Andreas Kraß, Moshe Sluhovsky, and Yuval Yonay, eds., Queer Jewish Lives between Central Europe and Mandatory Palestine. Bielefeld: Transcript, 2022. 332 PP. Paper $37.05. ISBN 9783837653328. This astonishing, groundbreaking anthology offers a panoply of unexpected …
New Books
Stefania Ragaù, review of “La contemporaneità del passato. Studi in onore di Renato Moro”
Donatello Aramini, Giovanni M. Ceci, Laura Ciglioni, Maurizio Zinni, eds. La contemporaneità del passato. Studi in onore di Renato Moro. Roma: Carocci editore, 2021. 399 PP. Cloth € 44.00. ISBN 9788829013234. «La contemporaneità del passato» …
Krzysztof Borowski, review of Kathryn Ciancia’s “On Civilization’s Edge: A Polish Borderland in the Interwar World”
Kathryn Ciancia. On Civilization’s Edge: A Polish Borderland in the Interwar World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Cloth $74.00. 368 PP. ISBN: 9780190067458. As a country made up of “three unequal halves,” to quote Stefan …
Robert Corban, review of Lorenzo Benadusi’s “Respectability and Violence: Military Values, Masculine Honor, and Italy’s Road to Mass Death”
Lorenzo Benadusi. Respectability and Violence: Military Values, Masculine Honor, and Italy’s Road to Mass Death. Translated by Zakiya Hanafi. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2021. 416 PP. $79.95. ISBN 9780299333300. Lorenzo Benadusi is an Associate …
Annette Becker and Mary Louise Roberts, “Messengers of Disaster”
Mary Louise Roberts: It’s a great honor to have Annette Becker here today. She’s a professor of contemporary history at Paris Nanterre La Défense and a senior member of the Institut Universitaire de France. She …
Jeremy Best, review of Jason Crouthamel’s “Trauma, Religion and Spirituality in Germany during the First World War”
Jason Crouthamel. Trauma, Religion and Spirituality in Germany during the First World War. New York: Bloomsbury, 2021. Cloth $103.50. 272 PP. ISBN: 9781350083707. “There are no atheists in foxholes,” so they say. The aphorism states …
Lawrence L. Langer, review of Anna Hájková’s “The Last Ghetto”
Anna Hájková. The Last Ghetto: An Everyday History of Theresienstadt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Cloth $34.95. 376 PP. ISBN: 9780190051778. Anna Hájková’s The Last Ghetto: An Everyday History of Theresienstadt is an essential addition to …
Alex Scheepens, review of David Sorkin’s “Jewish Emancipation”
David Sorkin. Jewish Emancipation: A History Across Five Centuries. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019. 528 PP. Cloth $35.00. ISBN: 9780691164946. We often think of Jewish emancipation as a linear, one-way process by which Jews across Europe …
Itamar Ben Ami, review of Adi Armon’s “Leo Strauss Between Weimar and America”
Adi Armon, Leo Strauss Between Weimar and America. Translated by Michelle Bubis. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. Cloth $60.26. 235 PP. ISBN 9783030243890. Is there a Straussian Marxism? On Adi Armon’s Leo Strauss Between Weimar …
Piotr Puchalski, review of “Constructing Race on the Borders of Europe”
Marsha Morton, Barbara Larson, eds. Constructing Race on the Borders of Europe. Ethnography, Anthropology, and Visual Culture, 1850-1930. London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts. 288 PP. Cloth $115.00. ISBN 9781350182325. In the last couple of years, much …
David Harrisville, review of Moritz Föllmer’s “Culture in the Third Reich”
Moritz Föllmer. Culture in the Third Reich. Trans. Jeremy Noakes and Lesley Sharp. Oxford University Press, 2020. 336 PP. Cloth $25.95. ISBN: 9780198814603. The birthplace of Beethoven and Goethe, Germany has long been seen by …
Emily Stewart Long, review of Adam Y. Stern’s “Survival: A Theological-Political Genealogy”
Adam Y. Stern. Survival: A Theological-Political Genealogy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021. 320 PP. Cloth $75.00. ISBN: 9780812252873. “The Empty Tomb” Adam Y. Stern’s Survival: A Theological-Political Genealogy offers a collection of vividly argued …
Athan Biss, review of Francine Hirsch’s “Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg”
Francine Hirsch. Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg: A New History of the International Military Tribunal after World War II. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. 560 PP. Cloth $34.95. ISBN: 9780199377930. In the immediate aftermath of the Second World …
Conrad Allen, review of Mary Louise Roberts’s “Sheer Misery”
Mary Louise Roberts. Sheer Misery: Soldiers in Battle in WWII. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021. 208 PP. Cloth $23.00. ISBN: 9780226753287. In Sheer Misery: Soldiers in Battle in WWII, Mary Louise Roberts examines the …
James C. Ungureanu, review of Moshe Sluhovsky’s “Becoming a New Self”
Moshe Sluhovsky. Becoming a New Self: Practices and Beliefs in Early Modern Catholicism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017. 232 PP. Cloth $45.00. ISBN: 9780226472850. In the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation, in the fading …
Kathryn Julian, review of Monica Black’s “A Demon-Haunted Land”
Monica Black. A Demon-Haunted Land: Witches, Wonder Doctors, and the Ghosts of the Past in Post–WWII Germany. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2020. 352 PP. Cloth $29.99. ISBN: 9781250225672. Monica Black’s A Demon-Haunted Land: Witches, …
Takumi Satō, Afterword to the Japanese Edition of Mosse’s “Nationalization of the Masses”
George L. Mosse. Taishū no kokuminka – Nachizumu ni itaru seiji shinboru to taishū bunka [The Nationalization of the Masses: Political Symbolism and Mass Movements in Germany from the Napoleonic Wars through the Third Reich]. …
Manuela Consonni, review of John Tedeschi’s “Italian Jews Under Fascism”
John Tedeschi with Anne C. Tedeschi. Italian Jews Under Fascism, 1938-1945: A Personal and Historical Narrative. Madison: Parallel Press, 2015. Paper $35.00. 443 PP. ISBN: 9781934795699. John Tedeschi’s important volume deals with the years of …
Noelle Turtur, review of Victoria de Grazia’s “The Perfect Fascist”
Victoria de Grazia. The Perfect Fascist: A Story of Love, Power, and Morality in Mussolini’s Italy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2020. 528 PP. Cloth $35.00. ISBN: 9780674986398. Victoria de Grazia’s The Perfect Fascist opens with …
Isobel Ashby review of Dan Royles’s “To Make the Wounded Whole”
Dan Royles. To Make the Wounded Whole: The African American Struggle Against HIV/AIDS. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020. 319 PP. Cloth $29.95. ISBN: 9781469661339. Dan Royles’ new volume explores HIV/AIDS activism in …
Adam Blackler review of Sean Wempe’s “Revenants of the German Empire”
Sean Andrew Wempe. Revenants of the German Empire: Colonial Germans, Imperialism, & the League of Nations. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. xiii + 288 PP. Cloth $74.00. ISBN: 9780190907211. In the aftermath of World War …
Max Lazar review of Robert Gellately’s “Hitler’s True Believers”
Robert Gellately. Hitler’s True Believers: How Ordinary People Became Nazis. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. 464 pp. ISBN: 9780190689902. The winds of change were blowing in Braunschweig when Elisabeth Gebensleben-von Alten, the wife of the city’s …
Spencer J. Weinreich review of Tamar Herzig’s “A Convert’s Tale”
Tamar Herzig. A Convert’s Tale: Art, Crime, and Jewish Apostasy in Renaissance Italy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2019. 400 pp. ISBN 9780674237537. In a story told with all the elegance of Renaissance goldsmithery, the single …
Eric Kurlander review of Anson Rabinbach’s “Staging the Third Reich”
Anson Rabinbach. Staging the Third Reich: Essays in Cultural and Intellectual History. Edited by Stefanos Geroulanos, Dagmar Herzog. New York: Taylor & Francis Group, 2020. 494 pp. ISBN 9780367818975. Anson Rabinbach has spent the …
Matthew Unangst review of Marie Muschalek’s “Violence as Usual”
Marie Muschalek, Violence as Usual: Policing and the Colonial State in German Southwest Africa (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2019). 270 PP. $49.95. ISBN: 978-1501742859. Marie Muschalek’s Violence as Usual takes as its subject the Landespolizei, …