ work within an array of philosophical, cinematic, and art-historical contexts, the author brings us closer to Angelopoulos’ existential, political, philosophical and aesthetic quests.”• Lydia Papadimitriou, Liverpool John Moores University
The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a memorial in Berlin to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust designed by architect Peter Eisenman and engineer Buro Happold
In recognition of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we would like to present a list of new and recent Holocaust and Genocide Studies titles, as well as free access to related journal articles.
According to the United Nations, International Translation Day is “an opportunity to pay tribute to the work of language professionals, which plays an important role in bringing nations together, facilitating dialogue, understanding and cooperation.”
On the third anniversary of the start of the war in Ukraine, in solidarity and in an effort to deepen knowledge in social and cultural history of Ukraine, we are offering free access to these relevant journal articles and book chapters that focus on social and historical issues in Ukraine.
“[A] significant historical document and much-welcomed source for scholars of the military, social, and material history of World War I. It is also a valuable record for everyone interested in the history of war on the territories of present-day Ukraine and the eastern front in general […]”• Harvard Ukrainian Studies
Resettlers and Survivors: Bukovina and the Politics of Belonging in West Germany and Israel, 1945–1989 Gaëlle Fisher
Located on the border of present-day Romania and Ukraine, the historical region of Bukovina was the site of widespread displacement and violence as it passed from Romanian to Soviet hands and back again during World War II. This study focuses on two groups of “Bukovinians”—ethnic Germans and German-speaking Jews—as they navigated dramatically changed political and social circumstances in and after 1945. Through comparisons of the narratives and self-conceptions of these groups, this book gives a nuanced account of how they dealt with the difficult legacies of World War II, while exploring Bukovina’s significance for them as both a geographical location and a “place of memory.”
New Imaginaries: Youthful Reinvention of Ukraine’s Cultural Paradigm Edited and Translated by Marian J. Rubchak
Having been spared the constraints imposed on intellectual discourse by the totalitarian regime of the past, young Ukrainian scholars now engage with many Western ideological theories and practices in an atmosphere of intellectual freedom and uncensored scholarship. Displacing the Soviet legacy of prescribed thought and practices, this volume’s female contributors have infused their work with Western elements, although vestiges of Soviet-style ideas, research methodology, and writing linger. The result is the articulation of a “New Imaginaries” — neither Soviet nor Western — that offers a unique approach to the study of gender by presenting a portrait of Ukrainian society as seen through the eyes of a new generation of feminist scholars.
De-Commemoration: Removing Statues and Renaming Places Edited by Sarah Gensburger and Jenny Wüstenberg
“[A]n inspirational collection of diverse approaches, practices, methods, and perspectives of de-commemoration of forgoing heroes and activities, set in various cultural and geographical contexts. This is an exceedingly rare and truly global contribution.”• Mariusz Czepczyński, University of Gdańsk
In studies of a common European past, there is a significant lack of scholarship on the former Eastern Bloc countries. While understanding the importance of shifting the focus of European memory eastward, contributors to this volume avoid the trap of Eastern European exceptionalism, an assumption that this region’s experiences are too unique to render them comparable to the rest of Europe. They offer a reflection on memory from an Eastern European historical perspective, one that can be measured against, or applied to, historical experience in other parts of Europe. In this way, the authors situate studies on memory in Eastern Europe within the broader debate on European memory.
Commentary on memorials to the Holocaust has been plagued with a sense of “monument fatigue”, a feeling that landscape settings and national spaces provide little opportunity for meaningful engagement between present visitors and past victims. This book examines the Holocaust via three sites of murder by the Nazis: the former concentration camp at Buchenwald, Germany; the mass grave at Babi Yar, Ukraine; and the razed village of Lidice, Czech Republic. Bringing together recent scholarship from cultural memory and cultural geography, the author focuses on the way these violent histories are remembered, allowing these sites to emerge as dynamic transcultural landscapes of encounter in which difficult pasts can be represented and comprehended in the present. This leads to an examination of the role of the environment, or, more particularly, the ways in which the natural environment, co-opted in the process of killing, becomes a medium for remembrance.
Mapping Difference: The Many Faces of Women in Contemporary Ukraine Edited by Marian J. Rubchak
Drawn from various disciplines and a broad spectrum of research interests, these essays reflect on the challenging issues confronting women in Ukraine today. The contributors are an interdisciplinary, transnational group of scholars from gender studies, feminist theory, history, anthropology, sociology, women’s studies, and literature. Among the issues they address are: the impact of migration, education, early socialization of gender roles, the role of the media in perpetuating and shaping negative stereotypes, the gendered nature of language, women and the media, literature by women, and local appropriation of gender and feminist theory. Each author offers a fresh and unique perspective on the current process of survival strategies and postcommunist identity reconstruction among Ukrainian women in their current climate of patriarchalism.
Victory in Europe Day is the day celebrating the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Germany’s unconditional surrender of its armed forces on Tuesday, 8 May 1945, marking defeat of Nazi Germany and the end of Second World War in Europe.
In recognition of the day Berghahn is pleased to offer a selection of our WWII History books, including a selection of Open Access titles. In addition, Berghahn Journals would like to highlight relevant special issues from select history journals.
International Roma Day (8 April) recognizes the history and celebrates the cultures, traditions, and contributions of Gypsy, Roma, and Traveler communities.
The New York Times recently featured an article on the Wannsee Conference, one of the most significant events in the history of The Holocaust. On 20 January 1942, fifteen senior German government officials attended a short meeting in Berlin to discuss the deportation and murder of the Jews of Nazi-occupied Europe. Despite lasting less than two hours, the Wannsee Conference is today understood as a signal episode in the history of the Holocaust, exemplifying the labor division and bureaucratization that made the “Final Solution” possible. Yet while the conference itself has been exhaustively researched, many of its attendees remain relatively obscure. In recognition of the historical 80th anniversary this year, we present an excerpt from The Participants: The Men of the Wannsee Conference (edited by Hans-Christian Jasch and Christoph Kreutzmüller). We are also offering 25% off the paperback for this title until 5th February, 2022. Just use code JASCH6713 at checkout.
We are delighted to present a list of our History bestsellers in honor of the American Historical Association’s 2020 – 2021 Virtual Conference. Visit our Virtual AHA Booth for special opportunities for discounts and engagements.
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