New Books Network
Eastern European Studies
Russian and Eurasian Studies July 27, 2021

CABBAGE AND CAVIAR

A History of Food in Russia

Alison K. Smith

Hosted by Steven Seegel
When people think of Russian food, they generally think either of the opulent luxury of the tsarist aristocracy or of post-Soviet elites, signified above all by caviar, or on the …

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Eastern European Studies July 27, 2021

Milan Rastislav Štefánik

The Slovak National Hero and Co-Founder of Czechoslovakia

Michal Kšiňan

Hosted by Leslie Waters
Michal Kšiňan’s Milan Rastislav Štefánik: The Slovak National Hero and Co-Founder of Czechoslovakia is the first scientific biography of Milan Rastislav Štefánik (1880–1919) that is focused on analyzing the process …
Eastern European Studies July 26, 2021

Protected Children, Regulated Mothers

Gender and the "Gypsy Question" in State Care in Postwar Hungary, 1949–1956

Eszter Varsa

Hosted by Leslie Waters
Historian Eszter Varsa’s new book Protected Children, Regulated Mothers: Gender and the 'Gypsy Question' in State Care in Postwar Hungary, 1949–1956 (Central European UP, 2020) examines child protection in Stalinist …
Eastern European Studies July 21, 2021

Collaboration in Space and the Search for Peace on Earth

Andrew Jenks

Hosted by Paul Werth
Andrew Jenks' book Collaboration in Space and the Search for Peace on Earth (Anthem Press, 2021) explores the era of space collaboration (from 1970 to the present). This period has been largely …
European Studies July 21, 2021

Ordoliberalism and European Economic Policy

Between Realpolitik and Economic Utopia

Malte Dold and Tim Krieger

Hosted by Tim Jones
Once described as a “German oddity”†, Ordoliberalism was one of a number of new liberalisms that emerged from the political maelstrom of the interwar period. But, unlike the other neoliberal …
Russian and Eurasian Studies July 15, 2021

The Tsar's Happy Occasion

Ritual and Dynasty in the Weddings of Russia's Rulers, 1495-1745

Russell E. Martin

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
The dominant impression of Russia in the news media and politics, even today, is that it is and always has been an autocratic power controlled by a single despotic ruler …
Russian and Eurasian Studies July 13, 2021

Weak Strongman

The Limits of Power in Putin's Russia

Timothy Frye

Hosted by Daniel Peris
Putin is not the unconstrained, all-powerful boogeyman he is made out to be in the popular Western media. So says Timothy Frye, Professor of Political Science at Columbia University in …
Religion July 9, 2021

Ashkenazi Herbalism

Rediscovering the Herbal Traditions of Eastern European Jews

Deatra Cohen and Adam Siegel

Hosted by Diana Dukhanova
Until now, the herbal traditions of the Ashkenazi people have remained unexplored and shrouded in mystery. Ashkenazi Herbalism: Rediscovering the Herbal Traditions of Eastern European Jews (North Atlantic Books, 2021) …
Eastern European Studies July 9, 2021

Ukraine Calling

A Kaleidoscope from Hromadske Radio 2016-2019

Marta Dyczok

Hosted by Steven Seegel
Marta Dyczok's book Ukraine Calling: A Kaleidoscope from Hromadske Radio 2016-2019 (Ibidem Press, 2021) is like a time capsule containing a selection of interviews that aired on Hromadske Radio's Ukraine Calling …
German Studies July 8, 2021

Germany's Urban Frontiers

Nature and History on the Edge of the Nineteenth-Century City

Kristin Poling

Hosted by Steven Seegel
In an era of transatlantic migration, Germans were fascinated by the myth of the frontier. Yet, for many, they were most likely to encounter frontier landscapes of new settlement and …
Mobilities and Methods July 7, 2021

Precarious Hope

Migration and the Limits of Belonging in Turkey

Ayse Parla

Hosted by Alize Arıcan
There are more than 700,000 Bulgaristanlı migrants residing in Turkey. Immigrants from Bulgaria who are ethnically Turkish, they assume certain privileges because of these ethnic ties, yet access to citizenship …
Eastern European Studies July 6, 2021

Imaging and Mapping Eastern Europe

Sarmatia Europea to Post-Communist Bloc

Katarzyna Murawska-Muthesius

Hosted by Steven Seegel
Imaging and Mapping Eastern Europe: Sarmatia Europea to Post-Communist Bloc (Routledge, 2021) puts images centre stage and argues for the agency of the visual in the construction of Europe's east …
General History July 6, 2021

From Internationalism to Postcolonialism

Literature and Cinema Between the Second and the Third Worlds

Rossen Djagalov

Hosted by Jessica Bachman
Would there have been a Third World without the Second? Perhaps, but it would have looked very different. Although most histories of these geopolitical blocs and their constituent societies and …
Russian and Eurasian Studies July 1, 2021

Whites and Reds

A History of Wine in the Lands of Tsar and Commissar

Stephen V. Bittner

Hosted by Steven Seegel
Whites and Reds: A History of Wine in the Lands of Tsar and Commissar (Oxford UP, 2021) tells the story of Russia's encounter with viniculture and winemaking. Rooted in the …
Celebration Studies June 25, 2021

Rituality and Social (Dis)Order

The Historical Anthropology of Popular Carnival in Europe

Alessandro Testa

Hosted by Emily Ruth Allen
Rituality and Social (Dis)Order: The Historical Anthropology of Popular Carnival in Europe (Routledge, 2020) is the first comparative historical anthropology of popular European Carnival in the English language, with a focus on its …
Jewish Studies June 25, 2021

Polacos in Argentina

Polish Jews, Interwar Migration, and the Emergence of Transatlantic Jewish Culture

Mariusz Kalczewiak

Hosted by Max Kaiser
In Polacos in Argentina: Polish Jews, Interwar Migration, and the Emergence of Transatlantic Jewish Culture (University of Alabama Press, 2020), Dr. Mariusz Kałczewiak, senior research associate and lecturer in the …
Russian and Eurasian Studies June 24, 2021

Flowers Through Concrete

Explorations in Soviet Hippieland

Juliane Fürst

Hosted by Amanda Jeanne Swain
Flowers Through Concrete: Explorations in Soviet Hippieland (Oxford University Press, 2021) is the first chronological history of Soviet hippies, tracing their beginnings in the 1960s through the movement’s maturity and ritualization in the 1970s …
General History June 23, 2021

Stalin's War

A New History of World War II

Sean McMeekin

Hosted by Charles Coutinho
World War II endures in the popular imagination as a heroic struggle between good and evil, with villainous Hitler driving its events. But Hitler was not in power when the …
Eastern European Studies June 23, 2021

Prague

Belonging in the Modern City

Chad Bryant

Hosted by Steven Seegel
What does it mean to belong somewhere? For many of Prague's inhabitants, belonging has been linked to the nation, embodied in the capital city. Grandiose medieval buildings and monuments to …
Eastern European Studies June 21, 2021

Velvet Retro

Postsocialist Nostalgia and the Politics of Heroism in Czech Popular Culture

Veronika Pehe

Hosted by Jill Massino
Scholars of state socialism have frequently invoked “nostalgia” to  identify an uncritical longing for the utopian ambitions and lived experience of the former Eastern Bloc. However, this concept seems insufficient to describe …