New Books in German Studies
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.
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851
David B. Dennis, “Inhumanities: Nazi Interpreta...
I occasionally teach Western Civilization and you may have taken it in college. We all know the drill: Greeks-Romans-Dark Ages-Middle Ages-Renaissance-Reformation-Scientific Revolution-Enlightenment-Romanticism-Modernity. Or something like that.
53 min
852
Andrew Demshuk, “The Lost German East: Forced M...
At the close of the Second World War, the Allies expelled several million Germans from the eastern portion of the former Reich. Thanks to the work of many historians, we know quite a bit about Allied planning for the expulsion,
70 min
853
Michael Bryant, “Eyewitness to Genocide: The Op...
My marginal comment, recorded at the end of the chapter on the Belzec trial in Michael Bryant‘s fine new book Eyewitness to Genocide: The Operation Reinhard Death Camp Trials, 1955-1966 (University of Tennessee Press, 2014), is simple: “!!!!
75 min
854
Ari Joskowicz, “The Modernity of Others: Jewish...
In 1873, the German scientist Rudolf Virchow declared in Parliament that liberals were locked in a Kulturkampf, a “culture war” with the forces of Catholicism, which he viewed as the chief hindrance to progress and modernity.
76 min
855
Wendy Lower, “Hitler’s Furies: German Women in ...
It seems quite reasonable to wonder if there’s anything more to learn about the Holocaust. Scholars from a variety of disciplines have been researching and writing about the subject for decades. A simple search for “Holocaust” on Amazon turns up a stun...
57 min
856
Filip Slaveski, “The Soviet Occupation of Germa...
For over three years, from June 1941 to late 1944, the German Army and related Nazi forces (the SS, occupation troops, administrative organizations) conducted a Vernichtungskrieg–a war of annihilation–against the Soviet Union on Soviet soil.
68 min
857
Barry Rubin and Wolfgang G. Schwanitz, “Nazis, ...
This book tells a remarkable and–to me at least–little known but very important story. In Nazis, Islamists, and the Making of the Modern Middle East(Yale UP, 2014), Barry Rubin and Wolfgang G. Schwanitz trace the many connections between Germany–Imperi...
60 min
858
Richard Weikart, “Hitler’s Ethic: The Nazi Purs...
For many years now, historians have wondered whether Hitler had any sort of consistent ideology. His writings are rambling and confusing. His speeches are full of plain lies. His “table talk” reflects a wandering,
53 min
859
Nitzan Lebovic, “The Philosophy of Life and Dea...
Thomas Mann referred to Ludwig Klages (1872-1956) as a “criminal philosopher,” a “Pan-Germanist,” “an irrationalist,” a “Tarzan philosopher,” “a cultural pessimist… the voice of the world’s downfall.” Yet, Walter Benjamin urged his friend Gershom Schol...
70 min
860
H. Glenn Penny, “Kindred by Choice: Germans and...
If you have spent a bit of time in Germany or with German friends, you may have noticed the deep interest and affinity many Germans have for American Indians. What are the origins of this striking and enduring fascination? In many ways,
48 min
861
Robert J. Richards, “Was Hitler a Darwinian?: D...
In his new collection of wonderfully engaging and provocative set of essays on Darwin and Darwinians, Robert J. Richards explores the history of biology and so much more. The eight essays collected in Was Hitler a Darwinian?
60 min
862
Gabriel Finkelstein, “Emil du Bois-Reymond: Neu...
“A good wife and a healthy child are better for one’s temper than frogs.” For Gabriel Finkelstein, Emil du Bois-Reymond was “the most important forgotten intellectual of the nineteenth century.” Most famously in a series of experimental works on electr...
73 min
863
Waitman Beorn, “Marching into Darkness: The Weh...
The question of Wehrmacht complicity in the Holocaust is an old one. What might be called the “received view” until recently was that while a small number of German army units took part in anti-Jewish atrocities,
76 min
864
Todd H. Weir, “Monism: Science, Philosophy, Rel...
I always learn something when I interview authors, but in this chat with Todd H. Weir I learned something startling: I’m a monist. What is more, you may be a monist too and not even know it. Do you believe that there is really only one kind of stuff an...
51 min
865
John Roth and Peter Hayes, “The Oxford Handbook...
We’ve talked before on the show about how hard it is to enter into the field of Holocaust Studies. Just six weeks ago, for instance, I talked with Dan Stone about his thoughtful work analyzing and critiquing the current state of our knowledge of the su...
62 min
866
Karrin Hanshew, “Terror and Democracy in West G...
In West Germany in September and October of 1977, a group of self-described urban guerrillas of the Red Army Faction (RAF) kidnapped industrialist Hanns Martin Schleyer. In exchange for Schleyer, the RAF demanded the release of its imprisoned leaders,
49 min
867
Arnie Bernstein, “Swastika Nation: Fritz Kuhn a...
Occasionally you hear shrill news reports about American Nazis. Judging by the pictures of them, they are almost always skin-headed morons who can’t put two words together (other than “Sieg Heil” or some such).
53 min
868
Jeff Bowersox, “Raising Germans in the Age of E...
Germany embarked on the age of imperialism a bit later than other global powers, and the German experience of empire was much shorter-lived than that of Britain or France or Portugal. Nonetheless, empire was fundamental, Jeff Bowersox argues,
59 min
869
Dan Stone, “Histories of the Holocaust” (Oxford...
I don’t think it’s possible anymore for someone, even an academic with a specialty in the field, let alone an interested amateur, to read even a fraction of the literature written about the Holocaust. If you do a search for the word “Holocaust” on Amaz...
59 min
870
Guido Steinberg, “German Jihad: On the Internat...
I have read quite a few books on terrorism but always from an English language perspective. This has meant that I was missing the alternative stories from other nations. Guido Steinberg has done me a favour by publishing his German study in English.
43 min
871
Robert Gerwarth, “Hitler’s Hangman: The Life of...
Few history books sell better than biographies of Nazi leaders. They attract anyone even tangentially interested in World War Two or Nazi Germany. It’s not surprising, then, that there are dozens of biographies of Himmler, Goering,
62 min
872
Alisha Rankin, “Panaceia’s Daughters: Noblewome...
Dorothea was a widow who treated Martin Luther, the Duke of Saxony, and throngs of poor peasants with her medicinal waters. Anna was the powerful wife of the Elector of Saxony who favored testing medical remedies on others before using them on her frie...
63 min
873
Anne-Marie O’Connor, “The Lady in Gold: The Ext...
Reporter Anne-Marie O’Connor uses the iconic gold portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer to engage us in the exciting cultural life of fin-de-siecle Vienna, where wealthy Jewish patrons supported the work of ground-breaking artists,
60 min
874
Christopher Browning, “Remembering Survival: In...
Christopher Browning is one of the giants in the field of Holocaust Studies. He has contributed vitally to at least two of the basic debates in the field: the intentionalist/functionalist discussion about when,
62 min
875
Joy Wiltenburg, “Crime & Culture in Early Moder...
Many people complain about sensationalism in the press. If a man slaughters his entire family, a jilted lover kills her erstwhile boyfriend, or a high school student murders several of his classmates, it’s going to be “all over the news.
46 min