Bowling for Communism: Urban Ingenuity at the End of East Germany (Cornell University Press, 2020) illuminates how civic life functioned in Leipzig, East Germany's second-largest city, on the eve of the 1989 revolution by exploring acts of urban ingenuity amid catastrophic urban decay. Andrew Demshuk profiles the creative activism of local communist official ... Show More
May 9
Gideon Reuveni, "The Great Repair: Emotions, Memory, and the German–Jewish Settlement after the Holocaust" (Cornell UP, 2026)
The Great Repair: Emotions, Memory, and the German–Jewish Settlement after the Holocaust (Cornell UP, 2026) explores how Jews and Germans began reparations discussions fewer than seven years after the Holocaust—a momentous achievement relegated to the margins of Holocaust scholar ... Show More
1h 7m
May 5
Aya Elyada, "A Lingering Legacy: The Afterlife of Yiddish in German-Jewish Culture, 1818–1938" (Stanford UP, 2026)
Aya Elyada is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research focuses on German and German-Jewish cultural history, Yiddish-German encounters, and the social history of language and translation. She is the author of A Linger ... Show More
52m 27s
May 3
Roger Frie, "Edge of Catastrophe: Erich Fromm, Fascism and the Holocaust" (Oxford UP, 2024)
Erich Fromm, the prominent twentieth-century public intellectual and psychoanalyst, was recognized for his courageous stand against fascism, racism, and human destructiveness. Until now, however, little has been known about the extent to which Fromm's personal experience of Nazi ... Show More
1h 3m
Mar 2021
Christina Schwenkel, "Building Socialism: The Afterlife of East German Architecture in Urban Vietnam" (Duke UP, 2020)
Following a decade of U.S. bombing campaigns that obliterated northern Vietnam, East Germany helped Vietnam rebuild in an act of socialist solidarity. In Building Socialism: The Afterlife of East German Architecture in Urban Vietnam (Duke UP, 2020) Christina Schwenkel examines th ... Show More
55m 56s
Jul 2021
Jacob Lederman, "Chasing World-Class Urbanism: Global Policy Versus Everyday Survival in Buenos Aires" (U Minnesota Press, 2020)
What makes some cities world class? Increasingly, that designation reflects the use of a toolkit of urban planning practices and policies that circulates around the globe. These strategies—establishing creative districts dedicated to technology and design, “greening” the streets, ... Show More
53m 25s
Apr 2020
Christopher Houston, "Istanbul, City of the Fearless: Urban Activism, Coup D’Etat, and Memory in Turkey" (U California Press, 2020)
Based on extensive field research in Turkey, Istanbul, Christopher Houston's new book Istanbul, City of the Fearless: Urban Activism, Coup D’Etat, and Memory in Turkey (University of California Press, 2020) explores social movements and the broader practices of civil society in I ... Show More
1h 3m
Sep 2023
Beyond the Wall: What Life Was Really Like in East Germany
When the Iron Curtain fell in 1990, East Germany ceased to be. For over forty years, from the ruin of the Second World War to the cusp of a new millennium, the German Democratic Republic presented a radically different Germany than what had come before and what exists today. Soci ... Show More
43m 10s
Nov 2019
The Russian civil war: How the Soviets rose to power
The Russian Civil war was a struggle for power at every level – from the villages to the imperial centre, with more than 11 foreign powers involved as well as nationalists, from Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic states, fighting for independence. This conflict, which took place a hu ... Show More
39m 51s