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Winner of the American Philosophical Society’s 2021 Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History From an award-winning historian, a panoramic account of Europe after the depravity of World War II. In 1945, Europe lay in ruins. Some fifty million people were dead, and millions more languished in physical and moral disarray. The devastation of World War II was unprecedented in character as well as in scale. Unlike the First World War, the second blurred the line between soldier and civilian, inflicting untold horrors on people from all walks of life. A continent that had previously considered itself the very measure of civilization for the world had turned into its barbaric opposite. Reconstruct...
From the Werkbund to the Bauhaus to Braun, from furniture to automobiles to consumer appliances, twentieth-century industrial design is closely associated with Germany. In this pathbreaking study, Paul Betts brings to light the crucial role that design played in building a progressive West German industrial culture atop the charred remains of the past. The Authority of Everyday Objects details how the postwar period gave rise to a new design culture comprising a sprawling network of diverse interest groups—including the state and industry, architects and designers, consumer groups and museums, as well as publicists and women's organizations—who all identified industrial design as a vital...
Immigration has become the great divisive issue of our times. In Refuge, Paul Collier and Alexander Betts set out a policy vision that can empower refugees to help themselves, contribute to their host societies, and ultimately rebuild their countries of origin.
This book explores the ways in which modernity shaped the relationship between socialist state and society in East Germany. The reunification of Germany in 1989 may have put an end to the experiment in East German communism, but its historical assessment is far from over. Where most of the literature over the past two decades has been driven by the desire to uncover the relationship between power and resistance, complicity and consent, more recent scholarship has tended to concentrate on the everyday history of East German citizens. experience of life in East Germany, with a particular view toward addressing the question: what did modernity mean for East German state and society? As such, th...
"This volume explores the tension between mass death and individual loss by linking long-term patterns of mourning, burial, and grief with the short-term cataclysmic violence unleashed by two world wars. How various "cultures of death" shaped the broader historical relationship between the living and the dead in modern Germany is the main concern of this book. It contributes to a history of death in Germany that does not begin and end with the Third Reich."--BOOK JACKET.
This collectively written monograph is the first work to provide a broad history of the relationship between Eastern Europe and the decolonising world. It ranges from the late nineteenth to the late twentieth century, but at its core is the dynamic of the post-1945 period, when socialism's importance as a globalising force accelerated and drew together what contemporaries called the 'Second' and 'Third Worlds'. At the centre of this history is the encounter between the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe on one hand, and a wider world casting off European empires or struggling against western imperialism on the other. The origins of these connections are traced back to new forms of international...
A history of private life in the German Democratic Republic, showing how the private sphere assumed central importance in the GDR from the very outset, and revealing the myriad ways in which privacy was expressed, staged and defended by citizens living in a communist society.
Quantum mechanics is the key to modern physics and chemistry, yet it is notoriously difficult to understand. This book is designed to overcome that obstacle. Clear and concise, it provides an easily readable introduction intended for science undergraduates with no previous knowledge of quantum theory, leading them through to the advanced topics usually encountered at the final year level. Although the subject matter is standard, novel techniques have been employed that considerably simplify the technical presentation. The authors use their extensive experience of teaching and popularizing science to explain the many difficult, abstract points of the subject in easily comprehensible language. Helpful examples and thorough sets of exercises are also given to enable students to master the subject.
The turn of the millennium has stimulated much scholarly reflection on the historical significance of the twentieth century as a whole. Explaining the century’s dual legacy of progress and prosperity on one hand, and of world war, genocide, and mass destruction on the other, has become a key task for academics and policymakers alike. Not surprisingly, Germany holds a prominent position in the discussion. What does it mean for a society to be so closely identified with both inflicting and withstanding enormous suffering, as well as with promoting and enjoying unprecedented affluence? What did Germany’s experiences of misery and abundance, fear and security, destruction and reconstruction, trauma and rehabilitation have to do with one another? How has Germany been imagined and experienced as a country uniquely stamped by pain and prosperity? The contributors to this book engage these questions by reconsidering Germany’s recent past according to the themes of pain and prosperity, focusing on such topics as welfare policy, urban history, childbirth, medicine, racism, political ideology, consumerism, and nostalgia.
'A delightful historical saga which is so beautifully woven together that from the very start I was enchanted' Jaffa Reads Too From the award-winning author of The Apothecary's Daughter comes a beautifully evocative, family drama, perfect for fans of Santa Montefiore, Lucinda Riley and Elizabeth Jane Howard's Cazalet Chronicles. 1891. Spindrift House, Cornwall. Talented painter Edith Fairchild is poised to begin a life of newlywed bliss and artistic creation in the inspiring setting of Spindrift House, freshly inherited by her charming husband, Benedict, and overlooking the stunning harbour of Port Isaac. But when her honeymoon turns sour, her dreams are all but dashed and after a moment of ...