You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
World War I marks a huge break in Central European Jewish history. Not only had the violent wartime events destroyed Jewish life and especially the living space of Eastern European Jews, but the impacts of war, the geopolitical change and a radicalization of anti-Semitism also led to a crisis of Jewish identity. Furthermore, during the process of national self-discovery and the establishing of new states the societal position of the Jews and their relationship to the state had to be redefined. These partially violent processes, which were always accompanied by anti-Semitism, evoked Jewish and Gentile debates, in which questions about Jewish loyalty to the old and/or new states as well as concepts of Jewish identity under the new political circumstances were negotiated. This volume collects articles dealing with these Jewish and gentile debates about military service and war memory in Central Europe.
The Jew in Czech and Slovak Imagination,1938-89 is the first critical inquiry into the nature of anti-Jewish prejudices in both main parts of former Czechoslovakia. The authors identify anti-Jewish prejudices over almost fifty years of the twentieth century, focusing primarily on the post-Munich period and the Second World War (1938–45), the post-war reconstruction (1945–48), as well as the Communist rule with both its thaws and returns to hardline rule (1948–89). It is a provocative examination of the construction of the image of ‘the Jew’ in the Czech and Slovak majority societies, the assigning of character and other traits – real or imaginary – to individuals or groups. The...
In a vaulted chamber on the Danube, a radiant medieval princess bargains with God. How can she defy the conqueror Ottakar of Bohemia? He loves her. He's entranced by her heroic sanctity and he wants this glorious, headstrong girl for his queen. Willful Margit refuses him and scorns her regal duties. She wears her sumptuous gowns to rags, vowing to live as a penitent and the Hungarian kingdom's spiritual defender. Meanwhile the beguiling Princess Cunegonda, a widow of fifteen, covets the handsome warrior prince and makes a fervent bid for him. The two impetuous royal girls and the ambitious crusader hero are caught up in an unexpected triangle. One princess is consumed by divine ardor, the other is inflamed by songs of the silken dalliances of courtly love. The valiant Bohemian loves both enchanting girls in turn, and confronts his destiny. A riveting historical romance springing from fact and legend, Unruly Princess weaves a tale of passion and politics, spiked by warfare, wooing and wedding.
This collection of essays provides an historical, plural and original analysis of the Russian Revolution to mark its first centenary. It focuses on both regional aspects – such as the impact of the Revolution in Spain and Latin America – and major events, ideas and phenomena, including the importance of World War I, the birth of the Communist International and the definition of revolution and counterrevolution. The book will mainly appeal to academic audiences, as well as non-specialized readers interested in the major issues of the contemporary world. It offers new insights into an event that contributed to the shaping of the twentieth century and that is still fundamental to understanding the world of today.
"A comprehensive history of the Jews of the Bohemian Lands whose goal is to narrate and analyze the Jewish experience in the Bohemian Lands as an integral and inseparable part of the development of Central Europe and its peoples from the sixteenth century to the present day"--
Christoph Kimmich's German Foreign Policy, 1918-1945: A Guide to Current Research and Resources is a comprehensive guide to archival resources and published materials on the foreign policy of Weimar and Nazi Germany. It catalogues the archives, libraries, and research institutes, both public and private, that house important collections, especially in Germany but also elsewhere in Europe and in the United States, and describes their holdings, terms of access and use, and guides and inventories available. German Foreign Policy, 1918-1945 also includes a substantial annotated bibliography of published sources, ranging from documentary series to significant contemporary accounts, from memoirs t...
Winner, Best Book on European Politics, 2005, European Politics and Society Section, American Political Science Association How does a democracy deal with threats to its stability and continued existence when those threats come from political parties that play the democratic game? In Defending Democracy, political scientist Giovanni Capoccia studies key European nations between World Wars I and II which survived such democratic crises. A comprehensive and thoughtful historical analysis of the democracies of interwar Europe, Defending Democracy provides a unique perspective on the many lessons to be learned from their successes and failures. With this exclusively empirical investigative approach, Capoccia develops a methodology for analyzing contemporary democracies—such as Algeria, Turkey, Israel, and others—where similar political conditions are present. Given the rise of terrorism and the persistence of extremism in both established and new democracies today, continued research and dialogue on the defense of democracy are necessary for its preservation.
None
Classical images of state-socialism developed in contemporary social sciences were founded on simple presuppositions. State-socialist regimes were considered to be politically stable due to their pervasive institutional and ideological control over the everyday lives of their citizens, impervious to reform and change, and representative of extreme political and economic dependency. Despite their contrasting historical experiences, they have been treated as basically identical in their institutional design, social and economic structures, and policies. Grzegorz Ekiert challenges this notion in a comparative analysis of the major political crises in post-1945 East Central Europe: Hungary (1956...