New Books Network
German Studies
Jewish Studies January 13, 2022

Yiddish Writers in Weimar Berlin

A Fugitive Modernism

Marc Caplan

Hosted by Lea Greenberg
In Yiddish Writers in Weimar Berlin: A Fugitive Modernism (Indiana UP, 2021), Marc Caplan explores the reciprocal encounter between Eastern European Jews and German culture in the days following World War …

German Studies

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Interviews with scholars of Germany about their new books.

Princeton UP Ideas Podcast January 3, 2022

Western Europe’s Democratic Age

1945-1968

Martin Conway

Hosted by Mark Klobas
What happened in the years following World War II to create a democratic revolution in the western half of Europe? In Western Europe’s Democratic Age: 1945-1968 (Princeton UP, 2021), Martin …
Anthropology December 17, 2021

The Moral Triangle

Germans, Israelis, Palestinians

Sa'ed Atshan and Katharina Galor

Hosted by Armanc Yildiz
Berlin is home to Europe’s largest Palestinian diaspora community and one of the world’s largest Israeli diaspora communities. Germany’s guilt about the Nazi Holocaust has led to a public disavowal …
General History December 16, 2021

The Long Vacation

A Memoir

Alex Panasenko

Hosted by Krzysztof Odyniec
NB: This interview contains material about wartime experiences that may be upsetting to some listeners.  When Alex Panasenko was born in 1933, his native Ukraine was devastated by Stalin’s program …
Princeton UP Ideas Podcast December 15, 2021

"Bambi" isn't about what you think it's about

Jack Zipes explains what it's really about

Jack Zipes

Hosted by Marshall Poe
Most of us think we know the story of Bambi—but do we? The Original Bambi: The Story of a Life in the Forest (Princeton UP, 2022) is an all-new, illustrated …
Eastern European Studies January 18, 2022

Migrating Memories

Romanian Germans in Modern Europe

James Koranyi

Hosted by Roland Clark
Romanian Germans, mainly from the Banat and Transylvania, have occupied a place at the very heart of major events in Europe in the twentieth century yet their history is largely …
Intellectual History January 14, 2022

Dangerous Minds

Nietzsche, Heidegger, and the Return of the Far Right

Ronald Beiner

Hosted by August Baker
Following the fall of the Berlin Wall and demise of the Soviet Union, prominent Western thinkers began to suggest that liberal democracy had triumphed decisively on the world stage. Having …
Film January 7, 2022

Wim Wenders

Making Films that Matter

Olivier Delers and Martin Sulzer-Reichel

Hosted by Gustavo Gutiérrez Suárez
Wim Wenders: Making Films That Matter (Bloomsbury, 2020) is the first book in 15 years to take a comprehensive look at Wim Wenders's extensive filmography. In addition to offering new …
Intellectual History January 5, 2022

The Forces of Form in German Modernism

Malika Maskarinec

Hosted by Stephen Dozeman
The late 19th and early 20th centuries in Europe were times of intense technological, social and political change and transformation, and so it’s no surprise that much of the …
Film December 31, 2021

Holocaust Cinema Complete

A History and Analysis of 400 Films, with a Teaching Guide

Rich Brownstein

Hosted by Joel Tscherne
Holocaust movies have become an important segment of world cinema and the de-facto Holocaust education for many. One quarter of all American-produced Holocaust-related feature films have won or been nominated …
General History December 22, 2021

Zwingli

God's Armed Prophet

Bruce Gordon

Hosted by Zachary McCulley
Zwingli: God's Armed Prophet (Yale, 2021) is a major new biography of Huldrych Zwingli--the warrior preacher who shaped the early Reformation. Zwingli (1484-1531) was the most significant early reformer after Martin Luther. As the …
Eastern European Studies December 14, 2021

Three Cities After Hitler

Redemptive Reconstruction Across Cold War Borders

Andrew Demshuk

Hosted by Amber Nickell
Three Cities After Hitler: Redemptive Reconstruction Across Cold War Borders (U Pittsburgh Press, 2021) compares how three prewar German cities shared decades of postwar development under three competing post-Nazi regimes …
German Studies December 7, 2021

Enemies of the People

Hitler's Critics and the Gestapo

J. Ryan Stackhouse

Hosted by Lea Greenberg
How do terror and popularity merge under a dictatorship? How did the Gestapo deal with critics of Nazism? Based on hundreds of secret police case files, Enemies of the People …
Intellectual History December 2, 2021

The Color of Equality

Race and Common Humanity in Enlightenment Thought

Devin J. Vartija

Hosted by Alexandra Ortolja-Baird
The Enlightenment is often either praised as the wellspring of modern egalitarianism or condemned as the cradle of scientific racism. How should we make sense of this paradox? The Color …
Princeton UP Ideas Podcast December 1, 2021

Billy Wilder on Assignment

Dispatches from Weimar Berlin and Interwar Vienna

Noah Isenberg and Shelley Frisch

Hosted by Marshall Poe
Before Billy Wilder became the screenwriter and director of iconic films like Sunset Boulevard and Some Like It Hot, he worked as a freelance reporter, first in Vienna and then …
German Studies November 26, 2021

The Knight Without Boundaries

Yiddish and German Arthurian Wigalois Adaptations

Annegret Oehme

Hosted by Lea Greenberg
This volume explores a core medieval myth, the tale of an Arthurian knight called Wigalois, and the ways it connects the Yiddish-speaking Jews and the German-speaking non-Jews of the Holy …
German Studies November 23, 2021

Nazis of Copley Square

The Forgotten Story of the Christian Front

Charles Gallagher

Hosted by Eric Grube
Nazis of Copley Square: The Forgotten Story of the Christian Front (Harvard UP, 2021) by Charles R. Gallagher, S.J., traces the machinations of far-right Catholic thinkers and activists in the US …
Historical Fiction November 22, 2021

All Things That Deserve to Perish

A Novel of Wilhelmine Germany

Dana Mack

Hosted by C. P. Lesley
Despite all the attention paid to the two world wars of the twentieth century, not a great deal of historical fiction focuses on the period that preceded them. Dana Mack’s …
Think About It November 19, 2021

Charlie Louth on Rainer Maria Rilke

Charlie Louth

Hosted by Uli Baer
Charlie Louth’s illuminating recent book, Rilke: The Life of the Work (Oxford University Press, 2021) examines why Rilke’s poems have exercised such preternatural attraction for now several generations of readers …
Asian Review of Books November 11, 2021

War of Shadows

Codebreakers, Spies, and the Secret Struggle to Drive the Nazis from the Middle East

Gershom Gorenberg

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
The Second Battle of El-Alamein, alongside Stalingrad and Midway, is taught in schools the world over as one of the turning points of the Second World War—or, depending on who …