New Books Network

New Books in Religion
Rebecca Manley, “To the Tashkent Station: Evacuation and Survival in the Soviet Union at War” (Cornell UP, 2009)
Rebecca Manley
To the Tashkent Station
Evacuation and Survival in the Soviet Union at War
Cornell University Press, 2009

New Books in HistoryNew Books in Jewish StudiesNew Books in Military HistoryNew Books in Peoples & PlacesNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books in ReligionNew Books in Religion & FaithNew Books in Russian and Eurasian StudiesNew Books Network November 20, 2009 Marshall Poe

By the time the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, the Bolshevik Party had already amassed a considerable amount of expertise in moving masses of people around. Large population transfers (to put it mildly) were part and parcel of building socialism. Certain “elements” needed to be sent... Read More
Brett Whalen, “Dominion of God: Christendom and Apocalypse in the Middle Ages” (Harvard UP, 2009)
Brett Whalen
Dominion of God
Christendom and Apocalypse in the Middle Ages
Harvard University Press, 2009

New Books in Biblical StudiesNew Books in Christian StudiesNew Books in European StudiesNew Books in HistoryNew Books in Peoples & PlacesNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books in ReligionNew Books in Religion & FaithNew Books Network September 18, 2009 Marshall Poe

In the Gospels, the disciples come to Jesus and ask him about the End of Days. He’s got bad news and good. First, everything was going to go hell, so to say: “And Jesus answered . . . many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall... Read More
Kevin Kenny, “Peaceable Kingdom Lost: The Paxton Boys and the Destruction of William Penn’s Holy Experiment” (Oxford UP, 2009)
Kenny Kevin
Peaceable Kingdom Lost
The Paxton Boys and the Destruction of William Penn's Holy Experiment
Oxford University Press, 2009

New Books in American StudiesNew Books in HistoryNew Books in Peoples & PlacesNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books in ReligionNew Books in Religion & FaithNew Books Network August 28, 2009 Marshall Poe

It’s hard to be a Christian. It’s even harder to be a good Christian. But being a good Christian on the frontier of Pennsylvania in the eighteenth century seems to have been next to impossible. That’s one possible gloss of Kevin Kenny‘s eye-opening new book Peaceable Kingdom Lost. The Paxton... Read More
Tony Michels, “Fire in their Hearts: Yiddish Socialists in New York” (Harvard UP, 2005)
Tony Michels
Fire in their Hearts
Yiddish Socialists in New York
Harvard University Press, 2005

New Books in American StudiesNew Books in German StudiesNew Books in HistoryNew Books in Jewish StudiesNew Books in Peoples & PlacesNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books in ReligionNew Books in Religion & FaithNew Books Network April 9, 2009 Marshall Poe

I always assumed that the Jews who emigrated from Eastern Europe to New York and created the massive Jewish American labor movement brought their leftist politics with them from the Old Country. But now I know different thanks to Tony Michels’ terrific Fire in their Hearts. Yiddish Socialists in New... Read More
Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern, “Jews in the Russian Army, 1827-1917” (Cambridge UP, 2008)
Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern
Jews in the Russian Army, 1827-1917

Cambridge University Press, 2008

New Books in HistoryNew Books in Jewish StudiesNew Books in Military HistoryNew Books in Peoples & PlacesNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books in ReligionNew Books in Religion & FaithNew Books in Russian and Eurasian StudiesNew Books Network February 6, 2009 Marshall Poe

Every Jew knows the story. The evil tsarist authorities ride into the Shtetl. They demand a levy of young men for the army. Mothers’ weep. Fathers’ sigh. The community mourns the loss of its young. It’s a good story, and some of it’s even true. The reality, of course, was... Read More
Samuel Kassow, “Who Will Write Our History? Emanuel Ringelblum, the Warsaw Ghetto, and the Oyneg Shabes Archive” (Indiana UP, 2007)
Samuel Kassow
Who Will Write Our History?
Emanuel Ringelblum, the Warsaw Ghetto, and the Oyneg Shabes Archive
Indiana University Press, 2007

New Books in Genocide StudiesNew Books in German StudiesNew Books in HistoryNew Books in Jewish StudiesNew Books in Peoples & PlacesNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books in ReligionNew Books in Religion & FaithNew Books Network January 30, 2009 Marshall Poe

Scholars argue about whether the Holocaust was unprecedented. It’s a difficult question. On the one hand, slaughters litter the pages of history. On the other hand, none of them seem quite as calculated, systematic and horribly efficient as the Nazi murder of the Jews and other “Untermenchen.” One thing, however,... Read More
J. D. Bowers, “Joseph Priestley and English Unitarianism in America” (Penn State University Press, 2007)
J. D. Bowers
Joseph Priestley and English Unitarianism in America

Penn State University Press, 2007

New Books in American StudiesNew Books in Biblical StudiesNew Books in Christian StudiesNew Books in HistoryNew Books in Peoples & PlacesNew Books in Politics & SocietyNew Books in ReligionNew Books in Religion & FaithNew Books Network March 13, 2008 Marshall Poe

Today we talk to J. D. Bowers of Northern Illinois University about his book Joseph Priestley and English Unitarianism in America (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007). Against the received wisdom, Bowers argues that American Unitarianism did not emerge solely from indigenous Boston-based Congregationalism. Instead, he shows that Joseph Priestly and... Read More